Pentecost +24 Sunday – C1

Pentecost +24 Sunday – C1

Years C
Haggai 1:15b-2:9 or Job 19:23-27a

Visions of "heaven" come wrapped in gift paper - fancy paper, but still paper. We fancy up what we already know and project it into what we expect. This is all very normal, but not particularly relevant to some future time.

Note here the way in which the "heavenly" realm of a temple rebuilt or an experience after death both take on a process of revelation. No one remembered what the previous temple looked like or, at least, could hardly remember it in the face of the reality of its current state of destruction. It will be in a rebuilding that new glory will shine, not in simply duplicating that which was. It will be in the rebuilding that we will find what could never be found in the old temple.

Likewise, after Job's skin is destroyed his underlying flesh will experience a rebuilding. The redemption looked for is not some automatic response (this much suffering gets this much redemption and another amount gets another redemption experience). In the new setting something will be experienced appropriate to its setting.

Neither of these are intended to be a story of heaven that is beyond our current understanding, and yet they remind us not to get too far ahead of ourselves or we will then only find a demolished expectation without also finding its new salvation health.

= = = = = = =

prosperity is only such
for its given moment
always there has been a crash

only after said crash
do we find a new prosperity
even more prosperous

a prosperity unimaginable
without its proverbial black Monday
setting its background

look not for a new prosperity
a new heavenly image
without losing the old

it won't be a mere extension
but the more sweet
for being a quantum leap