Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost, November 16, 2025: Isaiah 65:17-25; Canticle 9; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19
We are almost at the end of the liturgical year, and every year at this time, our readings focus on the end times. Our gospel is no exception. Jesus tells his followers that the temple will be destroyed. There will be wars and insurrections. You will be arrested and prosecuted. You will be betrayed by those who love. So tell the truth. Tell what you know.
But Jesus adds this: “I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict”. You will not be alone. And “not a hair of your head will perish.”
There are two ways we hear about the end times in scripture, and the one that is most memorable are these fearsome accounts of war, destruction, and fear. That is because so often this is what our world looks like. We see wars around the world. Famine. Hunger. We have neighbors, and in my case students, who fear what comes next.
Because of the familiarity of these fears and worldly challenges, over the last 2000 years, people have repeatedly expected the end of the world to come. It’s not surprising. And sometimes it feels as if there is no way people can keep going. We are overwhelmed by fear.
It is at times like this that I try to remember the other story we hear about the end times, the one we heard today in Isaiah. We hear the promise of “a new heaven and a new earth”. People who plant vineyards will “eat their fruit”. “They will not labor in vain.” And in the most memorable image of this new heaven and new earth, “the wolf and the lamb shall feed together”.
This is the promise we also carry: there will be death and destruction, but there will be a new way of doing things. But Isaiah says this is both a new heaven and a new earth. Where is that new earth?
The new earth is here. It is sometimes difficult to see, but it is here. Our challenge is to recognize this new earth when we see it: unlikely connections and friendships, people making peace, communities of love and support. And we too can contribute to making the new earth, just in the ways we live with each other.
As we move toward Advent, may we see the signs of the new heaven and the new earth. And may we help them flourish.
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