‘You must stand ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect’ (Luke 12:40)
Today’s Gospel invites us to keep prepared for the Lord’s coming. Historically this has been seen as an invitation to keep prepared both for Christ’s return and for our own death as both will take us into his closer presence.
As Christians we fear neither because as the letter to the Romans makes clear a few verses before today’s section ‘there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8:1). Our well prepared participation in Holy Communion renews that belonging in Christ day by day. Our death will be a passing from one part of the Church to the next. Devout preparation for Holy Communion, living in humble sorrow for sin with confidence in God guarantees a good death.
Alas post-Christian culture is far from this coming to terms with death. Our society is saturated with the adult themes of sex and sexuality but it runs a mile from another adult theme that of death. I was talking to someone the other day who had been engaging with their grandson on the meaning of life and she asked him whether he had thought a lot about what will happen when we die. That’s a good levelling platform for debate about the truth of Christianity.
As a priest I am privileged to have free access to St Paul’s Cathedral besides the privilege we all have of daily choral evensong in that splendid building. I often walk round. One of the most striking images on the ground floor so to speak is the memorial of former Dean John Donne, body veiled in a shroud with only his head visible. He is responsible for the beautiful saying about the funeral bell Ernest Hemingway took up in his book about the Spanish Civil War, ‘For whom the bell tolls’. Donne’s quotation on death tallies with his desire to have a memorial which will graphically preach it for all time. He died in 1631 and his memorial survived the destruction of the Cathedral in the greater fire of London 30 years later with just a scorch mark. This to me makes his memorial all the more telling. Here is his poem: ‘No man is an island, entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thine own or of thine friend's were. Each man's death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee’.
‘You must stand ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect’
In last week’s Times there was a fine obituary of another priest, a Jesuit, Michael Campbell-Johnston who died last month. I copied the last paragraph about his last days and leave you with it: ‘Surrounded by photographs taken from across his life, he would gaze out of the window and wonder how many leaves were on the tree outside. He was reconciled to his end. "How can I be afraid of my death?" he wrote on a scrap of paper. "It marks the last amen of my life and the first alleluia of my eternity."
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