There is a proverb from the Soviet period that says, “History is hard to predict.”

The rewriting of history was a common political action under that regime, enough to provoke the proverb.  Students of history are doubtless, well aware that rewriting is the constant task of the modern academic world. 

The account of American and world history, which I learned beginning school in the 1950s, differs greatly from the histories my children have learned.  Some of the rewriting was long overdue, while other projects have been more dubious.  Of course, rewriting is not a recent phenomenon.  Virgil’s “Aeneid” was an effort to rewrite history giving Rome a story to rival ancient Greece’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey.” 

The reformation became a debate not only about doctrine, but also about the interpretation of history and the church.  The rise of historical studies in the modern period, which question long held beliefs about the historical voracity of the scriptures, created an anxiety within modern Christianity. 

Many of the debates that permeate Christianity of the present time, turn on questions of history and historical interpretation.  And as the debate rages, history becomes increasingly harder to predict. 

I would suggest that it is a mistake to describe Christianity as a historical religion despite the space&mdashtime reality of its central events.  It is more correct to describe Christianity as an eschatological religion: a belief that the end of all things, the eschaton, the fulfillment of time and history has entered space and time and inaugurated a different mode of existence. 

To put it the in simple terms of the Gospel, the Kingdom of God is at hand.  Historical events and our modern way of thinking are part of the great canvas of cause and effect.  Seen in this manner, history becomes the fixed and unchangeable reality: it’s events the immutable unfolding of God’s plan. 

With this thought comes the anxious searching for what happened and the unceasing arguments and doubts that inevitably arise.  This few exalts space and time to a place of ascendency.  God may intervene and act within that context but the reality of space and time remains the definitive stage of our existence. 

A rather torturous point within this understanding is the power of a single historical lifetime.  Road side signs here in the south ask the question, “If you died tonight do you know where you would spend eternity?”  The troublesome thought within this is that the actions played out over the span of seventy or more years establishes a fixed result for all of eternity.  History or even just a few moments in history are made to triumph over the eschaton, that is the end of all things. 

To my mind this is a reversal of the story of salvation.  History exercises a sort of tyranny in our lives.  The mistakes we make and the consequences that extend beyond them threaten to bind us to the past.  We think of ourselves as the product of the past, shaped and formed by what has been.  Our history controls our destiny, haunting every movement and decision.

But the story of our salvation is the deliverance from tyranny: the smashing and destruction of that which binds us.  As surely as Christ trampled down death by death, he trampled down the dominion of history.

The coming of the Kingdom of God is the entrance into history. That is: into space and time: of the fulfillment of space and time: a liberty fashioned according to the image of the resurrected Christ.  The end of all things, that is Christ himself, the end of all things is not the result of what has come before. The end does not belong to history. 

The scriptures place the end outside of history.  It is a transcendent reality that is drawing all things towards itself.  Christ is described in scriptures as the beginning and the end.  He is the revelation of the end of all things: the purpose towards which all things were created and the point towards which all things move.

And so we read in the first chapter of Ephesians that, “Having made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times he might gather together in one all things in Christ both which are in Heaven and which are on Earth in him.” 

The teachings of many fathers are quite clear on this point; the cause of our existence is in our end not in our beginning.  That turns things upside down.  This is sometimes described with the Aristotelian term telos; the end.  And at other times as the logos of our person, particularly in the writings of St Maximus.  This is most especially true when we think of the whole of creation. 

Humanity is created in the image and likeness of God: the very image and likeness that is the logos of our existence.  Creation itself should be seen as being created in the image and likeness of the Kingdom of God: an image and likeness that it will fulfill when it is given its true liberty. 

And so, we read in Romans 8, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly but because of him who subjected it in hope because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption in to the glorious liberty of the children of God”

This deliverance from bondage is precisely that to which Christ refers when he says this in Nazareth.  From Luke chapter 4 says, “And he was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, ‘The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor.  He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.’”

When John the Baptist sent a question to Jesus to be sure whether he was the one who was to be expected, Christ echoed again this very passage.  He says this, it’s recorded in Matthew 11. Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: the blind see and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and the poor have the Gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of me.”

These are a description of the signs of the kingdoms coming into the world.  Things are set right and are revealed for what they were always intended to be.  Their end is revealed.  Death is the verdict of history.  Life from the dead is the verdict of the Kingdom of God.  As pure history, the forgiveness of sins is impossible.  What we have done we have done.  Only the freedom that is given from outside of history can transform and shatter the bondage that history seeks to put upon us. 

As such we can say therefore, Paul says this in second Corinthians 5, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation: old things have passed away, behold all things have become new.”

The new creation is precisely the new Heaven and new Earth referenced in the revelation of St John.  As such we cannot progress towards such an end.  The end already exists.  It remains only for the end to be made manifest for it to be revealed. 

Christ enters history in the incarnation.  The womb of the virgin exists within space and time. But in that Christ, who is the end, is the very one who was contained in that womb; the womb itself is transformed. 

It becomes as we say in our hymns, more spacious than the heavens.  She whose womb it is becomes more honorable than the cherubim and more glorious beyond compare with the seraphim.  It is this eschatological reality that enters the world that makes real and true those things that are spoken of as allegory.  For instance, the ark is a type or allegory of the Virgin Mary: for there God’s presence is made manifest. But it also is the Virgin Mary because that which makes her the Virgin mother of God also makes the ark the seat of his Shekinah Glory. 

Bearing all these things in mind St Paul directs our attention away from history and its laws of cause and effect. And he says this in the third chapter of Colossians: he says, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.  Set your mind on things above not on things on the earth.  For you died and your life is hid with Christ in God.  When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 

The apostle wreaks havoc on a purely historical existence.  He says in this passage that we were, past tense, we were raised with Christ and that our lives are hidden with Christ in God and that our life will appear.  Here we have all three tenses in the course of a single verse, or a single passage.  In Christ Jesus the Kingdom of God has come into the world.  It is already revealing itself in our midst.  The end of all things has come among us.

Glory to God.