2023-06-28 A Meditation on Glad Tidings

“36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. 37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. 42 Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. 45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. 47 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. 48 But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know 51 and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Mt 24:36–51 ESV)

Glad tidings surround and build up the two who do love, the company of people that does get along and fellowship. We easily forget the accumulated knowledge of each other, of a friend, of a lover, of a workplace companion. Implicit is some knowledge that they won’t impinge on us or attempt to do things awkward and uncomely, that is, that we are inducted into each other’s companionship as though helium balloons were attached to all that we can’t unfeel or can’t unsee, and we are now buoyant to soar, capable of dwelling in spiritual shelter, perimeter and investment in translating, such that what we long for is the caress, of the mind, of the cranium, of the aura that surrounds each of us, in the pun or riddle, in the ability to embrace so naturally and to share anything and all things because, because we have learned to trust.

Now, the wise elder listens closely to the defeated soul that says, “Just show me the way… I submit!”. The wise elder has no fetish for such appeal, but rather pushes us back out of the nest, to learn to fly, to cope and become lord and master or mistress ourselves. He well knows that He is the authority, that He is all-powerful; and doesn’t need us to reaffirm that; He points us to our own covetousness or our tendency to compete and yes our tendency to slay the Christ Himself; we are bundles of energies and oddball tendencies. Yet also we are calmed and weaned souls, ready to know that God who immediately draws near to any heartfelt prayer we might make, to assure us, to assuage our nerves, and then hides Himself.

So we go and do likewise, in our poor estate. The crazed submissive person now given a moment of prayer or sanctuary from looming judgment in the broad unified world “out there”. Such a person learns it shall not be so simple, at least as far as just giving up. No sooner do we give up then we are inducted; the shrapnel overhead call for us to rise up courageous, to lead, to make emergency decisions, to draw on that wellspring that once upon a time did just say, “show me the way and I’ll follow”.