Where are we going? At the end of life is there a destination? What’s our hope at the end of all of this? For many it’s a question they’d rather not think about, but for us who are in Jesus, who have put our faith in him, it should be something we dwell on, that drives us onwards.
If God is just why is there so much injustice in our world? If God is good, why is there so much evil in our world? These are questions we are often faced with, and as we come to this next part of the Creed we come to at least something of an answer.
We have quite the selection of readings this morning, and in all honesty not what I’d have chosen for today if I was in charge of the lectionary. But that’s the joy and challenge of it, it takes you to places you hadn’t thought to go, makes links you hadn’t thought of. And in our selection of readings is quite the range of events. We have the banquet in Isaiah, the cosmic wedding in Revelation, and the funeral in the Gospel. The wedding and the banquet overlap somewhat, but the funeral stands in stark contrast doesn’t it. Two banquets and a funeral.
Angels bear a fascination for many in our day. People have statues of them, talk of loved ones becoming them after death, ponder about guardian angels. Angels, it seems, are taken as the safest idea that there might be more to our world than what we can see. That there might be forces and powers and activities happening in a layer of reality which we cannot observe or measure, a spiritual dimension to things. And there seem to be a few different approaches to this idea that there is more to reality than what we can see.