"But about that day and hourno one knows, neither the angels
of heaven, nor the Son,
but only the Father."
+ + + +
"Keep awake therefore, for you
do not knows on what day your Lord is coming."
--Matthew 24. 36, 42
“No one knows the day nor the hour...”
I preached on this Advent text one Sunday.
And a woman with big hair and a bigger Bible—
got up and stalked out of the church.
She called later to say she was leaving.
“The Late Great Planet Earth, said He was coming soon.
The signs are everywhere. Don't you believe the Bible?”
What we all know—the woman with the big Bible
and all those who do not care—
Reading on down the page—we may not know
the day nor the
hour...
But the floods will come pouring into our lives.
Our own special Katrina. Maybe a tsanami.
Everything will be changed, altered,
turned upside
down—destroyed.
William Armstrong called it
Through Troubled
Water
when his young wife died suddenly.
As this holy season begins—I think of all those
in my Grief groups
who dread this year
like a plague.
He, she—they-- are gone forever.
“Christmas won’t be the same...”
and they are right.
I have no answers.
But I let my finger move
down the old text.
“Keep awake...” it
says.
“ Open your eyes”,
even those filled with tears,
it says.
Somehow we grievers will learn—with eyes wide open—
what so many other fellow-strugglers have
learned.
Somehow, some how—the water will really finally go down.
And life—our life—will go on.
No wonder the Church picked these words for
The First Sunday in
Advent.
(This photograph of the Annunciation hangs in our kitchen. Years ago traveling in Canada to Niagara- by- the- Lake we stopped in this tiny town and saw this antique shop. It was filled with stained glass pieces. The old man who ran the shop told us that some time after the Second World War he was able to buy stained glass figures from bombed our churches in England. Then he took those pieces and put his own stained glass around them and made a frame for them. We bought this window and since that time it has hung at different places in our houses. Even broken things, kept and made new, continue to bring us all joy.)
(This photograph of the Annunciation hangs in our kitchen. Years ago traveling in Canada to Niagara- by- the- Lake we stopped in this tiny town and saw this antique shop. It was filled with stained glass pieces. The old man who ran the shop told us that some time after the Second World War he was able to buy stained glass figures from bombed our churches in England. Then he took those pieces and put his own stained glass around them and made a frame for them. We bought this window and since that time it has hung at different places in our houses. Even broken things, kept and made new, continue to bring us all joy.)
--rogerlovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com
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