The Lord Has Come

Gospel: Matthew 24: 42-51

The topic of the coming of the Lord is a paradoxical one, for we are simultaneously indifferent to it and obsessed with it.  Our indifference stems from the fact that in the common understanding the timing of the event cannot be known.  Like waiting for Godot, we have no idea when he will come or what the arrival will even look like, and we have waited so long for this event deemed ever imminent that every mention of it leads to an even greater indifference.

On the other hand our obsession is equally acute.  In the common understanding this event of the Lord's coming has been charged with such dread and impending doom that every bad event in the world is said to portend this coming day of judgment.  Such forecasting is undertaken by people across the spectrum where each pet cause is attached to the lore of the final coming such that each sibyl has created their own barometer for awaiting this day of darkness.

But the Lord has come.  The Lord comes each day in the person of our neighbor, and each encounter does come with its own judgment on whether we have treated our neighbor with mercy, love, and compassion, or whether we have treated them with malice and judgment.  We can dispense with the oracles of doom.  We can awake from our indifference.  The Lord comes to you and me today in other people as images of God, temples of the Holy Spirit, and Christ himself.