25 After Trinity is 6th after epiphany, p. 144.
1 St. John 3:1-8; St. Matthew 24:23-31:

Bound for Glory

At the beginning of the decade of 1970s there was a devastating earthquake in Nicaragua (December 23, 1972), where many people died close to New Years Eve. I remember very vividly how that experience helped to mark our frame of mind for those years in the early 70's when I was a teenager 30 years ago.

It began with an earthquake and it continued with all sort of preocupations and worries concerning the future. At church many people began to prophesied more dissasters a sure signs of the end of time.

I remember how our imagination was driven to speculate. Many were very sure that the Lord would come before the end of the 70's. Then in the 80's another of the popular evangelical preachers in Puerto Rico said: "we do not know when the Lord is coming so we cannot say", BUT he prophecied that the Lord would come in 1984. As you know 84 came and passed and it did n't happened.

As you remember after that we had the tremors of Y2K, how everything would come to a stop in the year 2000. Here we are 2005. The reason I am calling your attention to all these tales of end times is that in today's lessons our attention is called back to this important teaching concerning the end.

As this long trinity season draws to a conclusion we are lead to look forward to consider the future; the promise of our Lord's second coming and its implications for our lives today.

There has been so much especulation concerning the end times that we often miss the most important element of this key doctrine of Christian belief

This should not surprise us, since it even happened to the apostles. They had their own pet theories about the 'when' and 'how' of the end times. So right before the Lord ascended into heaven, when they had their last chance, they asked him about God's plans for the future, in so many words the asked: Lord before you go could you tell us when and how you will restore the kingdom of Israel? When is it going to happen?

The Lord's answer should put a stop to all especulation concerning the when and how of the end times. He told the apostles, it is not for you to know the times and the seasons the Father appointed according to his will.

If it was not for the apostles to know; the 'when' and 'how', it is not for the Church to know. In other words, knowing the times, having an exact croonology of end times is non of our business.

That doesn't mean that the teaching of end times has no relevance for us now. On the contrary, a good understanding of the end is essential for our lives in the present, but in a different way; not the 'when' and 'how', but the 'who', the 'what' and the 'why'.

I want to encourage you to think more about the end not less. I would hope that you think about the end every day, every moment, but not in terms of sensationlistic fiction, rather in terms of what its promise means for our lives here and now.

The apostle St. John makes just such a connection for us in his epistle:

3:1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called Sons of God;
and so we are, children of God.

St. John begins by reminding us WHO we are. We are children of God not because of our merits but because of the Love of the Father towards us. The Father loves
us, is a truth that is often ignored or clouded. God the Father loves you, He delights in saving his children. He rejoices in blessing our lives.

But, the world rejects us. Why?

The world does not 'know us' because it does not 'know him'.

'Knowing' in Scripture, means having spiritual communion of love and understanding. There is no such communion between the children of God and the world because there is no such communion between God and the world.

So our lives at the present time are set between these two conflicting natures, the old and the new, the one that seeks communion with God against the other which rejects it.

So there are two basic spiritual directions in this world, you may think of it as two contrary lanes of traffic, one lane goes towards God, the other goes away from him towards the world.

This has trascendental implications. What we are now by God's grace is just the beginning of something greater in the future.

See what St. John adds:

2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

Now we are children of God, then we shall be like him when we see him as he is.

The future has in store for all the children of God something greater and better than any one of us could imagine.

The Lord warned his disciples about the future and his Second coming, that they should not listen if someone told them that he was in the desert or in a room.
The Lord will not return in secret, the time for the disclosure of the Son of man in close quarters is over. The next time he appears he will come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead. It will be like a lightning crossing the sky from east to west, something so enormously great that no one will be able to ignore it.

Then it will be fulfilled what St. John wants us to bear in mind, a truth that has the power to change our lives here and now.

"when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is."

What this means for the future is too glorious for us to even imagine. It has not yet being manifested. But we know something, We shall be like Christ!

This is all that matters. This truth is the ultimate truth that defines our existence today, we are bound for glory, we are bound towards Christ.

Our failings in this world do not define us; our hope in God's redemptive power does.

When ever the flesh, the devil or the world assault you armed yourself with this promise. We shall see him as he is. That vision will finally transform us into his perfect image in whom we really are.

This truth was written by one who had contemplated the vision of the glorified Christ. He beheld his glory, not only while he walked as an ordinary human being, but also there at the mount of transfiguration, John was there before the cross, He saw the empty tomb, he saw the resurrected Christ and he saw Christ in his ascensended Glory.

This same John who witnessed all this glory, tells us that we shall be like him, when we finally see him. Because we shall 'see him' as he really is. One is transformed into that which one contemplates. When we see him, not any more through the eyes of faith but directly before his presense, then we shall be finally transformed into his perfect image.

This is the defining truth of our lives. We shall be like Christ.

I know this is hard to imagine such a glorious truth. In a sense is comparable to the transformation of a larva into a butterfly. A worm that drags around all its existence finally find itself enjoying beautiful wings and able to fly, no one could imagine such a result by just contemplating the worm as it is. Likewise we will find at the end of our pilgrimage that we were created for something better and more glorious than the misery of this fallen world.

This vision of future glory, is essential to our lives now.
It is a vision of hope, which have directs implication for our present.

3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

If we are bound for glory, to be with him and like him at the end for ever, it is our duty to prepare for that, to live accordingly.

What defines our lives is not what we have been, miserable sinners, but what we shall be at the end, Children of God, renewed in the perfect image of Christ.

There are two ways of going through life, one with our lives being defined by what we have done, and from the point we come from, which is sin, the other by the end to which we have been appointed by God's mercy, by the victory Christ won for us that will be fully manifested in the future, a new and renewed life, citizenship in heaven.

That is the defining factor of our existence because that is the reality which will endure forever.

We are creatures with a finite past looking towards an infinite future.
Although we cannot ignore the past, its failures do not define us any more. We are approaching an eternity of purity and holiness, and the more we approach it the farther we are removed from our sinful past.

That is why whoever embraces this hope, who ever learns to live according to it, changes his relationship with sin, and with his past. Sin is not the master anymore. Our past does not hinder us, Sin is 'left behind', while we continue walking by faith, in hope purifying ourselves as he is pure, renouncing more and more our sins.

As St. Johns continues to write:

4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

The Son appeared to destroy the works of the devil. Sin, Lies, death and destruction are the works of the devil, Jesus appeared to free us from servitude to evil. Therefore, those who are united to Christ do not practice sinning.

What does that mean? As you know by experience it does not mean that a Christian cannot sin. We all sin. The same apostle told us at the beginning of his letter that we are all sinners and that if we deny we are, we lie and deceive ourselves.

But the practice of sin is something different.
It is sinning and being happy with it. It is learning to accommodate sinful habits in our lives so that our relationship with God does not hinder us from continuing to walk the way of sinning, walking away from him.

So, it is like trying to walk in two opposite directions at the same time.
It is impossible. Repentance defines our way towards Christ. We may fall in the way , but we do not stay fallen, we do not draw backwards, we come to Christ in repentance and faith to continue to follow him. We are not happy with our sin, but move towards Christ more and more.

Therefore our sinful nature does not define who we are any more.
We are more than sinners, We are redeemed sinners, Children of God in the making, made free from sin to be pleasing to God as we become more and more like Christ.

Our future glory in Christ, his righteousness defines our new being in him, and that implies that if we fall into sin, we cannot remain there.

We are sinners. But our relationship with sin has been radically changed. Sin is not the master of our lives any more. Christ is.
What defines our lives? Hope and trust in the Lord.

Our lives are defined by the truth of the hope of glory of being united to Christ and become like him, because the Father has made us his children. We prepare for that glorious future by looking forward not backwards, by purifying ourselves, by repenting from our sins and imitating Christ, by becoming more and more like him until he comes and we are completely freed from the bounds of sin.

"He shall come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead" that truth defines our lives, not the sin the we have left behind, but the glory that shall be manifested in our lives in Christ coming.

That should be our main concern. We all hurt from our past errors, but there is a dimension of hope in this life that is open an available for all of us who trust in Christ. Let us learn to live by hope, bound for glory, as St. John told us. Christ will come again with Glory and at that time we shall be transformed into his perfect image and we will life for him for ever in Glory.

Let us pray
O God, whose blessed Son was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil, and make us the sons of God, and heirs of eternal life; Grant us, we beseech thee, that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves, even as he is pure; that, when he shall appear again with power and great glory, we may be made like unto him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, he liveth and reigneth ever, one God, world without end. Amen

Providence Reformed Episcopal Church
1201 Morgan Ave. Corpus Christi, TX 78404; Tel. 1 (361) 728-3720