LENT 2016 – GOING TO JERUSALEM
Saturday, March 5
Humankind has always been interested
in predictions. We still are. Sports experts will predict who is going to win
the Stanley Cup or the World Series. The Weather Network recently predicted
what Spring 2016 will be like. Economic forecasters predict the dollar’s rise
or fall or future trends in oil prices or the inflation rate. Pollsters will predict
who is going to win an election. Scientists will predict breakthroughs in
research, medicine and technology. Environmentalists
predict the dire effects of climate change. Sometimes, these predictions turn
out to be right or close enough; but sometimes they will be completely wrong,
too. Either way one has to wait and see.
And some religious folk within Christianity
love to predict the end of the world as we know it. Doomsday to the right of
us. Doomsday to the left of us. We won’t
know what hit us, they say. But it will make Sodom and Gomorrah look like a tea
party. Some of these folk get out their calculators, calendars and decoder
rings to figure exactly when all this is going to take place. For the record, not one of these religious prognosticators
has ever been right yet.
Which isn’t to say that we should become
complacent and lethargic about God’s future. Jesus is saying here that, rather
than wasting time counting up the days, months and years, and screaming that
the end is nigh, instead be watchful, be ready, be prepared and don’t get
caught with your pants down, (well, he didn’t use that phrase, of course).
Even Jesus didn’t know the timetable;
he trusted God’s sense of sacred timing. Instead Jesus was busy living the
kingdom life in the here-and-now. He always approached life as if the Kingdom
had already come near (Matthew 4:17) and was on the doorstep of the world with
new beginnings and new life. Jesus, the Son of Man, represented God’s New
Direction for a broken, sinful world. How what Jesus began would play out into
the future was in God’s hands and heart.
It is abundantly clear that we do no
yet understand or appreciate how unexpected is the work of God in Kingdom building.
It can show up in the least likely times, in the least likely places, and in
the least likely situations among the least likely people. We can be doing
something quite ordinary and routine and God may sweep us up in his Love. Yes,
there are people who don’t see or appreciate God’s presence in their lives and
they do indeed miss out.
But we need to understand Jesus’ admonition
here - always be ready for Jesus when he
shows up unexpectedly. Be open to the incredible, the miraculous, the world-changing
presence of the Creative Hand of God, now, tomorrow and forever.
You just never know, for sure, what
tomorrow will bring!
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