20200611_135952

Read Mark 13:1-37

As I type this, the USA leads the world in total deaths due to the Novel Coronavirus, Covid-19.  The virus having erupted all over the world since last fall has led to a nearly world-wide shutdown, killed nearly a half-million people world-wide, and as restrictions are lifting throughout the states is surging once again.

Many Christians will be quick to add this pandemic to an ever growing list of proofs that we are in the end times and that the return of Christ is imminent.  I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there are some erstwhile Christians who are missing car payments right now because they figure rapture will make their indebtedness moot.

Anyone looking for signs of the end times, just this year, could add to their list of proofs any article they want about climate change and its effect on agriculture, race riots in countless US cities, the future world of hyper-sonic missile attacks, murder hornets, election year commentary about US politics (the Left: Trump revealed as Antichrist; the Right: Trump to usher in last days), and my own personal sign of the Apocalypse, peanut butter flavored Whiskey!

Scholars refer to the 13th chapter of Mark as the “little apocalypse”.   Apocalypse means uncover, or to pull back the curtain.   Apocalypse means to reveal.  Now you know how Revelation got its name.  Notice I said scholars call it the little apocalypse.  Jesus doesn’t call it that he is just making chit chat as he leaves the Temple with his disciples. That is a little glib on my part.  The bulk of Chapter 13 consists of Jesus sharing with Peter, James, John, and Andrew the answer to their question of “what will be the sign when all these things are going to be fulfilled.”

I admit that I am always a little glib about end of times conversations, because they so often miss the point because the people asking the questions and the people giving the answers almost always have agendas.  All concerned, in my experience, miss the forest of the Kingdom of God as they look for each individual tree.

In just my life time, which daily isn’t as short as it once was, there have already been countless predictions of the end of the World.  Some of the predictions have come from extremist cults like those poor folks who committed suicide expecting to wake up on the Hale Bop Comet in the late 1990s, some from  religious teachers like Hal Lindsay (Late Great Planet Earth) and Jerry Falwell predicting with specifics, still more from novelists like (LaHaye and Jenkins) who bought into the Y2K worries and extrapolated the effect it would have on the arrival of the Anti-Christ, and even those who were convinced that somehow the fact that the Mayan Calendar only worked in 12 year cycles meant that it would all end for us in 2012.  Wikipedia, conveniently, maintains a list of such predictions in one of its articles.  The list can be found here.

I am reminded of the wit of one of my seminary professors who posted on Facebook several years ago following the coming and going of one of these predicted dates for the Second Coming of Christ: the mistake that all of these guys make is assuming that God uses base 10 math!  Ha! Priceless.  Of course, we are told in 2 Peter that 1 day is like a 1000 years to God meaning I suppose the corollary is also true (although geometric theory has never been a strong suit for me) that a 1000 years is like 1 day.  With that in mind, everybody needs to chill out because Jesus has only been “gone” for a little over 2 days.  Can’t a God get any rest?

And allow me for a second to cast a little shade on James and John asking Jesus these questions.  These are the same 2 disciples who wanted to be seated at the left and right hand of Jesus when he inaugurates the Kingdom of God; so, I have a hard time thinking that they have given up that desire when they start asking what signs will show them that the whole shebang is underway.

But Christ is returning, some day, that is a certainty, although even He is unaware (vs 32) of when that day comes!  So, what are we to do? What can we know?  How are we to engage with this prophetic material about the Kingdom of God whether it is here in a gospel, one of the New Testament letters, or Old Testament prophets?  Roll of your sleeves with me for a moment and rush in like the fools we all are.  I respectfully submit 3 principles and a Jesus given truth to help us better understand the End of Days, alleviate some of our anxieties, and show us how to live.

The End of the World is inseparable from the Kingdom of God.  At the end of times, Jesus will return and initiate the reign of God on the Earth.  This is the New Jerusalem of Revelation, the “every knee bowing and tongue confessing”of Philippians, and what the Apostles’ Creed refers to with “thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.”

And yet, the Kingdom of God is the reign of God and the presence of God in the world.  Recall the first words of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark: “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is now”.

The Kingdom of God is then, now, and on-going.  Yes, at the end, the Kingdom of God will be seen in its fullest expression when Christ returns and the reign of God (the eternal renewal and reunion of God and His Creation) exists in its entirety; but, it is also right now every where in the world, even the universe, that the Spirit of God is present.  So, even though the Kingdom comes, according to Jesus it was present with him, then, and it is present eternally in every believer today and all that will follow.  True faith is having eyes to see and hearts to accept the Kingdom in the now, not just in the future, or the past. So, the Kingdom is always then and just now! 

If both of the preceding is true, then the Kingdom of God is wherever Jesus is.  The Kingdom is most certainly amidst the heavenly hosts as John the Revelator sees the lamb sitting on the Throne.  The Kingdom is also in the New Jerusalem described at the end of the Revelation where the Tree of Life is planted and the nations are healed from its fruit all-year round.  The Kingdom is also present when Jesus preaches the gospel declaring the need to repent because it is “at hand” and in the home of Zaccheus when Jesus comes for lunch and declares that “today, salvation has come to this house!”.  All that is most certainly true, but if the Kingdom of God is where ever Jesus is then it is also wherever two or more are gathered in His name as He promised He would be also.  Not only there, but also in the hearts of every believer who has been born again by the power of the Holy Spirit.  The Kingdom of God is everywhere and just there!

{hint: the bolded statements are the 3 principles}

So, how are we to live then?  Well for one thing, if you are a believer, then you should live as though the Kingdom of God is now, because it is, and hope for the future return of Christ and the Kingdom, because it is that, too!

To do this, let me suggest that we not spend a lot of time worrying about every little earthquake, war, pandemic, stock market crash, wrong candidate elected, stubbed toe, and lost parking space as a potential sign of the imminent return of Jesus.  Remember, we don’t know the when which means looking for it we will never find it. Since we have no way of knowing when Jesus suggests that we be alert! (vs 37) This does mean to be looking for it so much as to be doing the right things when it happens.  The parable that he tells says that it is like a man who goes on a journey and leaves his servants in charge assigning to each one his task.

Perhaps, each of us, daily, have a charge from the Lord to have eyes to see his Spirit at work around us, so we can join in and get to work doing our assigned tasks.  The charge, is deceptively simple and wicked hard all at once: Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

When we spend time worrying about the when we become “clock watchers” and miss the assigned God-work; opportunities we have to love and share and be blessed while blessing others.  Given that I do know this, the delay of Christ’s return (if that is even a thing) is the ongoing expression of the mercy of God.

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