Advent 1 – 2023
Mark 13:24-37
The End of All Things
The end of all things! That has been the topic for the final weeks of the church year this past month, and look, once again it is the topic at its new beginning in the season of Advent. For the end is already present in the beginning.
The end of all things! The expression has a double meaning. Our word, end, is used in two ways. We use the word, end, to say, ‘It’s over, it’s done, it’s finished’ – like when time runs out on the clock, the ref blows the whistle, the game has ended. But we also use the word, end, a little less commonly to say: ‘Here’s the point, the goal, the purpose’ – like when we say, ‘The end does not justify the means.’ You can have good goal, say, winning the war on terrorism, but that does not justify any means of winning, say, like using terrorist tactics in turn. So the word, end, has a double meaning: the finish of things and the goal of things. This is also true of the Greek word, eschatos, found in the Bible, from which the theological word, eschatology, comes, meaning the doctrine of the end of all things. When Jesus speaks of the last things in Mark 13, he speaks both about the finish of history and the goal of history. Because we believe in God, we don’t think either the beginning or the end of things is an accident. God created the world with a purpose and when that purpose is achieved, we have come to the end of all things. So the end is already present in the beginning.
People are fascinated by the last things. Notoriously, some ransack the Bible looking for clues about the day and the hour, expressing disobeying the word of Jesus that we have heard today: But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. The timing is not part of the revelation of Jesus Christ. We are meant to be ignorant of the day and hour, so that we live everyday ready for the end of all things. From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. But doesn’t that sound like timing? Knowing the signs of the times? Here’s the difference: the cosmos may not yet be finished but your little world within it might. In fact this 13th chapter of Mark was originally composed to interpret the coming doom of Jerusalem as the Roman legions approached, advising the Christian community there to flee to the hills. Discourse put this foreboding historical event into the larger framework of God’s purposes. Likewise so are we to do. The cosmos may not be finished, but are little worlds within it might.
The truth, then, is that not only is there the Big End, but until and up to that cosmic big End of all things, we experience in history and in our little lives such endings, Christians are to understand these as dress rehearsals so to speak – not the end of time but the time of the End breaking in upon us. The death and resurrection of the cosmos at the big End is prefigured in our little experiences of trial, testing, loss, grief, when our own little worlds come crashing down. Christians need to know how to read such ‘signs of the times,’ lest they despair and think that even God has lost control of things, so that they persevere in adversity. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Christians live between the first and second comings of Christ, having the promise that the end of all things is in His almighty hands, living now by faith and not sight, trusting, praying, working their own little worlds into the goal of God. Therefore, keep awake-- for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.
In other words, if you are not prepared today, you will never be prepared. I remember when my mother was suddenly stricken and lay dying. I remember praying, ‘Lord, I am not ready for this!’ As painful as losing her was to me, however, I was by the grace of God prepared for this little end of my own little world – just as all faithful Christians are. For believers know that life is a gift, that life can never be taken for granted, that God entrusts us with our time that we may spend it wisely not foolishly, that we live alert and awake to God, ready every day to render an account. Every time of trial and tribulation is for us but a dress rehearsal of that great Day of God, the end of all things – if only today and ever day we live alert and awake to God whose kingdom comes, knowing that whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.
We can live this way because of the word and promise of Jesus: Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake! See, what he said to Peter, James and John, he also says to us today. If that were not bold enough, however, he says that his own words endure forever. What an astonishing contrast. All that we take for granted as fixed and immovable, the sun and stars and moon and earth, the very cosmos, right down to our own little worlds, has had its beginning at God’s command; having served its purpose, so too at God’s command, all comes to completion in the consummation of all things. But the human words of Jesus, uttered in a breath and evaporated into the air, in one ear and out the other, nevertheless outlive the cosmos.
Careless readers think that Jesus in our text admits ignorance of God’s timing and thus makes himself inferior to the Father. But they should read on a little longer to see that Jesus speaks of his human words as divine and eternal words. . Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. And this is why we have peace that passes all understanding, in life and in death, good times and bad and indeed, best of all, nothing to fear on that great Day of God, the end of all things. We may not know how things finish, but we do know that the Father of the Son Jesus Christ works all things for good to them who love Him, that the goal of God in our own little lives and indeed with all the cosmos, is the creation of Beloved Community, a fellowship of love divine, and that we are by grace included in this – and even taste it already now, amid trials and testings, by faith. Revealed in the eternal words of Jesus Christ is the goal of God: beloved community.
For when we see 'the Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory... he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. To gather God’s people forever – that is the end of all things, the goal, the purpose, the point of God’s creation from the very beginning! St Paul called it the Body of Christ, knit together in the Spirit’s love under Jesus its Head. St John in the Revelation sees the peoples of many families, tribes, and nations streaming into the New Jerusalem. St Augustine called it the City or Society of God, immensely diverse and variegated in its peoples of every age and race and epoch of history, yet united by a common love for God above all and all things in and under God. Martin Luther spoke of God’s people baked together in one loaf, ‘a little holy flock or community of pure saints under one Head, Christ.’ Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke in the words from the Apostles’ Creed concerning the communion of saints/communion in holy things, both their sharing in the holy things of the Eucharist and their sharing of life together now and forever. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke in the same Christian tradition of God’s Beloved Community, where people would not longer be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Now we still live tangled up with what God does not choose, but what sinful humanity chooses with its wars and rumors of war. But we persevere as those who in faith know the end of all things. For the present, this is life is becoming not being, labor not rest, the journey not the destination. The City of God is the goal, to which in its fullness and glory and final victory we have not yet arrived. But we are on the way, thanks be to God, to His end of all things! And even if we stumble and fall on the way, even though scattered and oppressed, at the end of all things we await the Lord who gathers us to Himself forever, to whom be all glory now and forever. Amen.