Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-july-11-2024
Matthew 24:1-14
Signs of the End of the Age
1Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. 2 “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.
9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Some of those who call themselves Christians are fascinated with the subject of the second coming, or the end of days, or whatever they call it. As you might be aware, there are websites that have a “countdown clock” that they claim is counting down to the time when it will happen. (Even though Jesus said it was not given even to him to know the time.)
Lots of people find the idea of the second coming scary, mostly because the account in the Revelation portrays it as a time of great suffering and turmoil. Church historians say interest in the subject took off at the time of the American civil war, because the staggering loss of life seemed biblical in its magnitude.
Of course, as you might know, there are other Christians who look forward to the second coming with eager anticipation. These Christians are convinced that the world is getting more and more sinful. They see sin all around them, and especially sin of a sexual nature. Interestingly, they’re less concerned about sins like greed and materialism and racism and exploitation of the poor. Those Christians who are eager for the second coming are really looking forward to Jesus coming back and destroying all those they consider unrighteous.
But there’s a third category of Christian thinkers – the great English theologian N. T. Wright is one of them – who believe that at his second coming Jesus will come back and put all of creation “to rights,” as he puts it. These Christians look forward to that day, not as revenge on people they disapprove of, but rather as a time of peace and healing and reconciliation, when God’s shalom will be established throughout the universe.
And when it comes to our reading for today, we should remember that some New Testament scholars say that in our passage for today, Jesus wasn’t actually talking about the second coming at all. They say he was talking about the destruction of the temple by the Romans. That would happen about forty years after he ascended to heaven, in 70 AD, after a Jewish revolt. So, these scholars say, on this occasion when the disciples called to his attention the magnificence of the temple, Jesus was actually foretelling its destruction.
So what about what Jesus says in this passage? How is it supposed to inform our lives as his followers?
According to some of our best New Testament scholars, the main thing Jesus was trying to tell his disciples was that there would be turmoil and hardship in the world as they went out to do their ministry. Even though the kingdom of God was in the process of being established, the disciples shouldn’t expect that everything would be peace and light right away.
And it seems to have been especially important to Jesus that his disciples understand that the message of the gospel was so radically different from the world’s prevailing attitudes that it would be threatening to the powers of that world. The apostles were being sent into a sinful and violent world where the powers fight to protect their own interests. It was a dark world where they would represent the first rays of a dawning light.
Jesus says the church would be caught in the middle of the wars between kingdoms and nations, and it would suffer from the same “famines and earthquakes” as the rest of humankind. The church would face dissension in its own ranks. People would drift away. Some would be led by false leaders to turn on one another. It turns out that Jesus had it right – which is pretty much what you would expect from the Messiah, I guess.
Then Jesus says that, “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Some of those who insist that ‘the end is near’ say that missionaries have gone out to all the world now, so the second coming must be about to happen.
Maybe, but I’m not sure that Jesus would consider what the church has been preaching for most of its history to be the gospel he had in mind. There’s been an awful lot of European and American culture stirred into the mix over the centuries. A lot of capitalism and militarism and patriotism and ‘prosperity gospel.’ I suspect the Holy Spirit might still be at work trying to lead us to embrace and proclaim a gospel that’s closer to the one Jesus himself preached – one that’s less about our kind of politics and economics and “traditional values,” and more about the grace of God – about welcoming sinners and eating with them, and about feeding the hungry and healing the sick and welcoming the stranger.
That gospel is still threatening to the powers of this earth, and it’s still greeted with anger and hostility by those who have a vested interest in those powers. Those of us who follow Jesus should probably never expect to see a time when turmoil and persecution will cease in this world. While we’re waiting for our master to come back, we’re challenged to “stand firm” for the gospel that puts the teaching and example of Jesus before any worldly ideology or power – and we’re promised that if we do stand firm, then in the end we will share in the victory of our Master.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for the leadership of Jesus, who honestly described the challenges we face as his followers in this world, and we thank you for the hope we have of life with him in his heavenly kingdom. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
Recent Comments