Thursday, June 20, 2013

Eschaton


Mystery religions tend to a cyclical eschaton realized in nothingness.  Westerners tend to a linear eschaton culminating in Christ’s return.  This linear view is often perceived to be orthodox.

I believe in a spherical eschaton, a cloud, as it were.

The eschaton is without time (eternal).  Only creation is in time (temporal). Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven/God is at hand.”[1]

In the Incarnation, and previously in the Decalogue, as well as in Eden, Jesus brings the timeless eschaton into tangency with time bound creation.  This tangency is proved by the Transfiguration, empowered by the Crucifixion, verified by Ascension, conducted by His enthronement, and finally sealed by His Return.

Nevertheless, I am already sealed by the Holy Ghost in baptism.  When I take communion, I expect to receive the whole of the eschaton in my mouth in a mystery.  Augustine teaches that the omnipresence of God does not speak of the distribution of God throughout and even beyond the Universe.  Rather, all of God is present in every place: as when the same sound is heard by different hearers in different locations, yet the exact same sound is heard.  Consequently, I receive all of God in baptism and communion: not part of heaven, all of it.  So for a few seconds in time, I have the beatific vision without seeing it.  My feet are on earth, but my head is in the clouds.

These things can only be true if the eschaton, cloudlike, is all around us, all the time.  Wherever Jesus is, the eschaton is there also.  This does play out in linear time, but we have it already.  This is why the Mass is not a new sacrifice, but our entering into an old ageless, eternal sacrifice.  It is true now, true for Adam, and true for the last person born.  This is why we repeatedly sing the refrain, “As it is now, was in the beginning, and ever shall be.  Amen.  Amen.”



[1] Matthew 3:2; 6:33; 10:7; 12:28; 19:24; 21:31, 43; Mark 1:15; 4:11, 26, 30; 9:1, 47; 10:14, 15, 23-25; 12:34; 14:25; 15:43; Luke 4:43; 6:20; 7:28;8:1, 10; 9:2, 11, 27, 60, 62; and many other such passages.

No comments:

Post a Comment