The Last Saving Act

31 December 2025  1 John 2:18-21

New Year’s Eve

“Children, it is the last hour….” (1 John 2:18)

Oh?

That was written about 2000 years ago – one heck of a long last hour.

Over the years many have taken texts like this to refer to the imminent last days – the countdown has begun: “Better get right with Jesus – seconds count!” Others have used these texts to discredit talk of the last days as religious extortion. It seems, however, to be rather more likely that they do refer to the end of something – viz., that there won’t be any more saving acts.

There won’t be any more saving acts. God has already thrown His life around yours. He has given us everything He has, everything He is. At Mass He puts it literally right in our hands. He is not going to make any better offer.

Salvation History is a description of the many acts of God over many eras to create a faithful people prepared for heaven. Abraham was called to the Land of Canaan, “flowing with milk and honey.”

Moses was sent to deliver the people from captivity in Egypt, and form them according to the Law. The Judges and the Prophets guided the people as they settled in the land of Canaan, the Kings were supposed to help the Israelites retain their unique identity among the unbelieving nations (some kings were helpful in this, most not). The Exile was supposed to be a sharp lesson in what happens if the people are careless about their unique identity, and the Restoration was their chance to start over. Finally God decided to come to the people Himself, wrapping Himself in human flesh so that He could wrap His life around humans, and pull us all into heaven that way. The Resurrection is the clearest ever sign of the intensity of God’s intention to populate heaven with us.

But that’s it.

The Resurrection is the last saving act. There won’t be any more.

Now we have to decide if we will embrace God’s saving purpose the way He has embraced us with His own life, or if we will try to wriggle away from it. And at this point we really will have to wriggle away. We are already snagged in bits of God’s net. We live in a culture largely formed by the moral and intellectual outlook of the Church – our legal system contains presuppositions about human rights, protection of the weak and vulnerable, freedom of speech and conscience that are unthinkable apart from the heritage of the Old and New Testaments. The intellectual presuppositions of Christianity have given us universities, modern science, and modern medicine. There would have been no abolition of slavery in America, nor any champions of civil rights apart from the leadership of evangelical Christians. God’s tendrils are already wrapped around our hands and feet such that there is almost noplace where we can go and nothing salutary that we can touch that does not owe its existence to people seeking the glory of God. We can wriggle away from that, but that’s what it will take because God’s net has reached pretty far.

But there won’t be any more saving acts. God has already thrown His life around yours. He has given us everything He has, everything He is. At Mass He puts it literally right in our hands. He is not going to make any better offer.

That’s what the “last hour” means.

Perhaps it is time to take Him up on His offer.