Page 323 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

C H U R C H A N D S O C I E T Y
ranatha—Come, Lord” was not a poetic addition, but the very
breath of the Church.
If we take this seriously, everything changes—especially the
way we understand society. For in the Eucharist, the future
does not simply wait for us; it enters into the present. The
Kingdom is not merely expected; it is anticipated, tasted, and
made present as promise. And this has profound consequenc-
es for human life in the world.
One of the deepest problems of human existence is time
itself. We experience time as fragmented—past, present, and
future. The present seems to vanish as soon as it appears, swal-
lowed by the past, while the future remains uncertain and
distant. This fragmentation is not simply psychological; it is
bound up with the reality of death. The present is emptied
because it is constantly slipping into non-being. The past be-
comes fixed and unchangeable, and the future seems unable
to redeem it.
But in the resurrection of Christ, time itself is healed. Death
is overcome, and with it the fragmentation of existence. In the
Eucharist, this healing becomes experience: the future King-
dom enters the present, and the “now” is filled with life. The
Church remembers not only what has been, but what is to
come. The future becomes the measure of the present.
This changes the way we see one another. If the future be-
longs to God, then no human being is defined finally by his or
her past. The possibility of forgiveness becomes real—not as a
legal act, but as a transformation of identity. A person is no
longer bound by what he has been, but is open to what he may
become. In a society that increasingly records, categorizes,
and fixes human identity, this vision offers a true liberation:
we learn to see each person not as a sum of past actions, but
as a being called into the Kingdom.
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