Timothy Kim - On the Absurdity of Endings - February 22nd, 2015

Co-pastor Tim Kim continues the series of talks on Christian vocabulary words. This week: eschatology or the last things or what happens when we die or what happens when the world ends.

Readings:

1 Thessalonians 5

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, ‘There is peace and security’, then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labour pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then, let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing. 

From Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, where, and I said, to be with the good Lord, and you said, why, and I said, because I'm old, and you said, I don't think you're old. And you put your hand in my hand and you said, you aren't very old, as if that settled it. I told you you might have a very different life from mine, and from the life you've had with me, and that would be a wonderful thing, there are many ways to live a good life. And you said, mama already told me that. And then you said, don't laugh! Because you thought I was laughing at you. You reached up and put your fingers on my lips and gave me that look I never in my life saw on any other face besides your mothers. It's a kind of furious pride, very passionate and Stern. I'm always a little surprised to find my eyebrows unsinged after I've suffered one of those looks. I will miss them.

It seems ridiculous to suppose the dead miss anything. If you're a grown man when you read this -- it is my intention for this letter that you will read it then -- I'll have been gone a long time. I'll know most of what there is to know about being dead, but I'll probably keep it to myself. That seems to be the way of things.