I remember very well my visit to NYC in the winter of 1973/1974 as a young college student. Of course, at the top of my sight-seeing list was the brand new World Trade Center Tower. I had never been up so high and my ears popped as the elevator seemed to ascend endlessly to the top of the tower. After all the publicity I was tremendously impressed to personally visit these grand icons representing humanity’s zenith of ability to use steel and ingenuity. They stood for world trade, commerce, capitalism at its finest, and making profits and lots of money. I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams that they would ever come down in such shocking tragedy and mayhem within my lifetime. Their tragic fate would simply be inconceivable to me and to everyone else – they represented stability and prosperity more than anything. When they were destroyed in the terrorist attacks of 9/11 we watched them tumble in utter shock and disbelief.
As the disciples of Jesus looked at the great Temple in Jerusalem, they could not help but remark at the grandeur of the place and its certain eternal quality that made its demise inconceivable, much like I considered the World Trade Center when I first saw it. But was the Temple really eternal? In our Gospel lesson today Jesus says it is not – in fact, it would come to an end with not one stone left upon another – which indeed happened in the year 70 AD after the unsuccessful Jewish revolt against Rome. We can only guess at the disciples’ reaction, but it is recorded that they were anxious to know when that would happen.
You know there is always a great deal of emotion in anticipation of “the day”, whether that be a wedding day, the first day of vacation, the opening day of your favorite sport, or beginning a new venture – to name but a few. In such cases, not only is the day enjoyed for itself; it also promises many more wonderful days in the future. On the other hand, there are some days that we approach with fear and dread in our hearts, such as the day we lose a job, or the day a loved one dies – these days thrust us into sadness and we often struggle with them in the darkness.
The Day of the Lord was always a day of anticipation for the people of ancient Israel. Originally it was perceived as a day of fulfillment. It was the moment in history when all of the promises made by God would come to completion, and the people of God would enjoy them forever – promises of peace and prosperity, of contentment and harmony. Many of the prophets looked forward to that day and described it in terms that are reminiscent of the Garden of Eden. Jesus claimed that this long-awaited day was dawning as he inaugurated the reign of God. But the shortcomings and sinfulness of the people required that there first be a period of purging and preparation before that fulfillment could come to pass. For this reason, some of the prophets warned that the Day of the Lord would first be a day of suffering. In fact, they even compared such an event to the pangs that precede birth, a symbol of new life coming out of suffering – the “birth pangs of the messiah” they called it.
Like all the Bible’s depictions of the future, these descriptions are symbolic in nature. Therefore, these readings leave most Episcopalians ill at ease and puzzled and they relegate such messages to fundamentalist televangelists ranting about the end of the world. End of time predictions over the years have constantly had to be revised, whether they originated in televangelists or other sources. Remember all the hype over the Y2K bug that was supposed to crash our infrastructure and bring all commerce and society as we know it to an end leading to chaos and mayhem? Many waited with baited breath when the clock struck 12 on January 1st 2000 – and then… nothing. Now we have the supposed 2012 Mayan doomsday prophecy… and when that passes uneventfully I’m sure there will be another.
But thankfully, such end of time obsession has never been a part of mainstream Anglican thought, rather we acknowledge that we live between times, not focused on the end of time. Indeed, we as a nation may be living with a sense of fear and anxiety. We have seen the devastating effects of hurricanes, terrorist attacks and threats, oil spills, volcanoes, foreign wars, and the worst economy since the Great Depression. We look desperately to make some sense out of these catastrophes, but fear must not lead us to those false prophets Jesus warns us about.
Jesus word to his disciples and to us is that we need only listen to and trust him and him alone. But we, like them, want more – we want to know the exact signs when the Day of Fulfillment will come. But Jesus tells us that the signs of his final coming will be obvious – we don’t have to delve into esoteric or mysterious means to perceive them. We don’t have to read the tea leaves or get out the Ouija boards, or decipher Mayan inscriptions to look for signs when the end is near – he says, “Trust me, you’ll know it when it comes.” We don’t have to act like the little kid on the long road trip who keeps asking every 10 minutes, “Are we there yet?” In a sense, it is always near, and when we get there we’ll know.
The kingdom is near, and we must live like it’s coming with all its fullness soon. We are not so much looking for signs, as we are the signs. We are the signs before the signs. We live the heavenly life here on earth, pointing to God’s good future and final victory. We are the people who have read the Book to the end: we know how the story ends. We know God wins. We don’t wait for the world to change – we can go ahead and be changed now.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment