The End is Yet to Come

 

The End is Yet to Come

 

Mark 13:1-8

The end and the coming of the Son 

13:1 As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!"

 

13:2 Then Jesus asked him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down."

 

13:3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately,

 

13:4 "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?"

 

13:5 Then Jesus began to say to them, "Beware that no one leads you astray.

 

13:6 Many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and they will lead many astray.

 

13:7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come.

 

13:8 For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

 

 

The Advent season is almost upon us! Traditionally, Advent—which is the “New Year” of the liturgical year—focuses on the RETURN of Jesus, or what we have come to know as the “Second Coming.” Most of us who “grew up” in the church knew Advent as the “ramp up” to the glorious Christmas season. We weren’t very liturgical, especially when we were just kids with “visions of sugarplums, dancing”—well, you know the rest. Even if our childhood pastors WERE following the liturgical calendar in their preaching, we kids STILL just saw Advent as the countdown to Christmas Eve. We even had those little paper Advent calendars with the tear-open windows that had snippets of scripture and literally counted down to Christmas Day! Nowadays, those calendars are available with daily bits of chocolate for kids OR adults. A few Advents ago, my daughter got her Kentucky husband a bourbon Advent calendar, with each day accompanied by little bottles of well-known Kentucky bourbons. That might get you to the “Second Coming” a little earlier than expected!

 

But yes, Advent in the church year is not only the beginning, but it DOES focus on the “second advent” of Christ’s coming, as evidenced by the Revised Common Lectionary texts chosen. As you will see in the coming weeks, many of the readings are apocalyptic passages. This weekend’s text I chose for this message is of that type, only from the corpus of Jesus’ own teachings. The Gospels have three main chapters that mirror some of the “end times” utterances of Jesus: Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. In today’s passage, Jesus “plays off” of his disciples’ marveling at the massive stones that must have been part of the temple in Jerusalem. In another text, Jesus talks about the temple being “destroyed” and that he will “raise it up on three days.” That same text says that the disciples understood he was talking about his own body. I doubt that, in that these guys weren’t all that perceptive, but the writer wants us to understand that they DID eventually get what he was saying. This weekend’s text from Mark 13 is just a pre-Advent “teaser,” though. The end is yet to come.

 

I experienced my “young adult” years as a kind of rejuvenated Christian, having experienced a faith renewal experience in college. It was an opportune time to be seeking the Lord, as the “Jesus People Revolution” was coming East from Costa Mesa, California, where the Rev. Chuck Smith was leading thousands of young people to Christ at Calvary Chapel there. He became known as the “Jesus People” pastor, and while he was a “fluffy,” balding Four Square Gospel pastor, he had a marvelous way of teaching the Christian faith that connected with young “seekers” on the West Coast. Life Magazine featured a photo of Rev. Smith baptizing hundreds of youth in the Pacific Ocean in its edition chronicling the “hippy Jesus” movement. A bunch of his church’s youthful converts had considerable musical gifts, and formed various contemporary Christian bands that became quite famous, as the movement spread across the country. My friends and I became quite partial to these offerings from Maranatha Music and Calvary Chapel. Names like “Love Song,” the “Second Chapter of Acts,” “Children of the Day,” and songs like “For Those Tears I Died” by Calvary Chapel member, Marsha Stevens, were being played on “Christian radio” all around the country in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 

 

Part of this “Jesus People Revolution” came to be an elevated (and mostly distorted) interest in the “Second Coming” of Jesus Christ. Several of the more widely known evangelical denominations like the Southern Baptists and the Assembly of God went considerably overboard on “teachings” of the Second Coming, and an author by the name of Hal Lindsey penned a runaway best-seller named “The Late, Great Planet Earth” about it. These early, dispensational, teachings from the “Jesus People” evangelical days pretty much sucked up the rest of Christianity and became the “standards” of how people: 1. Viewed and understood the Second Coming of Christ; 2. Came to believe that this would be a literal “second trip” to earth by Jesus, who would call “up” believers into the clouds in what was called “the rapture”; and 3. Came to believe this was all going to transpire almost immediately. Authors like Lindsey even “predicted” that, based on their “modernization” of apocalyptic biblical texts, Jesus was expected to arrive around 1984. He didn’t make it, and much of that era’s “Second Coming” fervor fell out of favor.

 

Wanting to believe that God will revisit Earth and “fix” everything never HAS fell out of favor. It’s been going on for centuries, as have predictions of when it would happen. The Jesus Revolution stuff just put some good tunes to it and made a few Hal Lindseys very rich, not to mention gave rise to Jerry Falwell and his later “Moral Majority.” Our text reminds us that even Jesus’ own, personal disciples wanted to know when the “going down” was going to “get down,” and what “signs” to look for. The signs Jesus mentions in these apocalyptic gospel texts are actually ones that had been passed around Judaism for centuries before Jesus. They were known as “portents” or “birth pangs” of a more sudden and direct “intervention” on God’s part into life on earth. Things like “wars and rumors of wars,” “blood moons,” earthquakes, and the like, were pretty popular religious signs. Why do we have such a “thing” about Jesus coming back? Possibly because Jesus did amazing things during his first visit among us, and if you add in some ginned up interpretation of the mysterious book of Revelation in the Bible—and believe me, Hal Lindsey sure did—then it all becomes a pretty weird movie. The idea, though, that evil gets vanquished, the “bad guys” lose, and God “wins” is enough to get believers excited…very excited, as history shows. Some have even bought into the “Second Coming” concept so thoroughly that they have sold everything they own and moved into encampments on mountaintops or countries closer to Jerusalem, which they believe will be “ground zero” of the whole show. These kinds of manifestations are exactly what Jesus’ teachings about “the end game” are designed to avoid!

 

In this weekend’s text, Jesus warns his “end-of-the-world hungry” disciples to beware. Charlatans will come proclaiming to either “have” the truth or “be” the truth, and would “lead many astray.” Obviously, his words were wise words, and throughout Christian history this has happened numerous times. We’re seeing it today. Not to get political, but one of the negative things about the “Trump” episode is that many Christians have become convinced that he is “God’s man,” sent to rescue and lead us. Since it has worked to get Trump elected at first, and now has at least been partly responsible for HIS second coming, he has not offered a counter narrative to this distortion. No matter what you think about Donald Trump, please don’t be “led astray” as Jesus warned, by these quasi-religious narratives about him. We can debate whether he has been and will be a good President, but there is no doubt that turning him into some sort of “prophet” or “savior” is exactly what Jesus is saying NOT to do, nor to believe others when they advance that story. As we approach Advent, may we propagate a truthful telling of what the Bible does and doesn’t tell us about any Second Coming of Jesus Christ, and not get excited that it is coming soon. Most of us who have spent our life and careers studying the Bible and teaching the faith do NOT believe we are postured at all close to such a cataclysm as the movie version of this event wants to tell, and we point instead to the actual teachings of Jesus, who wants us to work with him to build the peaceable kingdom. And Jesus tells us in the Bible that “no one knows the day nor the hour” of his return, even HIM, so where do we get off trying to predict it, just because we’re seeing more extreme storms or more earthquakes? Interestingly, you rarely hear the “pro Second Coming” prophets talking about “famines,” and it’s probably because we know WE are responsible for people starving to death, certainly not GOD. Global scientists have told us that we have had the means and the technology to feed every human on planet Earth since the mid 1970s. The hold up is human selfishness and hoarding, which leads to a very unequal distribution of food, famine in many lands, and death. Jesus is trying to tell us to get off our “Second Coming” curious duffs and FEED people!

 

There are many Bible scholars and religious leaders who don’t believe in a literal “second coming.” Some believe the Holy Spirit coming at Pentecost WAS the second coming of Christ, in that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus, gifting and empowering the church with the “tools” it needs to spread the gospel, feed, clothe, and shelter the world, and partner with God to bring about the Beloved Community—the Kingdom of God. This does make some sense, in that it was Jesus who said, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age,” and “l will never leave you nor forsake you.” Personally, I DO believe there will be a second coming of Jesus to the earth, but I believe it will come at the “end of the age,” as he said, and it will not be to “fix” things, but to close it down and end the “human era” on the earth. But frankly, I’m OK with however it goes down, because I have my “marching orders” to do ministry, live for Jesus, and love others into the kingdom. Way too many seem bent on doing nothing but waiting for Jesus to come down and fix it all, but this just doesn’t jibe with what the Bible says, in my opinion. It’s more Hollywood than holiness. As Jesus said, the end is yet to come.

 

If you like signs, there are far more signs of things that Christians can do to make this a better world and to be innovative about how to apply Jesus’ teachings to “love God and your neighbor.” If we want to get excited about something, it seems that this is more what Jesus had in mind than standing around waiting for the “trump of God” to blow, signaling some “rapture.” God will be “enraptured” if we take being the caring, loving hands and feet of Jesus in our communities much more seriously and sacrificially. Don’t believe those who say they have all the answers, as they are who Jesus warned us about. We HAVE the answer we need—Jesus and his teachings—and we have the power to put them to work—the Holy Spirit. And we have the team we need to spread the love—the church of Jesus Christ. And a quick word for Interfaith work here: when God DOES bring things to an end on earth, it will obviously affect all people. Why not meet those of other faiths on the common ground of ending human suffering, hunger, and poverty? Our message will make far more impact when our “congregation” isn’t starving to death, or dying of diseases that could have been prevented by decent public policy and a warm, dry place to sleep. 

 

Yes, Dear Ones, the end is yet to come, meaning we have time to partner with the living Jesus to get this stuff done! Several of Jesus’ parables invite the question, “What will the master find when he returns home?” Will we have “invested” the gifts God has given us and multiplied their affects? Or will we have buried them in the ground, waiting fearfully for the Master to return? We have the tools, we have the time, and we have the Great Commission. Let’s get to it before our time is up! Amen.