The Entire Thought

All Will End Well

The problem with stories about the end of the world is that the images get in the way of the message. We get so wrapped up in earthquakes and plagues and celestial pyrotechnics that we miss the point of the story: namely, that the world will come to an end.
We modern people think: “No great revelation there. We didn’t need scripture to know that all things come to an end.” However, that simple fact was indeed a revelation to ancient peoples. They got their sense of time from nature, and so thought in cyclical terms. Spring followed winter, sun followed rain, trees grew new leaves. They thought that everything continued in a set cycle of repetition. There was no progress, no goal in creation, no purpose in life, just monotonous, meaningless motion.
We owe the idea of history to the Jews. God said: “Go there, do that. If you don’t do this I will do that.” The world does not follow the script of fate; actions have consequence. Earth is not chasing its tail; it is going somewhere and it will finally get there. It will end.
We are so accustomed to things going somewhere and ending that we take it for granted. It is simply assumed that things change, they are amenable to our influence and they will finally end, for good or ill.
This need for endings is deeply imbedded. Some people read the last page first to see how a novel ends. Some people can’t wait to open their presents. Children keep asking: “Are we there yet?” And no matter how complicated a TV show is, we know it will all come together in the last minute. We are disappointed when it says, “To Be Continued.”
It is something like that with God. God is also waiting to see how his drama of creation ends. The outcome is not entirely up in the air; as soon as his Son became human and entered the interplay of history, it was determined that it would all end well. But what is not known is how individual things will fare, and how God will work all the consequences of human freedom into a good conclusion.
What makes this possible at all is the fact that it has a deadline. As the immortal Jupiter sighed, “We miss something: the intimation of mortality, that sweet sadness of grasping something you cannot hold.” Knowing that we will die, that our life will come to an end is the chief reason for living well. Knowing that the world will end gives purpose to history and humanity.
But then what? Even when a TV program is successfully concluded, I enjoy those little epilogues that pick up the loose pieces. It is somehow nice to know that Tom is serving 20-to-life in Rikers, that Dick lost his ill-gained loot in the market, that Harry manages a bee farm in rural Iowa.
That is something like heaven. When it is established that God’s creation concludes satisfactorily, all that is left is to see how the little pieces fit together: things like you personal dreams, choices, successes, failures—your whole life in its least detail. Rather than an endless repetition of meaningless happenings, your life is revealed as having an integral role in the whole history of creation.
God’s universe will end just as God wishes: all things will be gathered together by his Son and handed over to the Father. All creation and every person will unite their voices in a single hymn to God. As Julian or Norwich wrote: “All will be well.”


Fr. James Smith
Celebration, November 2009

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