Sometimes,
I have a hard time believing that any
disciple – after following Jesus around while he overturned temple tables and
preached against the rich and famous – would say “Look, Teacher, what large
stones! and such large buildings!”
like a child taken into the big city for the first time on a field-trip
. . . teacher, teacher, look at that big building . . . or a tourist at
Mount Rushmore – look at the size of that Schnozz on Washington . . . or
“Master, what big buildings they have!,” but Jesus doesn’t say “the better to serve the people with,
my dears” or “the better to sacrifice pigeons with, my pretties” . . .
he says “You like those great big buildings? You like that huge treasury, that ‘holiest
of holies’ in there, that vast Temple Mount?
Well, better like ‘em while you can, ‘cause not one stone is gonna be
left upon another; all will be thrown down.” And notice he doesn’t say that God’s
gonna do it, either, he doesn’t tell us who or when, just that its gonna
happen . . .
And
sure enough, forty years after our episode, the Romans took Jerusalem and
crushed the Israelite rebellion, and they burnt the city and razed the temple
to the ground. Kaput. End of story.
And to this day, nobody’s rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem, and in fact,
at the present time, the Moslem Dome of the Rock sits right smack dab on its
spot, right there on Herod’s Mount.
This, of course, has given end-time predictors fits, because how
could the temple be destroyed in the final days if it was already
obliterated 2000 years ago? And
so what they do is, they predict the rebuilding of the Temple, so they
can prophesy its final destruction . . . and as our Jewish friends might
say . . . “Oy!” So let’s get this
straight right from the start: Jesus is talking specifically about the
Roman destruction during the Hebrew revolt, which occurred in the year 70
A.D. What else he’s talking
about, we can only speculate.
Mark,
writing at about the same time as the revolt – at about 65 or 70 A.D. – may
have had a pretty good idea of what was coming down, or already knew about it,
and so it must’ve seemed pretty cool to him and his readers, his little band of
early-day Christians, that Jesus did in fact predict the present situation, the
current hard times . . . it must have helped confirm in their minds his
identity, that he was truly Son of God.
But it must have done something else, as well, it must have been
comforting in a way, that the one they worship, the one they call Lord knew all
about their problems, their situation, that he was somehow there with
them, that even though his words were in the chronological past, they
spoke to them in the present crisis. And
that because he had predicted it, had
known all about it, that somehow it was all part of a plan, that God was still
somehow in charge.
But
for the disciples at the time he said
it – remember our old tri-focal Gospel reading glasses – for the disciples at
the time, it was a sharp object lesson, or the punctuation thereof . . .
remember the widows mite? Where Jesus
points out that the rich – who give from their surplus – were not as faithful
as the widow, who gives her all?
Remember? Well, this follows
directly on its heels, Jesus admonishes them about the idle rich, they walk out
of the Temple, and the disciples prove they’re still in awe of all the
power by acting like a bunch of country bumpkins. And Jesus’ response was that these stones are
to no avail, because they will not remain standing. All the things of the
world, all the riches, all the apparatus of the rich and famous, all are to no
purpose, they will all pass away.
And
so they left the temple and the city itself – probably through the Golden Gate,
through the Eastern wall – and climbed up the Mount of Olives, past the garden,
past Gethsemene, and sat there among the olive trees, peering out at the great
Temple Mount, directly across the Kidron Valley. They sat watching the people, moving about
like ants on its platform . . . and there was a great symbolic divide between
Jesus and all the religious apparatus, a great chasm . . . from here the Temple
indeed looked puny, it looked human-scaled compared to God’s mountain
glory. And as they sat there, four of
the disciples asked him in private “Tell us when all this is gonna come down,
what will be the sign that all this is about to happen?” And two of these disciples – the Zebedee
brothers, James and John – were the same ones who asked – also in private – to
be first in the Kingdom, so I can’t help but think there might be more behind
it than a simple thirst for knowledge . . . maybe they wanted to know when to
cash in their stocks and bonds, maybe they were looking for a little insider-advantage-action
like ol’ Martha Stewart, or maybe they were gonna write a book, “The Late,
Great City Jerusalem,” or something, make a bundle on subsidiary rights, but if
they were, Jesus doesn’t make it easy for them . . . “Beware that no one
leads you astray,” he says. “Many will come in my name and say ‘I am he!’ and
they’ll lead many astray.” They’ll write
books claiming to know when the time is, they’ll have you squirrel away food,
lead you up into the mountains, they’ll go on television and ask for monthly
contributions . . . but don’t be afraid, don’t panic . . . even if you hear of
wars and rumors of wars, the end is still to come . . .
The
end is still to come, Jesus says, these aren’t signs of the end times,
they’re yet to come! Nation will
rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes and famines . . .
these things are just the beginnings of the birth pangs . . . and in every age,
whenever things get a little dicey on the world stage, certain Christians get
caught up in apocalypse fever . . . wars and rumors of wars! Nation against nation! Earthquakes and famines and revolutions, oh
my! And every time, the world doesn’t
come to an end, Jesus doesn’t return, and the kingdom doesn’t get fully
realized here on planet Earth.
Jesus
was talking about specific times, the revolt and all the turmoil that
surrounded it, but it applies to almost any time you can think of . . . nations
are always at one another’s throats, earthquakes are part of life,
particularly in earthquake-prone areas, and there is always a famine somewhere,
but these are all just the beginnings of the birth pangs, the start of the
coming of the kingdom of God.
Let’s
look at this metaphor of “birth pangs” a little more . . . as any of you females
out there who’ve experienced it know – and us males can only imagine –
contractions come in waves. They’re
periods of intense pain and struggle – and between them relative calm – as the
time of delivery draws closer. Each contraction may seem like the end, but
there are often many hours – or even days! – of labor ahead, and the time
varies with every birth. It’s unpredictable in its onset and unpredictable in
length once onset begins. Thus, labor is
a particularly apt analogy for the upheavals that will transform the earth into
fully the new creation . . . the birth of the New Earth – AKA the Kingdom of God – will come upon us,
Jesus is saying, like birth of a child, and who can predict that?
And
so we in the church should be especially suspicious of anyone claiming the
ability to predict the end times . . . many will come in Christ’s name saying
“I am he” – as in I am the one who knows these things – and we should be
suspicious of their motives, not just their accuracy – many a person has made a
tidy sum selling apocalyptically-toned hokum, from Hal Lindsay to John Hagee to
Tim LaHaye. Jesus’ did predict that, and it was right on the money.
But
what’s the problem, you might ask? What
if a few Christians do make a few bucks?
What’s the harm if we enjoy sifting through end-times puzzles, whiling
away an afternoon or two reading speculation about the meaning of
Revelations? Nothing, on the face of it
. . . although I think most of it’s pretty bad theology . . . but think of all
the millions of dollars spent, think of all the emotional and physical energy used
up, all the flat-out time spent on it, when Jesus clearly says – in more
than one place – that we aren’t to know?
Now think of all the people we could feed, all the Bibles we could
distribute, all the blind and lame we could heal with this time and money. Jesus clearly defined the mission of the
church, and he didn’t include figuring out who the bear in Revelation is or
who the Anti-Christ was or is or will be.
Worrying
about the future damages the mission and the body of Christ, it impedes
it, slows it down . . . why do you think Jesus told us to consider the lilies of
the field? Why do you think he sent his
disciples out, without a bit of money or scrap of bread? Why did Paul counsel the same thing? If our minds and our resources are fixated
on the future, then they can’t be on discipleship, they can’t be on mission,
it’s as simple as that.
Now
does that mean we’re not supposed to plan for the future, that we’re not
supposed to look toward it at all?
Of course not . . . but it’s a matter of balance, and that’s not
something we do well, sometimes. We all
know folks so worried about their retirement incomes, so worried about a
possible terrorist attack, or something, that they spend all
their time thinking about it, planning for it, and have no time or energy to
enjoy, to cherish, to live for today, in the here and now. And that’s how it is with living the
Christian life . . . if we worry about signs of the end, if we worry about
portents and omens and things in the sky, our attention isn’t where it’s
supposed to be, right here on Earth, on today and our mission, which is to
proclaim the Gospel in thought, word, and deed.
And
you know, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to apply this to our own
situation, in little ol’ Greenhills Community Church, Presbyterian. Attendance has been a little . . . thin . . .
in recent months, we’ve lost some members to death and other stuff, and so some
of us are a little worried, a little concerned . . . and that’s natural, you
know? It’s normal to be a bit uneasy
when our beloved church seems threatened, and we don’t know what to do. But you know, Jesus says we’re not allowed to
dwell on it, we’re not allowed to let it paralyze us, to compromise the mission
of God in this place.
Which
is why I’m happy to report that we’re not doing that . . . Through our
participation in Transformation 2.0 we are learning to look for where God is
working in our neighborhood. Through our
Coffee For a Cause events, we are introducing our church, extending our hospitality to a new group of people,
forty or fifty at a time. And through
the Christmas Bazaar, happening right now, we’re extending that hospitality to
even more people, and making a little
change to further the kingdom to boot.
Notice
what’s going on here . . . we’re doing evangelism, plain and simple. By inviting our friends and associates and
acquaintances to share with us, by extending our hospitality, we are doing the
mission of the church! We’re proclaiming
the gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Instead of panicking, instead of spending our time fretting over what
might be, we are responding just as we should – by practicing the mission of
God. And because of that, I think I can
safely say rumors of our demise are greatly exaggerated! Amen.
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