Advent 1 (Luke 21:25-36) Heaven and earth will pass away; but, my words will not pass away.

Nothing has to happen before Jesus returns to earth.

Everything that Jesus predicted would occur before that time has occurred. It also continues to occur.

This both confuses and disappoints many people. Some people would like to believe they have some special insight or secret knowledge about the second coming of Christ. Some believe in charts and graphs and diagrams. Some believe in secret codes embedded in the Bible. Some look for supernatural or political events. Some even say that Jesus returned in the First Century but no one recognized him.

People invent all manner of interpretations of the second coming, or more generically- the end of the world. Jesus very simply teaches that His return will be at a time we least expect it. What signs there are can be found in the natural world and in the conflicts and confusion of human society.

Since there is no “prophetic time line” as some teach, since there is no secret code, as others assert, Jesus can and will return at a time we least expect. The fact of his personal return to this planet is more important than the date. That is why Jesus gives us the imperative to “Watch”.

The NRSV uses the term “be on guard” and “keep alert.” Older translations of the Bible just use the word “watch”. The teaching Jesus gives is in the form of an imperative. This is not just a suggestion or even a law. It is a command. You must watch. You shall watch.

To watch is to be on guard and to be alert. It is to ask God to set us free from the distractions of the world culture, the disordered desires of our being, and the seductive deceits of Satan. To watch is to wake up. Pay attention. Be present. Hold the present moment as it is and not as we would have it become.

The great challenge in life is to be present to the Real Presence of God in nature, other people, and our own souls and in Jesus Christ. That challenge subverts the revelation of God through Moses, the prophets and the apostles as people seek to reinterpret the message. That challenge seeks to hold Jesus in the context of our cultural expectations and our individual needs and desires.

To watch is to be present. To be present is to surrender the pride of self-will. Self-will brings a demand to life that says: be what I want you to be. That demand keeps us trapped in the illusion of omnipotence. The illusion of omnipotence is the fantasy life we create when we believe we have the right to define God, other people and ourselves. In that belief we have an expectation that we can get what we want when we want it just because we want it.

To watch is to wake up from the dream of omniscience. The Bible is very clear: now we know in part. None of us has perfect knowledge. All of us need guidance, counsel and direction. Most of us most of the time sleep walk through life in a dream of invincible ignorance.

To watch is to be in a state of courageous humility. It is the recognition that the world does not revolve around me. It is the acknowledgement that God is the great I am. It is the experience that the individual is part of a larger community.

On this first Sunday of Advent Jesus reminds us that only his words remain and abide. Our words, our opinions and beliefs will pass away in the light of eternal Truth. Jesus is that truth. That truth manifests in the present moment of our lives as we make a real choice to wake up from dreams, illusions and fantasies of human pride to experience the Real Presence of Jesus in the here and now of Divine Love.

 

Christ the King Sunday (John 18:33-37)  My kingdom is not of this world.

Jesus is the rightful king of this planet. Jesus is also not what anyone expected in a king.

All governments on earth are temporary. At some point in the future, Jesus will return to Earth personally. When he returns he will not select any one nation, form of government or political party to rule. He will rule directly and personally. And, he will rule from the place of divine love and holiness.

People in Jesus day as in our day looked for a king to impose rule. They looked for a leader who would decide which religious faction, political party, and economic system was ordained by God.

Everyone then as now had their own idea about how that would look. Most people thought in terms of power. The right leader imposes the right religion, government and economic system. He doesn’t argue.  He doesn’t discuss. He certainly does not compromise. He does not govern- he rules.

Jesus did none of this. He doesn’t have to. There are two ways Jesus exercises sovereignty. One is in the impersonal aspect of Law. The other is in the personal aspect of love. Both aspects are grounded in the reality that Jesus is the pattern for life, the universe and everything.

In His impersonal aspect Jesus is the pattern for the laws of nature. Fundamental to the laws of nature is the structure of cause and effect. Sadly, most people most of the time engage in what the Bible calls “magical thinking.”

Magical thinking is based on the demand that the universe revolve around me. This way of thinking is most obvious in children. No one ever completely grows out of this way of thinking about life, the universe and God.

Magical thinking seeks to cheat the very fundamental laws of cause and effect by asserting the human will to power. For some, this will is expressed in the categories of knowledge. Some say that if I only acquired more knowledge, superior knowledge, perhaps even secret knowledge, then I could bend and shape the universe to my liking.

For some, the will to power takes a religious form. Some say that if I exert my will to follow the right religion then God is obligated to give me what I want.

For some, magical thinking takes form in pride. Pride simply ignores all data contrary to my beliefs and asserts my will to power to define other people, nature and God.

For those who attempt to assert the will to power in the categories of human knowledge, religion or pride there is an ever present undercurrent of fear. There is fear because the laws of nature are immutable. Sadly, fear leads to blame. For, if you are a true believer in knowledge, religion or pride then any failure to get what you want when you want it is someone else’s fault.

This was, and is, the condition of the human soul that Jesus met when he came into the world. People were willing to acknowledge him as a teacher who brought right knowledge, a prophet who brought right religion and even a Messiah who brought right use of national pride and power.  They were not prepared to accept him for who he really was.

Jesus did not come into the world to rule the world from a marble throne in a granite palace surrounded by guards and supported by armies. Had he attempted that he could have succeeded for a short time. He could have defeated Rome, enslaved the nations and rebuilt Jerusalem into a fortress of wealth and power.

Moses and the prophets clearly observed and recorded their observations that such an approach was a dead end. It always failed. Empires rise and fall. They never address the real problem confronting our species.

Jesus rules from His impersonal aspect in the Law of Cause and Effect.

Jesus rules from His personal aspect in his universal invitation to all people everywhere to receive reunification with God the Father and transformation in God the Holy Spirit.

Jesus rules from the place of love. The place of love is always the place of real choice. Choice for us as human beings enters into the world of cause and effect and produces a result that is always consistent with the fundamentals principles of God.

There is no condemnation in Jesus. There is truth. The truth is that if we live from the place of pride and self will we will live in fear. That fear will distort our perceptions and relationships. Left alone, fear kills both in this world and the next.

Jesus can, if we choose, transform fear into faith. The process is not magical thinking applied by right knowledge, right religion or right power. The process emerges in the context of right relationship.

Our Heavenly Father sent the co-eternal Son into the world to reestablish right relationship on three levels. The first is our relationship with God. The second, our relationships with other people, the third is our relationship with the truth of our own unique personal identity. Jesus reestablishes all three relationships for us in his own person then gives the Way of experiencing these three relationships to us as a gift.

The gift is free. It cost Jesus unimaginable pain on the cross. It costs us nothing. We don’t even need to give up our sins. We only need to yield those sins to the Triune God to be transformed in the fires of love and holiness back into their original virtue. We lose nothing in Jesus. We gain everything in Jesus.

The Kingship of Jesus in his impersonal form is absolute. No one can ever break the laws that govern the universe. We can try. We can deceive ourselves for a time that we can succeed. But, those Laws are absolute.

The Kingship of Jesus in his personal form emerges in relationship. As the very pattern of human nature, Jesus is the best way of being human. Jesus is the only way of being human according the plan and purpose of God.

God created this universe of matter, energy, time and space according the pattern of the Son. The Son not only invites us to enter into the plan and purpose of the pattern as a matter of law, he offers us his friendship and love to help us move away from magical thinking into the new life of faith. Jesus reigns as King from the pathways of human choice and in the consequences of those choices.

On this Christ the King Sunday, Jesus calls to us from the Blessed Sacrament of the altar. In the Real Presence of Christ the King at our altar, Jesus offers himself to us as our forever friend who can and will transform our lives. The general pattern of transformation is recorded for us in the Bible. It involves five basic categories:

Worship

Evangelism

Discipleship

Fellowship

Service to others

Do you believe Jesus is Lord?

Do you believe Jesus is the King of Kings?

If you do, come to the altar and ask Jesus to restructure your life according to the original pattern of human life. That original pattern is Jesus. It starts here at the altar. What begins here continues forever.

Jesus said and continues to say: my kingdom is not of this world. It is of the infinite and eternal realm of the Triune God of love. It is the emerging and unfolding pattern of love in your soul as you respond to Jesus and say: Behold, I am the Lord’s servant. Let all things be for me in accord with your sovereign love.

 

 

Thanksgiving 2012 (Matthew 6:25-33) Do not be anxious.

Do not be anxious? How do we do that? How can we simply make a decision not to worry about the future? After all, with all the uncertainties in life, the un predictabilities in nature, government, institutions and human frailty how can we simply not be anxious?

Jesus gives us two means by which we can actually choose not to be anxious. These means come to us within two categories: attitude and action. The attitude is to trust in God’s sovereign Love. The action is to seek God’s sovereign love.

The principle underlying these choices is faith.

Faith is not the same thing as belief. Belief can come from bias, desire, need and self-deceit. Many atheists claim that faith in God is self-deceit through wishful thinking.

The Bible is very clear that people believe all sorts of things based on the self-deceit of wishful thinking. Sometimes these beliefs turn out to have some basis in truth. Sometimes these beliefs are clearly not based in truth.

Faith is different than belief. Faith is grounded in human experience, observation, and reason. Belief, as modern atheists point out, requires none of those things. Belief only requires a stubborn will. Such belief produces anxiety.

And so Jesus asks us to observe the natural world. Consider the lilies of the field. Consider the birds of the air. Observe and consider. Think.

And so Jesus asks us to ponder our human experience of food, clothing and shelter, three of four basic human needs. Observe and consider. Think.

Modern scientists have discerned that the human brain is in many ways a threat assessment mechanism. There is a section of our brain that actively seeks out danger and prepares strategies for survival. That section of the brain does not understand the difference between real and imaginary threat. It specializes in one narrow area of threat assessment. Other parts of the brain evaluate the threat and decide on a response or reaction.

Jesus speaks to the whole person when he says do not be anxious. He speaks to the place of threat assessment, threat response and the higher cognitive function Based on that data and that of the brain. He invites us to observe, evaluate and engage rational analysis. process he asks us to set aside anxiety as a survival strategy. He asks us to adopt faith in the sovereign love of God as a survival response.

Jesus sets forth an hypothesis: do not be anxious. Then he asks us to engage our reason to observe nature and human experience. He offers an explanation of human experience based on these observations. Finally, he offers a new way of responding to that threat assessment mechanism in our brains.

Instead of reacting to threat, real or imagined, through anxiety Jesus offers us the pattern of a faith response. Seek ye first God’s sovereign love.

God’s sovereign love is God’s Kingdom and God’s righteousness. God’s sovereign love manifests in an active dynamic creative rational and personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This is not wishful thinking. It is active transforming faith. Do not be anxious. Observe. Ponder. Think. Choose the new way of living that is free from anxiety. Choose the new life through faith in Jesus Christ.

Pentecost 25 (Mark 13:1-8) “Take heed that no one deceives you.”

 

Jesus is the truth.

 

As the incarnation of the co-eternal logos, the Word of God, Jesus is the very pattern of truth. Jesus is also the perfect mirror of truth.

 

Jesus clarifies for all people everywhere the problem confronting our species and the solution God provides. The truth is that God is love. The truth is that God the Father created our species and each of us through the action of God the Holy Spirit to be the forever friend of God the Son, Jesus Christ.

 

The truth is that our species chose to separate from God. The truth is that separation produces pain, pain results in distortion, distortion results in sin and sin concludes in death. The truth is that God the Father offers all people everywhere the solution to separation. The truth is that the solution to separation is Jesus Christ.

 

In Jesus the logos, the co-eternal Word of God who is the co-eternal Son of the Father, permanently and irrevocably reunites humanity with divinity in his own person. Jesus is the solution to separation. Jesus is the only solution and the final solution.

 

Why does this matter?

 

It matters because belief produces action. Action is a choice that enters in the world of cause and effect to produce a result.

 

It didn’t take a prophet to discern the direction the religious and political leaders were taking the people of Israel. It didn’t take the Son of God to discern that such a direction would lead to confrontation, war, defeat and the destruction of the Temple.

Nevertheless, God the Father had directed God the Holy Spirit to reveal to the prophets the essential reality of choice, cause and effect and consequence. The people rejected this reality. They chose to embrace what they incautiously chose to believe based on their needs and desires, their demand and their pride, their fear and their self-will.

 

Nevertheless, God the Father sent the co-eternal Son into the world. The Father sent the Son to one specific nation at one specific time and place for one specific purpose. God the son came as the Truth to reveal the truth. Humanity is lost in separation. Humanity is found in Jesus Christ.

 

Jesus didn’t need to draw on his divine knowledge to predict the destruction of the Temple. The precedent in Scripture was there for everyone to read and to heed. The prophet Jeremiah proclaimed the principle and preached the warning. No one had the faith to move beyond their belief in national pride to accept Jeremiah’s message. No one had the faith to question their inherited beliefs to receive God the Father’s message in Jesus.

 

Religious zealots and political extremists defined the problem in sectarian, partisan, and nationalistic terms. They presented a compelling argument grounded in fear and relying on pride. They issued a series of non-negotiable demands that produced a sequence of choices that entered into the world of cause and effect. At any time they could have changed course. At any time they could have turned back to the Bible, to the writings of Moses and the prophets. At any time they could have asked God to reveal to them where they might be wrong.

 

They did none of these things.

 

They not only believed they knew the truth. They had come to that place of invincible ignorance where they knew that they knew the truth. They only read the Bible to reinforce these beliefs. They only asked questions to bully and intimate people who disagreed with them. Most tragically, they rejected, ridiculed, slandered and killed the One God the Father had sent to save them from themselves.

 

Their choices in 30AD entered into the world of cause and effect to produce a consequence in 70AD. In 70 AD they chose to empower the rigid inflexible uncompromising religious and political zealots. Those zealots seized Jerusalem, killed the priests, instituted a reign of terror in the city to impose the true religion and expelled the Romans.

 

When the Romans came back they brought to Jerusalem the full might and power and wrath of the Empire. They destroyed the city and the temple in the city. They massacred the population and they excavated the very mountain on which the city stood. The modern day city of Jerusalem is slightly north of the ancient city.

 

What they chose to believe in 30AD had terrible consequences for the next generation in 70 AD. Jesus wants us to understand that their choice reflects a pattern in human behavior. Jesus warned his generation and all future generations: Take heed that no one deceives you.”

 

The principles and particulars of the Biblical revelation are an open book.

 

God is love.

God’s love is universal and unconditional.

God’s love incarnates in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is not just one among many religious teachers who offers some insight about God. Jesus is God in human flesh.

 

The Bible supports no one specific economic, political or social system. No one can legitimately claim: God is on my side.

God wants us to examine and question our beliefs in the context of the Bible and in the context of the person of Jesus Christ.

 

Why is this important?

 

Jesus knew very well that a species lost in separation from God would produce teachers, leaders and religions to maintain and support separation. He knew that people in future generations would question his existence, his motives and his message. He knew that false Messiahs would emerge from the religious and secular realm to keep people lost in a state of fear, pride and self- will. The lost exist in anxiety and fear. The lost are defined by death.

 

He knew this. And he warns us of this. Do not rush to belief. Think. Question. Examine. Test. Read the Bible. Study the Bible. Memorize the Bible. The Bible is your first line of defense against deceit.

 

Hear the invitation of God to meet Him on the seventh day, the day of Real Presence, at the altar of sacrifice in the Real Presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Holy Communion is your second line of defense against deceit.

 

Jesus came to seek the lost, to find the lost and to restore the lost to Divine love. Accept no substitute. There are many who will asset they bring a new revelation. There are many who will assert that Jesus is just one of many religious teachers. Jesus is the truth who reveals where we live from the place of deceit. Jesus is the love of God who rescues us from deceit.

 

Listen carefully to what Jesus says: Take heed that no one deceives you.”

 

Pentecost 24  (Mark 12:38-44) “Beware of the scribes.”

One of the great challenges for religion is hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy holds the outward and visible sign of belief but denies the inward and spiritual reality of faith.

The scribes in Jesus’ day had a reputation for ostentatious outward displays of religious devotion. They used this outward display to magnify themselves, justify themselves and intimidate other people. They acted from the place of pride that said: I am righteous and you are not. Because I am righteous, God empowers me to rule. Thus, if you challenge me you challenge God.

It wasn’t always this way. Originally, scribes did the manual labor of writing letters, books, court records and of course- making copies of the Bible. After the destruction of the first Temple and the exile of the Jews to Babylon, the scribes began to acquire greater responsibilities. They became guardians of the tradition and then interpreters of the Tradition.

They fulfilled a vital role in the preservation of religion and culture. In the process they acquired great authority and power.

It wasn’t easy to become a scribe. A boy entered into a course of study at the age of 14. He did not complete his training until the age of 40. He was then ordained and authorized to teach and to judge.

Scribes did not receive payment for their work. They were required to support themselves financially. Some scribes were also priests and received wages from the Temple. Many practiced a trade such as tent maker or carpenter.

As their role in society evolved their understanding of that role shifted. They believed that they and they alone held the true interpretation of Moses and the prophets. They came to believe that the purpose of the Bible was not to reveal God’s Plan of Salvation to all people everywhere but to conceal the truth from the masses. They believed and taught that God only revealed the true meaning of the Bible to religious scholars. Indeed, they taught that the Bible was a book of secrets and mysteries that only the righteous could understand.

The evidence of righteousness was, for the scribe, his long years of study, his title, his authority and his way of living.

The scribes had a rich history of service and study. As with so many religious scholars of all religions, they allowed themselves to be seduced and subverted by their pride of accomplishment. That pride led to the assertion of their will to power. They came to believe God had chosen them to rule not to serve.

When they met Jesus they reacted to him with fear. Jesus taught with authority infused with compassion. He did not assert his will to power in order to dominate anyone. He taught the masses of people the Scribes viewed with disdain and disgust. He taught that the purpose of the Bible was to reveal our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation to all people everywhere.

The Scribes viewed Jesus as a threat to their authority and to their understanding of God. Their fear of Jesus turned to anger, their anger to hate and their hate to murder.

They were so close to the Plan of Salvation. They were so close to the revelation of God in Moses and the Prophets. But when God the Son came to them in human flesh, they rejected him.

Jesus is God’s perfect mirror to the human soul.

It is as we look at Jesus, hear his words, examine his actions that we see in Jesus our own pattern of life. That pattern is grounded in the choice our species made to separate from God.

For the Scribes, religion became the trap that enslaved them to separation. They had the outward forms. They lacked the inward reality that gave meaning and purpose to the forms. They had rigid inflexible uncompromising belief. They lacked faith.

Jesus both illustrates the problem and comments on the problem in the person of the widow who came to the Temple.

According to the beliefs of the day, this woman was a widow and she was poor because she was a sinner. Somewhere in her life she had offended God and God had punished her. Her offering was pitiful and despised. The belief of the time said only those who gave the large sums of money deserved praise and admiration. They were the righteous. Their money proved they were blessed by God. Their offering of that money in the Temple proved they were better than anyone else.

Money buys influence. Money buys power. The Scribes used their money to buy both.

Jesus did not criticize the offering. He criticized the belief that defined the offering. An offering is a gift. The Scribes and others had come to see offering as a payment for privilege, position, prestige and power.

When Jesus says: beware the Scribes, he is warning us against using our religion, our position in life and our money to assert our pride and our will to power.

We are called to serve not to rule.

The call to service is grounded in the threefold love of the Triune God.

We are called to worship, charity and personal holiness.

Sadly, the scribes had come to believe they were called to rule. For the Scribes, religion stopped at the outward and visible signs: long expensive robes, the chief seats in the synagogue, and the best places at feasts. There is nothing wrong with any of these things. What is wrong is the assertion that these things define a man’s worth. What is tragic is that attachment to these things subverts faith.

Jesus praised the widow for acting from the place of faith. The amount of her offering is not just the standard 10% the Law commanded. It was not 30% or 50% it was 100%. By faith, the widow gave 100% of her money as an offering to God. That is why Jesus said she gave more than the rich and powerful who gave 10% of their wealth.

Hypocrisy is a mask we wear to assume a role. It is not who we are. It is a deceit designed to impress. It is a lie we tell others. It is a lie we tell ourselves. The lie is that we can cheat God. We can hold the outward and visible forms of religion and claim to be something we are not.

The problem is not with the outward and visible forms. The problem is the way we use those forms to deceive ourselves and others that we are something that we are not. It is the way belief subverts faith.

Jesus did not condemn the scribes- he warned them. He warned them they were not in truth. He warned them they had distorted the Plan of Salvation. He warned them they were using their position to dominate. He warned them that their mask of righteousness only created resentment, cynicism and skepticism among the people.

And, Jesus warned others as he warns us to see the tragic flaw in such hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is based on a lie. Nothing built on the foundation of deceit can stand. All who follow the lie are indebted to the father of lies. Religious hypocrisy can be very subtle in its corrosive effect on the soul. That is why Jesus warns: “Beware of the scribes.”

 

All Saints 2012 (John 11:32-44) “Did I not say to that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?”

The glory of God is humanity fully alive.

So wrote St. Irenaeus, a second century bishop of Lyons in the province of Gaul, modern day France.

Jesus taught that he had come to bring life, abundant life. Jesus did not come to impose rigid inflexible uncompromising religious law. He did not come as the voice of condemnation and conflict. He came to heal, to teach and to transform.

Many people reject Jesus as a result of personal misconceptions and institutional misapplications of the Bible. The Bible is a record of human experience. It is a book of observations. It is a library of books that comments on the human condition in the context of human behavior. And, it is a discernment of the only possible solution to the fatal flaw in human nature.

That fatal flaw is the real choice our species made and continues to endorse to separate from God. Moses, the prophets and the various chroniclers and historians who contributed their observations of human behavior all come to the same conclusion. Sin does not produce separation. Separation produces sin.

Law based religion cannot solve the problem. It may restrain evil for a time. Sadly, those who administer Law based religion are themselves part of the problem. The systems they devise to administer Law subverts the stated purpose of the Law. Moses, the prophets and the apostles all agree. The Law can restrain evil but the Law cannot make anyone righteous.

Those who reject the Law are lost outside the Law.

But, those who seek righteousness under the Law are still lost. They are lost under the Law.

What is the evidence for this teaching? Death.

If obedience to the Law could produce righteousness then the righteous would live. There would be an amazing incentive to live by the Law and under the Law. Only the unrighteous would die.

The world does not work that way. No matter how well or how poorly you may keep the Law you will still die.

BY all accounts, Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha were righteous according to the religious standards of the day. They were devout Pharisees who attended Sabbath services in the synagogue weekly. They offered sacrificial worship in the Temple at the appointed times. But, they were still lost. Unlike others of their generation, they understood they were lost. And, they rejoiced to have been found in Jesus.

Death is the evidence of human separation from God. Death was never part of our Heavenly Father’s plan and purpose for humanity. Death is the ultimate consequence of separation. God alone is the source of life. When Jesus came to visit Martha and Mary and Lazarus he came in the fullness of life. He came in the fullness of life because Jesus is life. All life in the universe and on this planet derives from the co-eternal Son.

In the gospel account Jesus weeps as he ponders the death of his friend Lazarus. He weeps for the tragedy of death. He weeps for the willful and sometimes spiteful human will to remain separate from God. He weeps for the pain and suffering of the family and community. He weeps for Lazarus who is dead and who He will summon back to life in this world of duality: of pleasure and pain, of joy and sorrow, of life and death.

Jesus is the one who balances and unifies all duality. The missing term in the equation of human experience is steadfast holy unconditional universal and sacrificial love. Love brought Jesus into the world. And, love brought Lazarus back from death.

It is important to understand that most people, even religious people, in Jesus’ day believed dead was dead. The dead no longer have any personal identity or awareness. Some people speculated that some shadowy after image might remain after the death of the body. If it did, it immediately descended into the underworld, Sheol.

No one in the ancient Mediterranean world believed any one would enter into Heaven after death. Heaven was the realm of the divine. Earth was the realm of humanity. Sheol was the realm of the demons of chaos and of whatever after image that remained of the dead.

Of course, Jesus knew that the living soul of a human being is both physical and spiritual. He knew Lazarus’ spirit rested in that place in Sheol called “Paradise” and “Abraham’s bosom.” Jesus heard the cry of the sisters and the community and chose to reunite spirit with body to raise Lazarus from the dead in a restored body. Jesus reversed the process of decay and separation to give Lazarus a new life

The family, friends and community rejoiced. Jesus wept. He wept because he knew that raising Lazarus was only a temporary solution. Until Jesus dealt with the problem of separation there would be no final solution to the tragedy of death.

In dying on the cross Jesus trapped death in his own body. As the co-eternal Son of God death had no power over Jesus. Death did not take Jesus. Jesus took death. He took it, transformed it and in his resurrection now offers to all people everywhere a new life and a new way of living. People still experience physical death. For those in Christ, death is not the final word. Those who are baptized in Christ are one with Christ and live with him forever.

Through Jesus, all people now have a choice. We can choose to reunite with the Father, through the Son by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. For those who make that choice death is now an open doorway to the beatific vision in Heaven.

All who are baptized in Christ are one with Christ. Where he is there we shall be at the moment of our physical death.

Some of the departed enter into the realm of the Church Triumphant in the company of Holy Mother Mary and the saints.

Some of the departed enter into the realm of the Church Expectant. Anglicans use the old word “Paradise” to describe this realm. The souls of the Church Expectant see Jesus face to face. They also recognize that they have so ordered their life in this world that they have unfinished business with Jesus in the next world.

From time to time people tell me they believe in ghosts. They normally tell me that they believe this because the ghost has unfinished business on earth and either can’t or won’t move on until that business is resolved. The Bible has a very different view. The Bible teaches that no one has unfinished business here on earth but virtually everyone has unfinished business with Jesus in Heaven.

Death ends our ties with this world. All contracts are nullified. Even the covenant of marriage ends with death. No departed soul has unfinished business here on earth. At the moment of death we are instantly in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ.

The unfinished business is the attachment we cultivate to separation from God. Some of us cultivate separation through attachment to belief, some through attachment to other people, some to attachment to material objects, and some through attachment to self-will. All of those attachments diminish our relationship with the Father, through the Son by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Those attachments are what the souls in the Church Expectant work on. That is the unfinished business we all carry in our souls into the next life. We can only resolve these matters by cultivating greater and deeper union with Christ.

Sadly, some souls reject the love of God in Christ in this world and the next. They await the final judgment in Sheol. No soul in Sheol can travel back to earth, as Jesus himself taught. No soul in the Real Presence of Jesus in Heaven has any desire to travel back to Earth.

The souls of the departed continue to pray for us and we can pray for them. We need not pray for their salvation. If they are in the Church Expectant they are with Jesus in Heaven. We can pray for their sanctification.

The souls in the Church Expectant still choose how they will grow in grace and transform in Divine love and holiness. We can pray they choose to embrace the love of God in Christ with passion and delight. We can pray they surrender their attachment to the deceits and distortions of this world. We can pray they offer their sins to be transformed back into virtue.

As we all grow at a different pace in this world so we all grow at a different pace in Paradise.

The souls of the Church Expectant pray for us to make wise choices here and now. Pre eminently, they pray we make the choice to make the three aspects of love our priority here and now. The three aspects of love are principles not laws. The principles are worship, service to others, and commitment to personal holiness.

The glory of God is humanity fully alive. Jesus did not restore life to Lazarus because he had unfinished business with his sisters, friends and community. He restored Lazarus to life so the greater good of humanity might be accomplished. Lazarus was for his generation the living proof of the reality of Divine Love that so many people in our generation demand.

Jesus raised Lazarus because he loved him. Because Jesus loved Lazarus he gave him the mission to proclaim that the power of God is life. The power of God is love. Most of those who saw Lazarus and heard him speak reacted with fear. Some did not believe. Some believed but wanted to kill Lazarus. Many simply refused to believe.

Jesus wept because he knew Lazarus would face this level of animosity, fear and unbelief.

For that generation in that place, Lazarus was the physical evidence of the glory of God. Some believed and rejoiced. Many feared and reacted from the place of pride and self-will.

Here at the altar of sacrifice God provides another witness to life and to love. In the blessed sacrament of the altar the three realms of the church meet in union with the Real Presence of the co-eternal Son.

It is here that the saints of the Church Triumphant, the souls of the Church Expectant and the people of the Church Militant meet in union with the Real Presence of the Living Lord Jesus Christ. It is here that we enter into holy communion with the very source of life. It is here that are most fully alive in the infinite and eternal love of the Triune God. It is here that Jesus now asks us to receive his words: “Did I not say to that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?”