²⁷“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. ²⁸Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew 16:27-28)

The early church expected and hoped that Christ would return to earth in their lifetime. Christians have called this expectation: ‘the second coming’.

After the complete destruction of the Jerusalem temple by Roman armies in the late first century, the early followers of Christ found comfort in the promise of the glorious return of Jesus to earth. The last two verses of today’s Gospel reflect their belief and hope.

But what about us? How do we respond to these verses, two thousand years later?

I wonder if the passage of time and history has affected our understanding of God. I wonder, therefore, if we hear the Gospel for today[1] as threatening or punitive, as if Jesus is saying, “I’m coming back so you’d better watch out! You’d better do it right, or I’m going to get you.” Such a reaction reflects a God of vengeance, of punishment, does it not? Is that our dominant image of God—as someone who is ready to pounce on our every misdeed and mistake?

Peter, in the verses just preceding this Gospel for today, made a bold statement of belief in Jesus as the Messiah. And he got it right. But then he gets it wrong. Over and over again. Jesus even calls Peter “Satan” at one point.

If Jesus was all about judgement and punishment, Peter would not have been given the privilege and great responsibility of being the rock upon which Jesus would build the church.[2]  Would we entrust the fortunes of a new enterprise, company, or business to someone who demonstrates Peter’s kind of immaturity, impulsiveness, and lack of consistent mental clarity?

But Jesus is not talking about judgment. He’s not threatening us or talking about coming to punish us because we’ve been bad and our faith is weak; or, not coming to us because our faith is weak. He is not pointing a condemning finger at those who make big mistakes and who fail in life, time and time again.

Of course, two thousand years of history has proven those early Christians wrong, in the sense of a bodily return of Jesus as Messiah who would liberate them from Roman oppression. Jesus didn’t come back ‘immanently’ in the way they and Christians since the first century expected him. But that doesn’t mean Jesus was not true to his word.

Like reward and judgement, our perception and our image of God needs to change. Our understanding of God’s presence and return to us needs to deepen and grow. Rather than a dominant image of a vengeful God, what about a God who is about forgiveness, mercy, compassion, patience and love? How would we experience the presence of such a God?

At the beginning of this summer I was worried that I would miss out on one thing I love to experience every summer: Being on a sandy beach under the warm summer sun by the lapping waves. Despite all the wonderful travelling I’m doing, a beach was not in the plans.

You wouldn’t think that a backcountry canoe camping trip into the northern reaches of Algonquin Park would render a sandy beach experience. Most of this area is Canadian shield rock and pine. Along the portage routes and shoreline put-ins you’d be lucky to find a narrow space at any campsite to dock your canoe and disembark.

But to my happy surprise the camp site I found with my friends on Cedar Lake had a beach—and a big one—including a gently sloping sandy bottom into the refreshing water. Uncommon and incredible by Algonquin Park standards. And all for us!

So, on one afternoon when the sun was shining its brilliant warmth I lied down on the soft, white sand by the water, covered my face with my Tilley and just rested. I imagined being on a tropical island or resort in the Caribbean or some exotic place we Canadians like to escape during winter.

But something was wrong with that vision. It didn’t coincide with my experience of that moment. On that beach by Cedar Lake, I did not hear any human-generated sounds: no jet skis, no people laughing, talking, no highway traffic in the distance, no airplanes roaring overhead, no jack hammers or construction noise nearby, no background music. Just absolute, natural silence. I experienced reality in a much different way than I routinely do.

Even though at some level that moment was disquieting for me, I felt profoundly grateful for my summer beach experience. I felt thankful for the simple things in my life. I felt the joy of a divine gift and presence. God is in my life always. Even in unexpected places and different experiences.

In the Gospel, Jesus is not talking about a one-time, judgement-motivated coming of God out of the thunder clouds. He’s talking about the forever coming of Christ, the eternal coming of Christ … now … and now … and now.…

Christ is always coming; God is always present. It’s we who are not! Jesus tells us to be awake, to be fully conscious and present to every moment we experience. It’s the key to all spirituality, because we usually are not.  

Most of us just repeat the same routines every day, and we’re upset if there are any interruptions to our patterns. Yet, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who do, will find it.”[3] It’s ironic that to save our lives we need to stop our usual patterns and pay attention to those moments and places and people that take us off our routine and out of our comfort zone. This grace of God often comes to us unexpectedly.

Because God is found in the interruptions, the exceptions, the surprises, the space in-between the noise of our life. God has to catch us literally “off guard”![4]

When we are present, we will know the Presence. It is that simple and that hard. In the Garden of Gethsemane, the last words Jesus spoke to his apostles were, “Stay awake.” In fact, he says it twice.[5] We need to practice staying awake to recognize Jesus with us.

A word of caution: We need to practice being present to Presence, yes. But staying awake does not come from willpower but from a wholehearted surrender to the moment as it is. It’s largely a matter of letting go. We let go of our resistance to what the moment offers. We quit clinging to a past moment. It is an acceptance of the full reality of what is right here and now. Practising this is the task of a lifetime.  

We cannot get there by any willful method or any technical fixes whatsoever. We can only be there. The purest form of spirituality is to find God in what is right in front of us—the ability to accept what the 17^th century French Jesuit Jean Pierre de Caussade called the “sacrament of the present moment.”[6]  

Let’s practice, shall we? Let’s practice the presence of Christ here, among the church, and especially now as we receive the sacrament of Christ’s presence at the holy meal.

Christ is with us. Because God is love. Thanks be to God!

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[1] Matthew 16:21-28

[2] Matthew 16:18

[3] Matthew 16:25

[4] Richard Rohr, “Be Awake” A Contemplative Heart (Daily Meditations: www.cac.org) 29 August 2023

[5] Matthew 26:38-41

[6] Cited in Rohr, ibid.