The Astonishing Promise of Jesus

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky | Nov 18, 2024

Jesus promises, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (Mk. 13:30-31) The promise is astonishing. Only God could make such an assertion. Jesus is indeed the Son of God, true God. But He is also true man. And He uses our humanity to fulfill His divine guarantee.

As we prepare to stand before God for our particular judgment at the end of our earthly lives, will we have confidence in the saving words of Jesus? In these tumultuous times—when even authentic Catholic teaching seems up for grabs—we ask, with Saint Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (Jn. 6:68) Jesus is the Eternal Word. But the Word is not a disembodied abstraction, apart from created reality. We encounter His words in our humanity.

We encounter the Eternal Word at every Mass. The Mass re-presents the single Sacrifice of Jesus and applies His graces to individuals and the entire assembly of believers. The Mass has taken many forms throughout history, but its basic structure remains intact—Word and Sacrament. The Mass cyclically proclaims God’s Word. The liturgical cycle reinforces essential Scriptural and Gospel passages. We receive the Eternal Word in Holy Communion.

Fidelity to the words and intricate gestures of the Mass guarantees that a priest fulfills his solemn duty to hand down the Word. When people ask a priest to tinker with the Mass to soothe their boredom, the priest may respond, “The Mass is not just for you. It’s for your children and your children’s children.”

We enter the holy of holies with the Canon of the Mass. The Roman Canon re-presents the Apostles’ Creed. We pray for the Church in union with the communion of saints. We remember—and God makes present—the Cross and Resurrection during the Consecration. We mystically enter into heavenly glory. We remember the dead. The Mass applies the Eternal Word—the entire content of the Catholic faith—to our lives throughout history. The Mass is the pinnacle of prayer.

We encounter the Eternal Word in the Sacraments. The seven Sacraments accompany and elevate us with God’s grace:

• We are born. We are baptized.
• We need food. We receive the Blessed Eucharist.
• We need healing. We receive the forgiveness of sins in Penance.
• We mature. We obtain the fullness of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation
• We govern our families. We celebrate Matrimony.
• We govern our churches. The Church ordains bishops and priests
• We prepare for death. Extreme Unction—the Anointing of the Sick—accompanies us as we prepare to meet God.

We encounter the Eternal Word in the brevity of ancient history. St. John concludes his gospel with hyperbole: “There are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (Jn. 21:24-25) We can read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in one afternoon. The brevity of the Gospels allows the Church to hand down the words of Jesus throughout the centuries with ease but encourages endless theological reflection.

The Gospels are like masterpiece paintings or an old-fashioned photo album from the time when picture-taking was rare. Remember those black-and-white albums in family collections? We treasure the images because the brevity paradoxically accommodates intergenerational conversations. Think of Matthew Brady’s few surviving iconic Civil War photos. Unlike the endless multiplication of cellphone photos and emails today, the brevity of the Gospels from ancient times preserves the Eternal Word through the ages.

We encounter the Eternal Word in our humanity. God writes His commandments on our hearts: “For this commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us… But the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.” (Dt. 30:11-14) God impresses His law on our hearts. Australia was an 18th-century penal colony, but no more. Even hardened criminals respond to the divine imprint of God’s word.

The 1993 Steven Spielberg movie, Schindler’s List, depicted the German industrialist Oskar Schindler during WWII. The Nazis forced local Polish Jews to work in the Krakow Ghetto. Schindler hired a Jewish official with local Jewish business contacts. The assistant ensured that as many Jewish workers as possible were deemed “essential to the German war effort” to keep them from the concentration camp gas chambers. Meanwhile, Schindler maintained friendly relations with the Nazis and enjoyed his new wealth as an industrialist with his slave laborers. But what begins as a lucrative business arrangement concludes with his passion for saving human lives from extermination.

As the war ends, Schindler, as a Nazi Party member and war profiteer, must flee the advancing Red Army. The factory prison guards receive orders to kill the Jewish workforce, but Schindler persuades them to stand down. Bidding farewell to his workers, he prepares to head west, hoping to surrender to the Americans. The workers give him a signed statement attesting to his role in saving Jewish lives and present him with a ring engraved with a Talmudic quotation: “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.” (Pro-life politicians could invoke the Talmud to save unborn babies.)

In an interview after the war, a reporter asked: ”Why did you do it?” Schindler responded that he did not know. He added that such compassion wasn’t of his nature. St. Paul disagrees: “You are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” (2 Cor. 3:2-3)

Our glory, with God’s grace, is inseparable from the Eternal Word. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (Mk. 13:30-31)