This Sunday, the first reading and the Gospel are geared towards the end time. The portrait of the “eschaton” is painted with imageries that are ominously foreboding and chillingly dystopian. So many movies revolving around zombies. Yet, the first reading is surprisingly “Easter” in its mood. Despite the unparalleled upheaval the world may undergo, many who have died will awake. The context is clear. It was a piece of literature written during Israel’s exile and thus it sent out a confident message not to be afraid. Indeed we should hope because the Prophet Daniel described nothing more than the Resurrection.
If the Resurrection gives us reason to hope, then we should have confident pondering on the topic surrounding the “end of the world”. The frequently bandied phrase the “end of the world as we know it” is basically fashionable media-speak and nowhere near what the true end will be. In terms of paradigm shift, of changing mindset, the Resurrection should switch our thinking from what is temporal to what is eternal, from the passing to the permanent.
However, this conversion of thought or vision is in no way a denial of the temporal order. It is merely a reclamation of our loss of heaven because we may have subscribed too much to a purely temporal model of reality. For example, we are sensitive to injustice as we should be. Perhaps, we may be a tad too sensitive. The following description is not a nostalgic whim to canonise a preceding age. In the past, people tended to accept the status quo no matter how unfair, to wit, conjugal relationships. Did not some of our grandmothers suffer abuses at the hands of our grandfathers? Times have changed. Women, everyone, including children, are taught to stand up for their rights. Previously, there was a certain fatalism written into the silence of the victim. Currently, we actively advocate for the mistreated and conscientise the abused to speak up. We have moved from resignation to activism. It is a healthy and an enlightened development.
While this is good, it may also carry with it a vision of life that is purely temporal. What do I mean? We all want closure in order to move on. Traumatised victims often find themselves unable to carry on with life. On the one hand, the search for closure is a part of restorative justice. In the Sacrament of Confession, we speak of this as restitution. Through the legal system, victims should be protected or compensated. Likewise, aggressors or assailants should be prosecuted and punished. All ideally well and good. On the other hand, the question to ask is this: “What if the closure were not forthcoming? What happens when there is no closure?”.
History is replete with instances where our justice system does not reach far enough and have failed those who have been wronged. We can become prisoners of the psychological trait called victim mentality. While not dismissing the need for closure but once inside that gaol, how does one not allow the unfairness of life to smother one’s ability to find meaning? Such a question is relevant especially when we suffer.
Like Viktor Frankl,[2] these “end time” Readings provide us with this hopeful perspective or rather a vision which goes beyond the need for closure. To appreciate this point of view, it may help to visualise a scene all too familiar in our conflict-saturated landscape. Some of us may have watched movies depicting closures for families of soldiers killed in action. The American Sniper is a moving drama about a returning sharpshooter who finally got killed by a war veteran suffering from PTSD—post-traumatic stress disorder. The end of the movie shows archive footages of crowds standing along the highway to pay their respect to the dead soldier. Tragic though that may be, but there was closure for the killed sniper.
Now picture scores of dead Iraqi soldiers left unattended and rotting in the scorching sun. What about closure for them and their families? For every closure any family gets, countless other families are left to carry on with the scars of their wounds etc. There are many nameless soldiers who have no one to care for them.
The Psalmist’s cry “Preserve me God, I take refuge in you” can convey us deeper into the perspective of the Resurrection. For those who have no recourse to justice, the end time is not the end. As the 1st Reading says, “Of those who lie sleeping in the dust of the earth many will awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace”. There will always be justice, if not in this world, then it has to be beyond this world. Of course, Karl Marx scathingly labelled “religion as the opiate of the people”, a kind of plaster or “koyok” that offers nothing more than a temporary or fleeting relief. The point Marx may have missed is that the Resurrection cannot be contained in time.
Whatever transitory relief we can derive from opium is short-lived. Our hearts are made for the greater, for the eternal and are not satisfied with the momentary. In other words, the Resurrection is not an empty slogan. It is an extremely compelling motive for people to hold on[3] because God will adjudicate what cannot be accomplished in this world.
The need for closure which reflects a yearning for “wholeness” is a holy desire. Sadly, it does not always follow the logic of time. Sometime it requires death before it can even mature for us to appreciate it. Our pining for closure might just reveal a world that has stopped short of eternity. The need to resolve a problem this side of death is symptomatic of a vision which does not extend beyond time. This is exemplified in the matter of death sentence. We have a “disabled” man who is scheduled to be executed in a neighbouring country. They called the move a deterrence. However, killing someone might temporarily assuage our desire for blood but it can never heal our broken heart. We are not meant to solve every problem in this world—sometimes a broken heart can only be healed by eternity.
We are nowhere near Easter with its Resurrection motif. Still the end time beckons us to reflect on the truth of the Resurrection in a world that is markedly unfair. The Readings call our attention to the Resurrection as a triumph of grace. We are reminded of this by many saints. God will always be faithful to those who take refuge in Him. Whilst here on earth, we should a stand for justice but we must never be discouraged that sometimes the resolution we seek can only be obtained once we are dead and gone. In the Resurrection, death is never a failure because what cannot be healed in time will be made whole when we rise to the glory of the Lord. God’s justice is provident and His providence is just.
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[1] “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children”.
[2] Viktor Frankl was a Holocaust survivor who found meaning despite the great suffering he underwent and that gave him the will to live. There is a correlation between meaninglessness and addictions, criminal behaviours and depression. The danger of meaninglessness is the mistaken notion that emptiness can be filled with hedonistic pursuit.
[3] Written on the wall of a concentration camp in World War II: “I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when not feeling it. I believe in God even when He is silent”.
