Jesus said to his disciples: ‘In those days, after the time of distress, the sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its brightness (Mark 13:24)
Today's gospel sets out yet another paradox in Jesus' teaching. On the one hand, Jesus speaks of signs that denote the coming of the end of the world and His return. On the other hand, He also tells His apostles that nobody knows the day or hour of His return.
Jesus' use of paradox is surely a reminder that we cannot immediately grasp God's mysteries in the same way we grasp knowledge of the world. There are so many paradoxes in the Faith: for example, the Eucharist as sacrifice and meal, Mary as Mother and Virgin, and of course God as three and one. Jesus's paradoxes seem to be an invitation to be docile - to foster our docibilitas, as the COLW Book of Life calls it. Do I let my mind be formed by the mysteries? God's being is simple but of infinite mystery to our human minds. Once we begin to reduce God down to a philosophical formula, we risk losing the balance that our minds must keep between what we can say about God (creator of heaven and earth, eternal, omnipotent, etc - all the natural truths that the Church teaches are open to our reason) and what we cannot say - the depth and height and greatness of the mystery of God, as St Paul says.
If I come back now to the paradox in today's gospel, Jesus seems to be calling us to accept the reality of seeing darkly (as St Paul again puts it). While we discern certain signs of the times, this process is fated to remain a very imperfect science. If we are honest, we will admit there is something deeply frustrating in this limitation of the dark knowledge of faith. History shows how many people down the ages of the Church decided in favour of only one side of this paradox, at the expense of the other. In the run up to the year 1000AD, groups of Catholics held that the end of the millennium would mark the end of the world and the return of Jesus. Later in the Middle Ages, others thought that the corruption was so great that the signs of the end had surely been given. In nineteenth century France the apparitions of Lourdes and La Salette were surrounded by other visions and messages promising the imminent end of all things.
Jesus' prophecy in today's gospel is further complicated when we consider that many scholars believe He imbricated His prophecies of the end of the world with prophecies about the fall of Jerusalem. Does He do this to teach us about the dangers of reducing his mysteries to a human plan of history? Jesus deliberately delivers His teachings in parables, and their inner meaning is not always immediately apparent, nor is it given to all to understand, as He tells his disciples. Must we not wait for understanding and be humble before the mysteries? Jesus is not an information service. He is our captain and our master, as well as our teacher. His revelation remains free but we are not entitled to some kind of free and unproblematic download. We're in a relationship with the Almighty; not a service contract with a data provider.
One further thought strikes me about the paradox of today's gospel. Discernment of the times ought not to lead us away from the tasks in front of us. The fig tree in today's gospel is used by Jesus as a sign of the seasons, but elsewhere He uses it as a sign of the dangers of failing to bear fruit. I wonder if there is some connection between these two metaphors. What if focusing too much on the signs of the times leads us away from our duty to bring forth fruit in due season? Does looking towards the end actually place at risk the attention we should be giving to the tasks that lie immediately before us?
If we hope to say a Colwelian 'yes'at the end of the world, maybe we should be working on our habit of saying a Colwelian 'yes' to God in every moment of our daily lives now. None of us know after all if today might be the end of our own world. We remain in darkness about the end of all things and even about our own end.
In a way, the sun is always dark and the moon always dim in our lives and in our histories. But - another paradox! - our faith tells us we have no end of light that shines on our next step. For that, we only need to say 'yes' to the Lord.
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