And the world will end on.....

Mark 13:21-27

          I can recall several occasions in my short (50+ year) lifetime when someone made the prediction the world would end on a specified day at a specified time. The day came, the day passed and life went on. Jesus himself said that only the Father knows the day and time, not even Jesus himself. Can you imagine Jesus not knowing something? That would be the subject of another reflection.

           There are hordes of people who have even more to say about just about everything. There is no shortage of people who want to tell us exactly what God is surely saying to us from holy scripture. There is no shortage of people who want to tell us exactly what God means and they will pluck verses at will to support their point. 

            Of all the things that are said and done in the name of God, Allah, or whatever your higher power is named, the only one that matters is love. There are boatloads of knowledge that we can obtain from the world and from each other but knowledge is fleeting and incomplete. No one knows the whole story, no one has the singular best view of the world or God's creation except for him ( or her ).  Jesus made this abundantly clear. Jesus was asked what is the most important and he gave only two commandments and love is woven through them tighter than white on rice. 

           We do not know what God had to say about eating meat on Fridays. We do know what God has  to say about being gay. We do not know specifically anything God said about human sexuality, sex, abortion and women's rights. There is an infinite number of unknowns. I Pity the fool that believes all the answers are found in the bible with it's contradictions, mistranslations and scientific inaccuracies, no matter how inspired it is. The Bible was still written by fallible humans.

             God gave us two great commandments and a brain.  We can use our brains and our senses to see the world, to investigate the world he created and to discern patterns, discover deeper truths (not ultimate truths) and gain self knowledge. But the overriding guide are those two great commandments and love. They are the lens, love is the answer.

         1 Corinthians 13:13 ..... the greatest of these is love. The only truth we need to know. Let the knuckleheads predict and shout all they want.

          

And if anyone says to you at that time, “Look! Here is the Messiah!” or “Look! There he is!”—do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, the elect. But be alert; I have already told you everything.

‘But in those days, after that suffering,
the sun will be darkened,
   and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from heaven,
   and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in clouds” with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.