In the events just commemorated over the Easter Triduum, Jesus “conquered sin and death,” told us that He has “overcome the world,” and opened the way to eternal life. Yet a serious question arises, not only for unbelievers but for Christians: Has there been some mistake? Our world and individual lives seem – to an average eye – as troubled as ever. Many have suffered and died, justly and unjustly, in the 2,000 years since the Resurrection. We’re tempted to say with Jeremiah, “The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.” (8:20)
But no mistake, of course. It’s just that, as with much about God, there’s a gap between our expectations and His acts.
Some early Christians expected Jesus’ early return and – like us – an end to all the human misery since the unfortunate events in the Garden of Eden. But as Pope Benedict XVI noticed in his magisterial Jesus of Nazareth, Luke’s Gospel projects a different future: “They will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led captive among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” (21:24)
This “time of the Gentiles” is our time, during which the Gospel has to be preached to all nations. That’s the fulfillment that the end of Matthew’s Gospel famously records as coming from Jesus Himself. One reason missionaries went out to every part of the globe (until recently) and even inspired a figure like Columbus (cynics notwithstanding) was the belief that Christ could not come again until all nations had heard the Good News. (On all this, cf. my book Columbus and the Crisis of the West.)
“Mistakes were made” in that immense effort, of course. Lots of them. But at least Christians once tried; and saw the message itself as so urgent that they didn’t slacken their labors with self-serving excuses about not “proselytizing” or “disturbing the cultures” of other peoples.
Those cultures, like our own secularized world, were not as innocent as their demagogic defenders would like us to think. Hans Urs von Balthasar, in his great little book The Moment of Christian Witness underscores Jesus’ saying about sending the Apostles out as sheep among wolves. They are not merely going out to “dialogue,” though there is necessarily some of that. They’re going out to confront evil – the evil that has oppressed the world since Eden.
The sheep must still go out, not stay in the pen, still less “walk together” while debating how to walk together. They can’t be naïve in thinking they’re simply entering sunny fields where they’ll be respected, maybe even joyfully received – if only they figure out a way of presenting the message right. Most of all, they’re definitely not being sent out to meet the wolves halfway. We don’t need Jesus – the false gods are quite sufficient – for that. He came to tell the Truth that sets us free.
The one sent delivers a message, The Message in this instance, the Good News that the world needs, desperately, without knowing it. Which, therefore, will cause disruptions, even explosions, as a missionary to China once predicted. But none of that is the messenger’s concern. The messenger’s job is to go and deliver what he’s been told to deliver. What happens then is the Sender’s business.
Pope Benedict notes another interesting feature about the early Christians, the ones who knew Jesus, suffered with Him and witnessed His resurrection from the dead, along with the thousands who quickly joined the emerging Church (itself a necessity for survival in the “time of the Gentiles”): “[T]he early Christians called themselves simply ‘the living’ (hoi zōntes).” They weren’t denying that others were “alive,” in a way, but that Christians were living a full life (zoe) with true meaning and a goal, while those still alienated from God were merely living (bios).
Hamlet puts this sharply:
What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
And yet the role of a Christian during the time of the Gentiles has a dual aspect. Despite the beasts threatening them, says Benedict (by the way, take a look at the next TCT course on that great pope by clicking here), the disciples must first be “sanctified” before they can do anything for the new Kingdom:
the word “sanctify” (qadoš is the word for “holy” in the Hebrew Bible) means handing over a reality – a person or even a thing – to God. . . .Something that is consecrated is raised into a new sphere that is no longer under human control. But this setting apart also includes the essential dynamic of “existing for.” Precisely because it is entirely given over to God, this reality is now there for the world, for men, it speaks for them and exists for their healing. We may also say: setting apart and mission form a single whole.
At times, this “setting apart” can require a literal, physical separation from the world. Many of the early Christians in the Holy Land wisely fled to Pella in Jordan, even before the Romans invaded and destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. They rightly judged that the clash among Jewish factions – followed by the Roman assault – would likely have wiped them out.
But the physical, like the spiritual “setting apart” is but the preliminary for the long-term work that must be carried out. It’s a lesson that we may be forced to learn again today as the former freedom and respect towards Christians in Western nations slowly turns into open ostracism. Maybe even persecution.
Christ, says Benedict, had “no legions,” at least not the kind the Romans had. Yet during the Time of the Gentiles, Christ “conquered” – over and over again, after periods of terrible disorder and death. He overcame the world’s unnatural inclinations and can again. (Our “Catholic” president on Friday issued a proclamation that Easter Day 2024 would also be Transgender Day of Visibility. Doubtless even worse is coming soon.)
Most importantly, though, Christ has kept open the doors to eternal life in every place and age.
The Time of the Gentiles is our opportunity to continue bearing witness, despite all the shipwreck in the Church and the world, to the perennial Easter difference.
