4 Before Advent (2011) Year A RCL Principal
The End
Is Nigh!
You have to
feel sorry for Harold Campion. Perhaps
you heard his name on the news back in May when on the 21st of May
this chap predicted with absolute certainty that the end of the world was
coming and that the world would be destroyed, the dead would rise from their
graves and the faithful would be raised to heaven by way of the Rapture. When it didn’t happen he quickly revised his
calculations, said his Biblical Mathematics had been wrong and proclaimed with
the same absolute certainty that the end of the world would come on the 21st
of October. Did you notice it? Nor did I?
Though he
has done the same thing twice before this year – proclaiming without a shadow
of doubt that the end of the world would arrive on May 21st 1988 and
September 6th 1994. As the
head of Family Radio, a Christian Media Ministry broadcast all over America,
Camping has now retired from his public ministry and has since been heard to
say that no one does know the day or the hour of the return of Jesus – finally
admitting what Jesus said a long time ago a few verses later than today’s
reading in Matthew 24v34 “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the
angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
These
predictions of the end of the world have provided fodder for both
fundamentalists and comedians over many years!
There used to be rather grey looking individuals that would wander up
and down places like Oxford Street in London wearing sandwich boards or holding
up placards which told us ‘the End of the World is nigh! Or there were folk who
would stand on the streets of Cambridge on a
Saturday or who would proclaim at speaker’s Corner in Hyde
Park ‘Repent, Jesus is coming’.
Maybe they still do, though we don’t hear much of it these days.
Books have
been written with titles like ‘The Late Great Planet Earth’ and ‘Arise and
Reap’ which have told those who have read them that we are living in the end
times, and Jesus is coming back soon.
Well, one day they will be right – the Bible says that Jesus will
someday return and – in the words of Mother Julian of Norwich – ‘All will be well and all manner of
things shall be well’. But those who seem
to fixate on working out exactly how the words of the book of Revelation fit
into the present age seem to be missing the point – how are we living here…
When we
pray in the words Jesus taught us, the one prayer he gave us to say, we say
‘Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ – that’s not
just about the time when Jesus will return and the kingdom will come in all
it’s fullness – it’s also a statement of hope that God will bring His reign to
the earth NOW, and a statement of our willingness to be involved in that. Jesus soon goes on in that prayer to ask that
we know forgiveness and share that forgiveness with others, that we have the
food we need for each day, and that in trials we will stand firm. Any understanding, hope, faith we may have
for heaven coming to earth must be grounded in lives of love and service here
on earth.
Look at
today’s lesson from Matthew Chapter 24, for instance. Jesus says that life will become very
difficult indeed for those who follow him – and hints of needing to endure to
the end, but he doesn’t obsess about what that end will be, he talks about
needing to remain faithful.
Now when
Matthew is writing – we reckon about AD 70 or later – the Church is being torn
apart by persecution, many are abandoning faith, the Jewish people are on going
to be decimated by the Romans and sometime after, or even just before, the
Gospel is written down and made available the Temple in Jerusalem will be
destroyed. Jesus’ words about the
destruction of the temple stand out in the mind of the writer as he is
compiling his writings and stories to make up the Gospel and it’s those words
that open our Bible passage, Mt 24:
1As Jesus came out of the temple and was going away, his
disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 2Then
he asked them, ‘You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone
will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’
Jesus could
see that time would come when the political intrigue that the leaders of Israel were involved in would eventually bring
about chaos and destruction for Israel. And he warns his followers that a time will
come that being faithful to his message will endanger their wellbeing, indeed
even their lives.
But Jesus
has one message: “Stick with it, don’t be distracted” - don’t listen to false prophets, don’t get
caught up in worrying about the end, don’t allow the disloyalty and hatred of
others make you give up. Stand firm in
the face of persecution, live with hope, but don’t live just for the end – as
no one knows when it will come….
Common sense
tells us that to live for something that might happen is a recipe
for disaster. We worry, we fret, we get
nervous, or we constantly look forward without seeing where we are or where we
should be going. Jesus doesn’t want his
followers to be distracted – as he says earlier in Matthew’s Gospel ‘where your
treasure is, there will your hear be also’ or, in other words, what you think
is important will be what you focus on…
I honestly
believe Jesus wants us, his Church, to focus on one thing… and that is summed
up at the end of the Gospel reading we heard just now, in Chapter 24 verse 14
he says:
And this good news of the
kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world…
That’s the
focus we should have in the Church today!
We call it Mission
– and part of that mission is evangelism, sharing the good news of the
kingdom. And it IS Good News –
that amidst the turmoil of this world, even when there are wars and violence,
natural disaster, strife and hatred, even then Jesus is with us. Even in the worst that this world has to
offer Christ offers us his strength, his love, his hope, his faith – through
his Holy Spirit he has promised to be with us, and if we were to go to the very
end of the Gospel we would read Jesus’ parting words to his disciples. Words that we call the Great Commission, when
Jesus instructed his disciples, and through them instructs us, to carry on his
work of making the Good News real in everything we do and we say. In loving God and our neighbour, and learning
to love ourselves as God loves us. In
speaking the truth even in difficult situations, in standing up for what is
right even when it is not the trendy, easy or popular way. In keeping Christ as the absolute centre of
our lives and as the basis of our worship and living.
This is
what we are called to focus on, this is where our heart should be – rather than
winding ourselves and others up about when the end of the world might be coming
or not, and exactly what form it is going to take, we should focus on our
calling as Christ’s people to share this good news, in word and action, in
silence and in service and we should always keep in mind these words which we
call the Great Commission:
Matthew 28.19-20
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and
teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am
with you always, to the end of the age.’
1 comment:
Yes!
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