It's Not the End of the World

The gospel in question is Mark 13: 1-8.

I majored in Biblical Studies at Wheaton College and graduated with Honors so I guess I may legitimately be called a Bible scholar. But in many ways I consider myself a Bible geek. That is, like an enthusiastic fan of a Sci Fi TV series, or a comic book superhero, or a fantasy movie series, I delight in collecting all kinds of out of the way knowledge about my chosen subject. A fan of all things Batman will be able to tell you from which of all of the different comics the plotlines and characters featured in the movies were drawn. As a James Bond fan I was tickled to see the nods to both the previous movies and the original books in the 50th anniversary film Skyfall. A true geek will also soak up all manner of trivia associated with the creation of the characters and their adaptation to other media. There is nothing about his area of enthusiasm that he is not interested in knowing, even if he feels strongly negative about this book in the series or that director or some plot twist. I'm that way about the Bible and church history.

One of the things I'm interested in, despite myself, is the elaborate eschatology of evangelicals. I'm fascinated by the way some manage to slot every visionary image in the Old and New Testaments into various more or less coherent scenarios and I love it when these are turned into baroque charts and timelines. I like to see how they select which things to take literally and which they choose to recognize as symbolic. (No one, as far as I know, thinks the anti-Christ will actually have the body of a leopard, the feet of a bear, the mouth of a lion, 7 heads and 10 horns, though they often take the lake of fire as a literal reality.)

That said, I don't think the excessive interest that some people invest in teaching and promoting their eschatological interpretations are healthy, either for themselves or for the church generally. In a sense, they are like the first Matrix movie. It essentially turns the life of Christ into a violent action movie and encourages us to cheer the carnage and destruction. And the tone of a lot of the tomes on the end times is a voyeuristic one, lingering over the details of the evil of the beast and his associates and the wrath that will be meted out on evildoers.

But doesn't that come from the Bible? Doesn't the Book of Revelation take an almost pornographic delight in the damnation of the devil and his followers?

Actually the Book of Revelation was written to comfort a persecuted church. The narrative portion begins and ends with several chapters set either in heaven or the new creation, in other words, paradise. Only the middle portion deals with persecution, plagues and punishment. What Revelation was saying to Christians was "Yes, things are bad and they will get worse for a while. But keep trusting God; he will win in the end and make everything right." The symbols were used to disguise the message from the Roman Empire which would have suppressed the book if it understood what it was saying. It wasn't written to revel in evil but to rejoice in redemption and restoration.

Nor was it written to encourage speculation on who was the anti-Christ. In fact, the word anti-Christ never appears in the book. That word only appears in the first 2 letters of John and refers to anyone who denies that Jesus came from God or that he was a flesh and blood person. It has been conflated with the "man of lawlessness" Paul says will precede the Day of the Lord and with the beast in Revelation and made to refer to a specific person.  But the Johannine letters refer to antichrists, who have left the church, and the spirit of the anti-Christ. He is speaking of the open opposition to the gospel that God in Christ lived and died as one of us and rose again, not a specific arch villain and certainly not the son of Satan.

Nor were the various prophesies about the end of the current evil age meant as clues to a secret timetable for figuring out the date of Judgment Day. We have seen those kinds of calculations blow up repeatedly in the face of those who think they've figured out what even Jesus said he didn't know. In our gospel for today, we see Jesus responding to the same questions from his disciples. And his first words are what we need to remember in all of what follows: "Beware that no one leads you astray." Because the chief problem in discussing the last days is getting diverted by non-essentials.

First Jesus warns us against false messiahs and prophets. And we have seen that happen again and again: Jim Jones, Father Divine, Sun Myung Moon, David Koresh, Roch Theriault, Wayne Bent, and Warren Jeffs, to name a few. They put their authority over that of the Bible; they encourage worship of themselves; they foster an "Us vs. Them" mentality towards outsiders; and they eventually exclude themselves from following basic moral rules, especially regarding sex and violence. If only their followers would heed Jesus' advice, these fake messiahs would never rise to become their leaders and manage to do all the damage they have.

Besides avoiding Jesus-wannabes, our Lord assures us that wars and disasters are not signs of the end of the world but just the beginning of birth pangs. Anyone reading the Bible will realize that there were many times when things looked bleak for God's people, where they plausibly could have thought that this was the end, at least for them: when plagues struck, when famine and drought threatened them, when first the Assyrians and later the Babylonians defeated them and took them into exile, destroying Jerusalem and the Temple. The people weren't destroyed, however. And Jesus is saying here, don't jump to conclusions about the world ending just because it is getting to be a scarier place. As a matter of fact, most wars and natural disasters are not signs and divine judgments. There are a lot of wars that took place at the same time as Biblical events that are not mentioned nor characterized as divine punishment.

Furthermore, the reasons given for those events that are specifically called judgments by the prophets were idolatry, not worshipping God in the right spirit and perpetrating or permitting injustice against the poor and defenseless. It is getting our relationships with God and with our fellow human beings wrong that invites God's judgment. In fact, the sins of most famous recipient of judgment are not what you think. According to the prophet Ezekiel, God says, "See here--this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had majesty, abundance of food, and enjoyed carefree ease, but they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and practiced abominable deeds before me." (Ez 16:49) So not sharing their abundance with the needy and being arrogant are the primary reasons for Sodom's condemnation. And lest you think that abominable deeds means just one thing, in Ezekiel 18 it includes the person who "eats pagan sacrifices in the mountains, defiles his neighbor's wife, oppresses the poor and the needy, commits robbery, does not give back what was given in pledge, prays to idols, performs abominable acts, engages in usury and charges interest." Later Ezekiel includes violence. That takes in a lot of stuff that falls outside of what we usually see as a religious offense. But it makes sense because God commanded his people to be just and merciful towards others. 6 of the 10 commandments are about how we treat others, not to mention 1 of the 2 great commandments.

But what does Jesus say? When asked about some people who were killed when a tower fell on them, he refuses to pronounce it a form of judgment. "Do you think they were worse sinners than all the others in Jerusalem? I tell you, no!"

So if we are not to look for new messiahs or interpret every disaster or conflict as an apocalyptic one, what are we to do?

Though our gospel passage ends, Jesus goes on to tell his disciples more. Like to expect persecution and suffering. But you know what: it's not the end of the world. That's something to remember. Just because things are hard, just because life gets painful, that's not the last word. As the young owner in the film "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" says, "Everything will be all right in the end. If it's not all right, then it's not yet the end." (That's a good summary of all apocalyptic literature.) Good Friday wasn't the end of the story. Easter was. Or rather it's just the beginning.

Jesus says when he does return, everyone will see it. And he says no one--not even he at that time in his earthly life--knows when he will return. So we are to stay alert. Jesus compares our situation to that of slaves whose master has gone on a journey. "He left his house and put his slaves in charge, assigning to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to be alert." So what is our work?

To follow Jesus' commands--to love God with everything we have, to love others as Christ loves us, to act with the realization that what we do to others (or fail to do), we do (or fail to do) to Jesus. To spread the gospel to all the world, baptizing and making disciples of Christ. He said nothing about calculating the time, nothing about stocking up on ammo for Armageddon, nothing about a rapture. Jesus just wants us to do what he told us to, to show the world we are his disciples through our love for one another. Because that's what makes us unique. Love. It's what God is. What Jesus embodies. And what this world has too little of. Love. That's what Jesus wants to catch us doing when he gets back. Not fighting each other, not arguing with each other, not persecuting others. He wants to walk in on us showing love for one another, through our thoughts, words and deeds. He wants us demonstrating that what he did for others was not a fluke, not a one-time event, but the beginning of what people led by his Spirit, the people of God, the body of Christ, would continue to do--trusting, forgiving, helping, teaching, nurturing, comforting, listening, repenting, serving, befriending, protecting, liberating, sharing, healing, praying, celebrating, guiding, reconciling, learning, laughing, helping, risking, supporting, thanking, growing, confessing, understanding, empathizing, believing, hoping, giving, enjoying, singing, creating, praising---all the ways we can reflect the faithful, honest, patient, gentle, glorious, redeeming, multifaceted love of our boundless God.