The Third Millennium

St. Mary Roman Catholic Church

New Britain, Connecticut

"Much Ado about the Millennium" That was the Headline in black bold print in the Hartford Courant Monday, Dec 1. Much Ado about the Millennium. It seems that people are worried that the world is going to end in or around the year 2,000. World Terrorism, AIDS, biological or germ warfare, nuclear attack, global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer are new problems that face us in addition the usual list disasters: floods, volcanoes, epidemics, famines, wars, earthquakes, etc. Can the world survive for another thousand years?

The Holy Father says yes it can. Pope John Paul II has been thinking about the year 2,000 also, and he has written a letter to the Universal Church entitled "As The Third Millennium Draws Near." A Millennium is a period of a thousand years. The Christian World divides time into two periods, before Christ and after Christ. The First Millennium begins with Christ’s birth, and goes to the end of 999. The Second Millennium began in the year 1000 and will go to the end of 1999, which is not so far away. And The Third Millennium will begin in the year 2000.

The Pope is not worried about the end of the world. He’s looking forward to another thousand years for our world and our Church, a Third Millennium. And he says the Third Millennium will be "a new spring time of Christian life." Not autumn or winter, but spring time, a new beginning.

In his letter, the Pope decrees the year 2000 a Jubilee year. A Jubilee is a time of special celebration, joy, and festivity, pomp and ceremony. We all celebrate birthdays, national holidays, silver and golden wedding anniversaries. And after the day is over, we move on. But the Pope has declared 2000 a year of Jubilee, a whole year of celebration festivity, joy and ceremony.

What are we going to celebrate for a whole year?

Two thousand years of Christianity, two millennium and the start of a third. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus Christ is the author of human history. All that took place before him was a preparation for his coming. The whole purpose of the Old Testament is prepare for the coming of the Messiah. In Christ, the Old Testament is fulfilled. God has visited his people.

The Pope says "This is the essential point by which Christianity differs from all other religions." In other religions, man searches for God, but in Christianity, God searches for man. God comes to us in person and speaks to us of himself, and he shows us the path to follow in order to reach him. "No one has ever seen God; the only Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known." (John 1:18) Jesus is God revealing himself to us, and Jesus is the way back to God for us. He is "The way, the truth, and the life."

So Christianity isn’t a blind search for God, but a response of faith to God’s revelation. God speaks to us in Christ, and by believing in Christ we speak back to God and give ourselves to Him. He’s the way God comes to us, and He’s the way we go back to God. The Pope says Christianity is a "religion of glory", because God shows his glory to us in Jesus, and through Jesus we enter into God’s glory. In this way Jesus Christ fulfills and completes the hopes of all the world’s religions.

The Pope quotes Saint Paul in Galatians 4:4 "When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman." Strange expression, "The fullness of time" We might think it means "When all conditions were right," but it means much more than that. What makes the time full is that Jesus Christ comes into it. Jesus is the eternal Word of God. When He becomes man, eternity enters time. That’s what gives time its fullness, that’s what makes the time perfect, Jesus present in time. He is the fullness of time.

From the moment Jesus takes on flesh, time is part of what God is. Jesus grows in time, from infancy, to childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood. His body ages and matures with the passage of time. In his humanity time becomes a dimension of the Eternal God.

His coming as man is what makes time holy. Time is not just a meaningless progression of moments, or an endless, repetitious, cycle that goes nowhere. Jesus has caught up all time and all ages in himself and redeemed them by his Cross and Resurrection. He is the Lord of Time.

This is why the Pope looks forward to the Third Millennium with such hope. Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior of the World. He is the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. His saving deeds are good for all times, past, present, and future. The Pope sees the year 2000 as the anniversary of Jesus coming, and he sees the Millennium as another thousand years to celebrate Jesus Christ’s presence and Lordship over our world and its times.

The World and time, our world and all times, have been redeemed in Christ and restored to the Father. That’s why the Pope calls the next thousand years "The spring time of the Church." Because all of time is in Christ’s hands. He is the Word, the sentence, the Father has already spoken. His second coming will be nothing more than the period at the end of the sentence. But the Word, the Whole Sentence, is more important to concentrate on than the period at the end. The punctuation mark is important, but it is by no means the whole message.

Most of us here in Church today will see the year 2,000. We belong to the generation that will begin the new millennium. Our deaths will occurs long before the end of the world comes. Our generation will be replaced by that of our children’s children as time and our world continue its journey to God in Christ.

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