Hmmm.  Is the end of age your death?  I suppose that one way to look at it is that your death is the end of your ageing.  Once you die you won’t get any older.  But that is just humor.  And bad humor at that.

So let’s start here; what is the end of the age?  Or better what is the age?  Jesus inaugurated the current age.  An age is a period of time of unknown duration.  The current age, which has been running for two thousand years, runs from Christ’s birth to the Last Day.  Judgment Day.  When will that be?  We don’t know.  But we are told to anticipate that it is just around the corner.  The purpose of the age is the reconciliation of the world.  That is the coming together of the world with each other and with God.  It involves Repentance, Reform, Recovery, and Reconciliation.  I have to ask, how well do you think we are doing?  Are we behaving more like reconciled brothers and sisters?  I think the evidence points the other way.

The question, as it is stated seems to me to be way too centered on the self, on each of us individually.  The end result of Judgment Day will be the sorting out of the sheep and the goats, and that part is very individual, but the purpose is very communal; Judgment day will be the selection of those who will enter into partnership with the Holy Trinity to share in the ruling of the Kingdom of heaven.  Did you know that you were being prepared to rule in Heaven?  To quote the Bible “we are joint Heirs with Christ.”  To go along with the previous question, So how are you doing getting prepared to be Kind, and Just, and Generous, and Pure, and Wise, and Understanding, and everything else that makes human beings “Christ-like?”  It is a little embarrassing, isn’t it?

So, what exactly is “your death” if it isn’t the end of the age?  To try to look at it from God’s perspective, that is from the viewpoint of eternity.  Your death is actually nothing.  It is your graduation from this life.  It is the point that you are removed from your time of trial in order to begin an eternity of Real Life.  Kinda like graduation from kindergarten.  It is the time when people who know you make a big deal about you even though you have actually accomplished nothing, leave nothing behind you, and makes you wonder what the big deal is.

Does that attitude surprise you?  That this life is nothing?  Actually this life is something.  From the lips of a crusty, sarcastic old Priest, this life offers us the ability to gather an amazing collection of embarrassments that we can draw upon from now on through eternity as object lessons in repentance.  I am sure that by now I have accumulated much history that will ensure that I can mull over my flaws and fallacies at leisure in the hereafter.  I have learned that I am good at nothing and bad at everything.  I have much to learn and much to repent of, and that is an excellent start if I am to actually have communion with the Almighty in Heaven.

If God is to be my Father, and Christ my brother, if I am to Rule in Heaven along with many of you, then I am going to need those traits: Kindness, Justice, Generosity, Purity and Wisdom.  I am going to need to know myself in Truth so that I can look with kindness on all of those with whom I share that throne.  Because we are all sinners, I need to know myself as a sinner, a most miserable man.  Here in this life, I have made myself so, always seeking to justify my behavior and yet seldom reforming my behavior.  The end of the age will reveal me for who I truly am and that I cannot tell right now, but that is God’s problem not mine.  Like that kindergartener at graduation, I know nothing, and have accomplished nothing, but I represent potential, the potential to add to the fury of the lake of fire, or to enter in to the throne of the Kingdom.  The end of the Age will reveal my true character and yours as well.

And the beauty of the whole situation is that, so little depends on our moral character and so much depends on the character of God that I rest easy.  My trust is in the Lord.  My refuge is in God my savior.