Timing is everything

Isaiah 65: 17-25; Luke 21: 5-19

Jesus tells of the destruction of the temple, and Luke lived through that reality.  Luke then records Jesus’ prediction of such a monumental event.  However, Jesus was not simply telling us the temple would be destroyed or that it was a sign.  Jesus is making it clear there will be an end, just as there was a beginning; there is an Eschaton just as there is a Genesis.  As in each of the Gospels, Jesus tells us there will be an end time to the world as we know it; when good finally triumphs over evil, forever.  This passage from Isaiah picks up on this as well, by telling us God is creating new heavens and a new earth.  This is exactly what John the Revelator picks up on in his book of Revelation.  Specifically Chapter 21 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’”  This is the true accumulation of John’s Apocalypse (that word simply means Revelation).  John shares his Revelation of the end time, but the point is not to demonstrate when, but rather that there is an Eschaton, in which God triumphs over evil.  Jesus’ own words that make this clear that the end cannot nor should not be predicted.  When Jesus was asked about the coming age, He responded, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!” and, “The time is near!”  Do not go after them.” (Luke 21: 8)  Jesus makes it also clear the end will come to the whole world and to the cosmos, by suggesting there will be wars throughout the world and signs from heaven, but he then  says these “signs” do not determine when either, for “…the end will not follow immediately.”  Jesus is making it clear that while there is an end we are not to try to predict the time, rather we are to endure.  We are not to even prepare our argument as Jesus will protect us, every hair, and provide the words that cannot be questioned.

To explain the church year to people I will grab a piece of yarn (which I did during the sermon) and demonstrate that time is linear.  God created and we know that eventually there will be end of the world, where God will ultimately triumph.  We know that people are born and die (born anew), a beginning and an end with hopefully born again along the line.  We know that football games end (despite the last two minutes lasting longer than any other), television shows begin and end, etc.  We know that time as linear, both as a reality and theologically as discussed above.  However, the church takes this linear time and makes it circular.  Jesus is the beginning and the end (the Alpha and Omega).  We make it a circle by the way we celebrate and worship Jesus through the church year.  See every year we start with Advent, preparing for Emmanuel, God with us.  Then Christmastide becomes epiphany where and we celebrate Jesus’ baptism.  We then prepare for the great mystery of the death and resurrection with Lent, which brings us to the seven weeks of Eastertide (approximately 1/7 of the year, the Sunday of the year) and then we have Pentecost the birthday of the church.  Then onto Kingdom Building period, which much of the scripture is Jesus’ teaching, capping off with Christ the King Sunday.  Then we start it again.  This also what we do each Sunday when we come to the communion table remembering the most important part of our faith.  The death and resurrection of Jesus and this is how we live as Christians.  We live in this circle.  We know that there is an Eschaton, an end that reveals God to the whole new heaven and new earth.  However we simply keep inviting people into this circle of love, for as Jesus tells us, “by your endurance you will gain your souls.”