Posted on 24 May 2011, 22:00

Recent rumours of the end of the world - again - reminded me of a snatch of conversation from my ‘Conversations with Jesus of Nazareth’.

As ever, my words are mine, but more importantly, his words are his.

Like everyone else at the time, Jesus used apocalyptic imagery about the end times. But two things struck me as we spoke. First, he said no one knew when the end would be, except his father in heaven. (A truth that seems to have by-passed a number of pulpits.)

And second, and quite unlike anyone else, he was forever dragging the end times into the present, and indeed into the past, the eternal moment.

Our origins are both our present and our future, he claimed, as this brief dialogue reveals:

S: So tell me teacher, what will be our end?

J: What do you know of the beginning so that you now seek the end?

S: I don’t know. Is the beginning important?

J: Where the beginning is, there the end will be also.

S: You mean we return to where we started?

J: Blessed are those who abide in the beginning, for they will know the end and not taste death. Become as children.

S: You make me think of the circle, teacher, in which each beginning is an ending. Every point in the circle is both a beginning and an end, as is every moment; a taking up and a letting go. If we attend to the present in this way, the end looks after itself.

J: The heavens and earth will roll up before you.

S: Is that so? I understand, of course, that we must use picture language.

J: The living who come from the Living will experience neither fear nor death, for as it is said: the world cannot contain those with self-knowledge.

Conversations With Jesus of Nazareth is published by White Crow Books and is available in Hardback, Paperback, Audiobook, and eBook.

Conversations With Jesus of Nazareth

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