The Son Also Rises

The Son Also Rises

December 31, 2012

The Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas

Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared.  Thus we know this is the last hour.  They went out from us, but they were not really of our number; if they had been, they would have remained with us.  Their desertion shows that none of them was of our number.   1 John 2:18-19

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.  All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.  What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-5

Piety

"Peace is my gift to you." John 14:27 (2013 Theme for the Dominican Retreat House, McLean, VA)

Study

We end today at the beginning.  As we throw away the calendars from 2012, we read John's warning penned and voiced two thousand years ago about the "last hour."  I guess he was as wrong as the Mayans. 

Recall those old New Yorker cartoons about the end of the world.  If you are old enough, you remember the old man with the beard holding a sign that the world will end today.

Having just "survived" the end of the world publicity surrounding the Mayan calendar flub, think about all those for whom 2012 really did seem like the end of the world as we know it.  The parents of the children of violence from Newtown, Aurora, the Sikh temple, the Oregon shopping mall and the Webster, NY community.  When we experience loss, just "keeping calm and carrying on" seems daunting.

John was wrong.  It was not the "last hour" any more than the midnight drop of the extravagant Tiffany ball in Times Square will mark the last hour.  Calendars, after all, are arbitrary cultural creations that can be manipulated by kings and networks.  That is why the Good News delivered by John in the Gospel gives us hope.  Certainly, we remain surrounded and tempted by "anti-Christs."  Some are overtly evil Leviathans. Others are the products of a society that breeds sociopaths.  Yet the light of the world offers us a peaceful start to a new calendar.

Action

Anything that pulls us away from being pro-Christ can fall into the anti-Christ category.   No, don't stay home to watch Meet the Press.  Go to Church.  No, don't head to the movie theater.  Drop off some donations at Goodwill or the Salvation Army or Catholic Charities. No need to stop for that Big Mac Attack.  Bring a few bags of groceries to the local food pantry.

God sent Jesus as the ultimate magnet.  If we have all these forces acting upon our desires, God provided his Son as a counter-force to be among us as a sign of light and hope.  Because just as surely as the sun will set on 2012 in a few hours, the sun (Son) also rises on 2013.