Catechesis · Inquirer
The Church Expecting
Catechesis · Inquirer
The Church Expecting
A pilgrim community. The Church does not understand itself as the permanent establishment of God's Kingdom on earth -- it understands itself as the community that lives in the ten…
Question
Is the Church a permanent institution or a pilgrim community on the way to something?
A pilgrim community. The Church does not understand itself as the permanent establishment of God's Kingdom on earth -- it understands itself as the community that lives in the tension between the Kingdom's arrival in Christ and its final coming at the Parousia. "Maranatha -- come, Lord Jesus!" (1 Corinthians 16:22, Revelation 22:20) is the Church's oldest prayer. It is the prayer of a community that knows where it is going and longs to arrive. The Church is not at home in the world; it is passing through it, headed toward something that has not yet been fully disclosed.
The Creed ends with the eschatological affirmation: "I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come." This is not an appendix to the Creed -- it is its goal. Everything the Creed confesses -- the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Church, the sacraments -- is in the service of this: the resurrection of the body and the life of the age to come. The Church exists to bring human beings and, through them, the whole creation, to that final condition. Everything it does is in the light of this end.
The teaching
Every Liturgy as the Parousia -- why the Church celebrates eschatology weekly
The Orthodox Liturgy is saturated with eschatological language. "The Kingdom of God" opens the service. "We have seen the true light" -- not will see, but have seen -- is chanted after Communion. The dismissal blesses the congregation to depart "in peace" -- the peace of the Kingdom that has just been present. The icons of the saints surrounding the congregation are the cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1) -- the future already arrived in those who have passed through death to the resurrection. The whole Liturgy enacts the claim that the end has begun: the Kingdom has come in Christ and is present whenever the Church gathers to celebrate it.
The Liturgy as the eighth day: the early Christians celebrated the Eucharist on Sunday -- the first day of the week and, in their eschatological reckoning, the eighth day -- the day after the seven days of creation, the day of the new creation inaugurated by the Resurrection. Sunday is not the Jewish Sabbath moved to a different day. It is the anticipation of the age to come: the first day of the new week that has no end, the day when the resurrection is not merely remembered but enacted. Every Sunday Liturgy is the Church saying: this is what all of time is for; this is where everything is heading.
The Spirit and the Bride say: Come. And let the one who hears say: Come. Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.
The last words of Scripture are the Church's prayer: Come. The Spirit within the Church and the Bride (the Church herself) together cry out for the Bridegroom's coming. This is the Church's deepest identity -- not an institution that manages religious services, but a Bride who longs for her Lord. Every Liturgy is this prayer in action: "Come, Lord Jesus" enacted in the gathering of the people, the offering of the gifts, the consecration, the communion, the dismissal. The whole liturgical life of the Church is the enacted form of this one prayer.
Revelation 22:17
The last prayer of Scripture
Holy Scripture
"For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes."
1 Corinthians 11:26
"Come, Lord Jesus!"
Revelation 22:20
Schmemann on Eschatology
Why the Liturgy is the Church's primary eschatological act
Schmemann's central argument in For the Life of the World is that the Church lost its eschatological identity when it lost its understanding of the Liturgy as the event of the Kingdom. Once the Liturgy became "one religious activity among others" -- rather than the constitutive act in which the Church becomes the Church -- the Church became an institution like other institutions, managing its affairs in the world's categories. The recovery of the eschatological understanding of the Liturgy is therefore not a liturgical reform project; it is the recovery of the Church's identity.