The lectionary gives us too many weeks of The End. I’m tired of the Day of the LORD. But that might be because I tend to feel like we are living through it. As the hymn says “change and decay in all around I see.” And then I’m occasionally given to a thought that if we at least got trumpet blasts and battle cries, and not just the ever present darkness, maybe it would be better. But I didn’t live through the slaughter of millions. That seems like the thought of one as comfortable as I. Maybe each generation gets the Day of the LORD uniquely suited for it.
The Lectionary gives us four weeks, a full month of The End. It usually gets rolling slowly right after All Saints with mere predictions. “Not one stone will be left on top of another.” That frightens the disciples enough, just the idea of their world changing and decaying, that they press on Jesus. It presses on through a couple of Sundays of parables and teachings that tend to end with “watch!” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And then it pulls up right before Advent with The Final Judgement and Christ the King. Now from a church year perspective, a year that begins with Advent and the Christmas Incarnation, walks in the steps of Jesus for six months, and then attempts to grow with the seeds planted, this might be right. This month of the harvest might have the right timing. But man, too much.
Of course this is in contrast to the TV preachers and strip mall prophets who never tire of tales of The Day of the LORD. And they always have an audience. Which might be a distinction worth examining about my tiredness. Why does this Lutheran find himself tired of The Day while much of Christianity seems endlessly fascinated?
And I think it comes down to one primary difference. Lutheranism is a Christian Theology that lives at the extremes. It is law or it is gospel. In Day of the LORD terms it is always A Day of Deep Darkness or it is the Advent of the King. Lutheranism, once it gets into your bones, which it does when you memorize the catechism, is an eschatological theology. One lives their entire life under the weight of judgement (law) and in the hope of the resurrection (gospel). One walks in the good works God has laid out in advance. Because you were sealed before the creation of the world, and you will live in the tents of the LORD unto eternity. To the Lutheran everything in this everyday life transpires in the shadow of eternity. And it is with that recognition of what you were created for, by whose blood you were saved, and the purpose for which you shall live that we live this short allotted time.
In contrast I think for the vast majority of folks, even many Christian folks, that eschatological framework of the world and of life just is not real. The Day of the LORD is some exotic other that inspires endless curiosity and not the everyday reality. As Paul would talk in Thessalonians “those who sleep, sleep at night. Those who get drunk, are drunk at night.” Even though people live in the day, that are not of The Day. They belong to the night, a night unaware of the cosmic battle that rages. And so tales of The Day are like the latest Marvel movie, tales of Doomsday, which never really comes.
But you are of The Day. You are awake and sober having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and the helmet of the hope of salvation. You know the battle wages now. That now is The Day. And soon, soon the effects of The Day will be revealed to all. But until then, watch, for The Day plays out before our eyes.
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