“THE BEAUTY OF FULLNESS”
Saint Matthew 24. 15-28
3rd Last Sunday: 6 November Anno Domini 2011
Father Jay Watson SSP
There is history contained in your Lord's discourse recorded by Saint Matthew. The political-religious revolts of the zealots, Idumeans, and others brought military consequences. There was a famous Old Testament incident which Daniel had correctly prophesied. In this morning's text the Christ Himself predicts another one, like it, but far greater.
The Bible contains history. The Bible is true. The Good News itself is history and truth. The larger truths are those which are true about man and about God.
The Holy Trinity is beautiful, the very definition of beauty. God is good, beautiful and true; even pagan Greek philosophers knew that. God created all that is and it was "Good," i.e. it was beautiful. Man sinned and vandalized everything. Eve and her husband defaced the Holy handiwork. Your first parents mutilated themselves with conscious acts of devilish disfigurement and got real, real ugly. Sin is ugly. Acts of trespass against God are so cosmically ugly that God cannot abide them. Sin is abominable and it causes desolation. Adam's ugly sin caused the world to unravel and decay into ugliness. Adam's sin lost the community and fullness of Eden and resulted in the loneliness, and desolation of the desert of death.
Adam isn't here today; you are. You carry your proto-father's seed of sin right in your blackened heart. Your daily sins are not just short-comings, they are abominable.
There was beauty in the Lord walking in His garden in the cool of the afternoon. There was ugliness in the serpent. When you sin you turn from being filled by Life to being poisoned by the snake. When you refrain from hearing God's Word and receiving His Grace you sin, and make yourself abominable. When you mutter cruel and hateful things against other people you are modeling the behavior of the dark dragon; you are abominable. When you fail to put the best construction on the failings of your neighbor, when you covet what the rich have and when you despise the weak and the poor; the different, disabled, and foreigner, you are an abomination to all that is holy and good; true and beautiful.
Who will save you from being so damned ugly?
The beauty of Christ is not found in His outward form and comeliness. The fullness of the Lord is not found in external things. The joy of completeness is found in Jesus. The oneness of peace is found in the love of the God/Man. Jesus' merciful grace gives you heavenly nourishment and adornment. The beauty of the Godhead is not His power, but His tenderness and servanthood. He cared for His Prophet Daniel. He appeared to Daniel, spoke with him, taught him, loved him, and gave him His words to preach, write and prophesy. He saved Daniel not just from hungry lions but from uncertainty and desolation. Even while living in captive exile in Babylon, Daniel was surrounded by the Host of Sabaoth and was served by the very King of the Angels, Christ Jesus the Son of God! In Christ there is beauty and fullness.
He loved the "12" enough to teach them and to empower them with His own Divine gifts of healing, exorcizing, and preaching. He, by His Holy Spirit, called them to become fishers of men. He placed the disciples not just into their Apostolic Office but into a community of faith and charity. He loved them, and you, enough, to tell you what was coming.
The Good News isn't just news of what was, and will be, by way of information floating around to "think about." The Good News is what IS in a real and present way RIGHT NOW!
The Nazarene correctly commented and interpreted Daniel's recorded prophecy because He was the One that had given Daniel the Word: "as He spake by the prophets." Christ accurately predicted the ugly times which were coming to Jerusalem, and the Temple, in a short 35 years, because HE IS, the IAM. Jesus as author of history knows what will happen and He wants His beloved ones to be ready and armed by the Word; armed by Himself with Himself! You too! The Good News: He's not just there, but He is here! Now! Sure, you can talk "about" Him, but even better He tells you: "pray ye…" which is your own invitation to talk TO Him. He listens and He hears. It's not a distant Lord off somewhere in a heaven beyond the gamma quadrant that you have to contact by way of deep space prayer that traverses a chasm of emptiness. The emptiness is gone because Jesus paid for it and satisfied it. The ugliness is gone because He became it. Your days of suffering and apprehension have been shortened by His hellish six hours on the Tree.
"I have told you (you Augsburgers) before." I have spoken kindly to you by your fathers. I gave your Mother Eve a child who would be My forebear. I called your people from the pagans of Ur to come home to My Holy Hill and City, a city not made with Hands but assumed from the flesh of the Blessed Virgin My Mother. I freed your ancestors from Pharaoh even as I have freed you from your task-master Satan. The Egyptian enemies were drowned in the Red Sea and your infernal adversaries were drowned in the Holy Water + from My side. I loved My Father and trusted Him and His ways when things appeared to be going badly. I did His business always even when you daily put all sorts of diversions and perversions ahead of Him. I loved the ones you were supposed to: the different, broken, stranger, diseased, troublesome, creepy and frightening. I give my Body and my Blood not just for you but for all your enemies and adversaries."
He Who drove out the abominable practices of the Canaanites to establish His Holy Temple on Mt. Zion, is the one Who daily drives out your abominations by the Word of Law which drives you to your knees: REPENT! Repent not of your mistakes and foibles, but REPENT of your pettiness, bitterness, greed, lust, anger, and UNBELIEF!
Take joy and peace from Him, for He has done it. See! He has told you before… "I am come to seek and to save that (you) which was lost."
He has drowned all your abominations not just in the depths of the baptismal sea, but in the fountain of Blood from the Wounds of God.
Not cosmetic surgery, not liposuction or laparoscopic belts, not self-improvement exercise regimens or personality enhancement seminars; the Lord has made you beautiful by picking you up, cleaning you off and clothing you with Himself. He has placed you into Him and into His family… look around… see Christ by Hearing Him and Tasting Him. Look around and see your own family. He fills you with Himself and you are the Beauty of Fullness.
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost