Liturgy: “Just Earth”
We all need to know that our stuff is going to break: tablets, hearts, banks, and the earth itself. Life surrounds us with a “glorious ruin” today. Like the earth, our only hope of rescue is God’s intervention in their lives daily—giving us friends, challenging our naïve views of self, proving our confidence in Him through difficult times.
What is the King’s Liturgy? King’s Liturgy defines our experience together as a Christian community. It outlines the rhythms we celebrate with the Church at large: Scripture readings, Sabbath habits, and celebration of Holy Days and historical events.
This Week’s Lectionary Readings
Haggai 1:15b-2:9
Psalm 98
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13 -17
Luke 20:27-38
This week’s liturgy is contributed by Dr. Dru Johnson, Associate Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies:
The end is nigh (as they say).
It doesn’t matter whether you’re an atheist or a Pentecostal, it is an astro-biological fact that this earth will no longer support life one day. Eventually, earth will either burn up from a solar eruption or freeze out by collapse of our star. Unless, that is, someone does something about it.
That is the biblical storyline too: this earth is screwed unless someone intervenes. Though God is going to “shake the heavens and the earth” according to Haggai, that violent overthrow of our cosmos will bring lasting peace. Earth rescued!
No freezing.
No burning.
Just earth, the way God intended it to be.
Don’t we care about how this ends? Why do we piddle away with love and career and sanitation and Seamless™ and recycling if it’s all going to suffer cosmic annihilation by our sun one day? If Haggai, Jesus, and Paul speak truth, then why do we bother with the joys and grinds of life as if Jesus’ return, judgment, and rescue don’t actually matter for how we live today?
We all need to know that our stuff is going to break: tablets, hearts, banks, and the earth itself. Life surrounds us with a “glorious ruin” today. Like the earth, our only hope of rescue is God’s intervention in our lives daily—giving us friends, challenging our naïve views of self, proving our confidence in Him through difficult times.
Paul warns not to be fooled, “shaken in mind or alarmed” about the end. Rather, we must live today as Jesus has taught us because the end is nigh and our only hope is God’s rescuing intervention of our wrecked lives on this spoilt earth today. The rescue began with Israel and continues through us today. Get on board God’s just earth!