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Morning Meditation in the Season of Advent
December 16, 2025
Reading: Matthew 24:23-31
Then if anyone says to you, “Look! Here is the Messiah!” or “There he is!”—do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Take note, I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, “Look! He is in the wilderness”, do not go out. If they say, “Look! He is in the inner rooms”, do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.
‘Immediately after the suffering of those days
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from heaven,
and the powers of heaven will be shaken.
Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see “the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven” with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Meditation by Jeremy O’Neill
In dramatic, apocalyptic language common in Advent, this passage from Matthew gives a description of “signs of the end times.” Some of these signs may be familiar to us - science fiction and popular culture have grabbed on to a number of Biblical themes signifying “the end of the world as we know it.” And yet, the church often speaks of a world without end and life eternal.
So what exactly is being described in this passage? None of us know exactly what will happen when we die or what the world will look like 100, 1000, or more years in the future. With that being said, climate scientists have been saying for years that the Earth has been forever changed by the actions of humans. We also know that the sun will eventually burn out, as all stars do. So scientific discoveries may actually make some of this apocalyptic language feel more relevant.
Regardless of the physical condition of the earth, I do believe that somehow, somewhere, on a distant shore there is an equalization of all of the injustices that plague this world. I hesitate to be one who goes into detail about this or projects who will be favored in this moment, but I do feel that we all face a sort of reckoning at some point that brings us closer to God.
I find the warning to be wary of false prophets especially relevant in an age of misinformation. We are also certainly not free from people claiming to be the Messiah, and this practice is destructive to our world. Whatever happens next, I believe that we are all ultimately going home, for God is the one who will save us, in this life and the life to come.
Prayer
Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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