November 13, 2022, 23rd Sunday after Pentecost: Isaiah 65:17-25; Canticle 9 (Isaiah 12:2-6); 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19
“As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”
I think one of the most difficult things to accept is that the world we live in is not permanent. People we love will die; we lose jobs and friends; buildings will be demolished, or burn down. The world we know—the patterns of behavior, the things we depend on—will not be the same at some point in the future. We watch the destruction of wildfires nearby and we know that the destruction they bring will ultimately come to this planet that we love, even when we do not act as if we do.
When things are going well in our lives, we do not want change, but change comes. Jesus promises us that there will be wars, earthquakes, famines and plagues. As a historian, there are few times in history when most of these promises/predictions could not be said to be true. We have certainly seen all of these. Most of us have not suffered persecution in Jesus’ name, but the rest is clearly visible.
And then what? Isaiah promises “new heavens and a new earth”. It sounds wonderful: “no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress”. Babies will not die soon after birth; those who work will reap the rewards of their work. In this peaceful and beneficent world, “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together”.
We tend to assume that change will be bad, at least any change that we have not chosen. But Isaiah promises change for the good, full of blessings from God. It comes from the conviction expressed elsewhere in Isaiah, in today’s canticle, one we say often in evening prayer. “Surely it is God who saves me/ I will trust in him and not be afraid.” The world is always changing. There are wars, earthquakes, famines and plagues; because of modern communications, we know this. We see suffering not just nearby, with homeless people huddled in doorways, but far away, in the victims of famine and war, the refugees and migrants we see on our televisions.
We all in our own ways seek to help those in need, but what we do is pathetically inadequate. In this world, this suffering will always be there. We all look to the world Isaiah describes and Jesus promises, the new heaven and the new earth where there is no suffering or grief, and enough for everyone. Then we will follow Isaiah’s instructions, to “be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating.”