The collapse of the institutional church and other social structures will be painful for all of us, but it is not ultimately a threat to mission of Jesus.
The collapse of the institutional church and other social structures will be painful for all of us, but it is not ultimately a threat to mission of Jesus.
We make a devilish mistake when we project the origins of hell onto God. Jesus calls us to follow him into a new way of life that will save us from plunging into the hells of our own making.
Floods of hostility and violence sweep people away, but we are called to prepare ourselves to stand firm with Jesus, and be left behind as those who will not succumb to the angry flood.
Events of global chaos probably aren’t signs of God’s next big move, but we need to take seriously the call to live faithfully and courageously in the midst of them.
In the fact of the climate apocalypse, we hold on to our hope: hoping and working for the radical, impossible change that is necessary.
Only when the world models itself on the self-sacrificial love and mercy we have seen in Jesus will it be saved from the cycles of apocalyptic violence and chaos.
Advent is preparing us for the coming of the Lord, that already and not-yet event for which people have lived and worked and prayed for millennia.
Jesus calls us to courageously follow him through a world of apparently apocalyptic violence towards the advent of hope and peace.
The “things” we so readily put our trust in, or find our identity in, will all fall, and only God’s love and care for us will remain.
Belonging to God does not exempt us from disasters that may come, although that is often what people hope and expect, but it does mean that they will not have the last word on us.
A growing incidence of cataclysmic violence is not a sign of God’s activity, but it does call us to hold on to our hope and look for God’s action in small signs of life coming from death.
The unfailing love of God is with us, even in the tragedy, confusion, and anguished questions and doubts.
God is with us to comfort and revive us in the face of horror, but also to challenge us to turn things around.
Amidst the variety of opinions about the Coming Christ, there is a real message of hope that reshapes our lives.
We are bringing upon ourselves a global catastrophe, but the prophet Joel assures us that ultimately God will save his people.
In the face of monumental devastation and suffering, God speaks a word, and the word becomes flesh.
In the midst of horror and despair, Christ arrives with love enough, with peace enough, with hope enough to make things very, very, very different.
When the world falls apart, God recognises the pain, the despair, and the anger, and gifts us with faith, with an assurance that God’s power of love will yet prevail, that God will accomplish the justice and the peace we long for.
Locating our struggles within the bigger picture of God’s purposes can give hope and purpose, but it also places us in a challenging place of priestly mission.