Realized Eschatology
Thirty-Third Sunday Scripture Readings
The close of our liturgical year is only a week away. Just as the coming season of Advent focuses our attention on the prelude to the Messiah entering human history, now our focus shifts toward the postlude, the ultimate culmination of the Christ event. Each gospel writer has a unique perspective on this. Mark was the first to compile the story from various written and eyewitness sources. His gospel was written from a distinctly Jewish-Christian perspective and for a Jewish-Christian audience. They were very familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures and shared in the common expectation of Israel’s imminent restoration. They had not yet experienced the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Luke, on the other hand, was of Greek background and wrote for a Greek-Christian audience some years later, when the young Church was facing persecution from Roman authorities and local mobs who couldn’t accept their refusal to follow traditional beliefs, especially the cult of the emperor.
Considering today’s gospel, when we read Luke’s version of this discourse, we see that he’s removed much of the urgency found in Mark’s account, as well as Mark’s focus on preparations for the Messiah’s immediate return. Instead, Luke highlights the unknowability of the end times, warns against reading too much into current disasters and tragedies (like the destruction of the temple), and advises patience and calm reliance on God. At the same time, he aims to reassure those discouraged by the death of their fellow Christians. A generation had passed since Christ’s resurrection, and the Lord had not yet returned to take everyone home. His interpretation, then, offered comfort by emphasizing the resurrection of the dead sometime in the uncertain future.
As is often the case in our Judeo-Christian Scriptures, we encounter prophetic writings. They are not—nor were they necessarily meant to be—predictions of the end times. Instead, they address concerns of God’s people that were current at the time but are also relevant to us in the future. Such prophetic writings are not only transhistorical, but their meanings deepen and become clearer and richer over time as human knowledge and experience expand. We should not be scandalized by the fact that our understanding of these passages may differ greatly from that of those who first read them or even from their authors themselves. We see them very differently from how they did.
One very important difference between what the gospel writers believed and what we now understand is precisely the subject of today’s gospel reading, which is what we call the “end times,” or eschatology. The earliest Christians believed that Jesus ascended to heaven and would return at any moment to take all believers back home with him. That belief shifted over time as they realized that Christ’s second coming and the end of time, or eschaton, would occur sometime in the distant future. Until then, the Church had to stay alert and prepared for his arrival at any moment. The concept of the “Last Judgment” also haunted Christians for centuries, even reaching into our own times.
Today, we no longer live in a world of strict linear history. Our world is one of relativity, where time is no longer an absolute measure but just one aspect of a unified reality we call spacetime. As our understanding of the universe develops, so must our understanding of our Christian faith. The eschaton, seen as the end of time, has become for us realized eschatology: the culmination of God’s creation unfolding right here and now.
Realized eschatology suggests that the end of the world, the second coming of Christ, the Last Judgment, and the resurrection of the dead are no longer reserved for some future time. As spacetime unfolds, so does the eschaton. We can now view it as a timeless reality being realized in the present. The universe doesn’t exist in time because time is just one dimension of it. Instead, creation—spacetime included—exists only in the “here-and-now.” We can even imagine that the “here-and-now” perfectly defines heaven: spacetime divorced from time and space. Eternity isn’t a stretch of time but an all-encompassing moment. From this view, the eschaton is now. It’s the culmination of the creative process where everything is merged into the unity that is God. But from our human perspective, we experience it as a process or evolution. It was, is, and will be, as Saint Paul wrote [1 Corinthians 15:28], “so that God may be all in all.”
That’s very nice, but what are we supposed to do with it? Does realized eschatology have any impact on our lives at all? To answer that, we need to drop everything I’ve said so far from the head to the heart. It may sound redundant, but if the eschaton is now, then now is the eschaton. We have nothing to wait for. In today’s gospel, Christ isn’t counselling patience; he’s calling people to perseverance. Perseverance isn’t a future action; it’s a now action. What happens when we persevere? First, to focus on the present, we relinquish the past. With all its pluses and minuses, it made us who we are now, but it no longer controls us. Next, to remain in the present, we stop trying to control the future. The future is rife with longings that’ll never be fulfilled, and it’s full of fears that’ll never materialize. All our longings and fears belong to a possible future that’ll never be realized.
All of our experiences—birth, life, growth, death, judgment, resurrection, and heaven—are happening now because now is all we have. That’s what realized eschatology means for us. You’ve heard of the “theological virtues” of faith, hope, and love, haven’t you? These, too, exist only in the “now.” Faith is acceptance of yourself, your world, and your God exactly as they are right now, not what you wish they were or what you’d expect them to become. Faith grounds you in the here-and-now. Then, there’s hope. True hope has nothing to do with desire. Hope involves trust, meaning letting go of false promises of wealth, power, and prestige, and surrendering to the God who loves you more than life itself. As Jesus said, “not a hair on your head will be destroyed.” Hope is our only antidote to fear. Lastly, love is our way of using the present to bring the life and goodness of God into our world. You contribute every creative, constructive, and selfless thought, word, and deed so that you become a channel of God’s loving presence.
Jesus promises that, by persevering in faith, hope, and love within our own private here-and-now, we will secure our lives and the lives of everyone whom we encounter. And that, dear friends, is the end of the world, the last judgment, the resurrection, and the life.
Get articles from H. Les Brown delivered to your email inbox