Readings for the Fourth Sunday of Easter
Acts 13:14, 43-52 | Revelation 7:9, 14b-17 | John 10:27-30
Divine mercy is the Eschaton, the End of all things.
Continuing our reflections on the end of time, called the Eschaton, let us reflect on a few verses from the First Letter of John. First, there is this amazing verse: “Beloved, we are God's children now.” We are God’s children here and now. To be a child of God is to be one with God. Jesus Christ is the Good News in his own person. He is one with God. In this way, he reveals to us that we are, right here and right now, one with God. Why don’t we know this? Meister Eckhart reflects on this question in his Sermon 76. He preaches, “How are we God’s children? We do not yet know…There are some things in our souls which hide this from us and cover over this knowledge.” We realize we are God’s children by letting go of the things hiding this knowledge from us. Letting go is a state of mind in which we do not cling to, fight, avoid, react to, or comment on passing mental phenomena such as opinions, judgments, daydreams, memories, fantasies, emotions, desires, or self-reflections. We let them be and abide in God in faith.
The verse, “what we shall be has not yet been revealed,” hints at another element of the Eschaton, which is that once Jesus returns, the whole universe will be renewed. The whole universe will be transformed in Christ. In the book of Revelation, John the Elder says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away” (Rev.21:1). The oneness we now have with God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit will appear also in the rest of the material universe. Thomas Aquinas writes, “The whole of bodily creation will be appropriately changed to be in harmony with the state of those who will then be living.” There will be a new heaven and a new earth complementing our nature as God’s children. God, one with each of us here and now, will renew and change the whole of the universe at the end of time, the Eschaton.
The Second Letter of Peter describes the passing away of the old creation that ushers in the new creation, then adds that we need to prepare for this great transformation in our own lives through “holiness and devotion” (verse 11) as “we await new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (verse 13). We prepare by letting go. As St. Paul says, all that matter is becoming “a new creation” (Gal.6:15). We help prepare for the new heavens and new earth by lives of holiness here and now. To be holy means realizing we are one with God, which occurs through letting go.
The First Letter of John then states, “We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Meister Eckhart comments, “One should know that to know God and to be known by God, to see God and to be seen by God, are in reality one and the same.” To be a child of God, and know it, is to share in God’s awareness. However, to be one with God does not mean we unite with God as husband and wife do in marriage. God is not a person like each one of us is. God is not anything in particular in this universe, but is beyond all things. Meister Eckhart offers another description: “The eye in which I see God is the same eye in which God sees me. My eye and God’s eye are one eye and one seeing, one knowing and one loving.” This seeing, knowing, and loving are already present within us because we are God’s children. Only, we do not realize it because of mental attachments that we need to release in order to unearth the divine oneness within.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus declares, “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” The image of the good shepherd represents how intimately connected we, the disciples, are to Jesus. Just as the shepherd knows his sheep, Jesus knows us and, Jesus knows the Father. Through Jesus, the Good Shepherd, we know God the Father by doing what Jesus did, namely laying down our lives. It is the way of letting go. Jesus lets himself go. Such letting-go-ness is key to knowing God, and, thus, to uncovering our inherent nature as children of God.
Jesus says, “The Father knows me and I know the Father.” The essential source of my existence is my parent, mother and father, loving me into being moment to moment. Each of us can say, “The Father loves me.” God loves me just as I am without me having to do anything. This is the fruit of knowing we are God’s children. We see God is mercy and, ultimately, this divine mercy determines everything else. Divine mercy is the Eschaton.