Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus alerts us to consider the signs of the passing of all things. All of the joys, goods, pleasures, and accomplishments of this world will one day be taken from us. And this futility extends to all of culture, all of nature, and even to the cosmos itself.
Physicists tell us that, one day, our earth will be enveloped by the sun. Then the sun will collapse in on itself and become a black hole, drawing matter and light into itself. After many more billions of years, the entire universe will run out of energy and either fade out in a great freeze or burn out in a great fry.
One might be rather easily tempted to despair, to say, “Why bother?” and “What’s the point?” Or one might be tempted to say with Jean-Paul Sartre and his existentialist friends, “La vie est absurde” (life is absurd).
So, we look elsewhere; we look beyond to the steadfast love of God, which brought the entire universe into existence from nothing, which sustains it even now, and which will one day draw us to a life and a joy beyond it.