LENT 2016 – GOING TO JERUSALEM

Monday, February 29

Signs of the End of the Age: Matthew 24: 3 - 14

            Whenever Jesus arrives on the world’s stage, things get tossed upside down, turned inside out, get all wibbly-wobbly. People get shook up. Governments become disoriented.  Life is not the same. Earth is going to be radically different.

            The sign is going to read, “Under New Management”.

            The provocative imagery of much of this chapter fires up our imaginations. Hang on to your hats! The times are a-changing. The world is undergoing a major makeover. You can’t help but notice it. Hug your loved ones. Be ready! Be prepared!

             Maybe the sign reads: “God at work!”

            What I hear and see in this kind of wild, dramatic, evocative language (known as apocalyptic language) is not the message that God is going to destroy the world utterly someday, blowing it to smithereens, but that God is committed to recreating all of Creation, bringing together new heavens and a new, over which Christ will be our sovereign.

            These words point to an “end of an age”, an old, weary, devastated age of injustice, brokenness, suffering, inhumanity and humanity’s failures. Instead, the New Age is a force of liberation, a time for healing, a demonstration of God’s pro-active Love and the concluding times of all that is evil, sinful and death- inducing.
 
            Verses 3 to 6 tell us not to settle for second best.  There are so many false promises, so many con artists, so many liars, so many phoneys, who are out for hearts, minds and souls. But, in time, they only disturb the world with their empty promises and deceptions, and throw the world into conflict and turmoil. There is only one Messiah; one, true God’s Champion, and that is Jesus Christ.

            Some Christians get all tied up in knots with texts like this. Who stays; who gets left behind? Doomsday destruction and mayhem. Heated theological debates about post-millennial or pre-millennial and all the other millennials - (don’t ask). Pointless and needless calculations about when, where and how. Passive living in today’s world. Giving up on today’s world. Waiting for God to put an end to today’s world.

            Jesus speaks of the “beginnings of birth pangs”. He sees God’s hand working in the present for the healthy benefit of the future. The seeds of this change were planted with Jesus, and we are called today, right now, to nurture the tender shoots of his reign of Love and Righteousness, for the present and the future.

            Perhaps the sign could read: “Help wanted!”