Prepare for the Beginning

In the year 70 C.E. or so Jewish Essenes saw the Temple fall in Jerusalem and predicted the arrival of the Messiah.

In 365 Hilary of Poitiers, a French bishop, predicted the world to end in that year.

In 500 Hippolytus of Rome, Sextus Julius Africanus, and Irenaeus all said the kingdom would arrive and based their prediction on the dimensions of Noah’s Ark.

And then there is prediction after prediction all throughout history of the world coming to an end and, if you were an optimist, God’s kingdom arriving with it.

And some were pretty creative attempts to welcome the kingdom here on earth.

In 1806, Mary Bateman of Leeds, England discovered her chickens were laying eggs with the words “Christ is coming” written on them.

Turns out this was a hoax though.

The chickens were producing normal eggs but Mary would take them and write those words on the shells in a corrosive ink.

She would then place the eggs back under the chicken as if they were undisturbed the whole time.

The Millerites predicted the end of the world beginning April 28, my mother’s birthday as it turns out, 1843.

When that day passed without cataclysm, they then said December 31, 1843 would definitely be the day of Armageddon.

Well, after the Armageddon spent a little too much on champagne ringing in the new year, the Millerites then said the date of October 22, 1844 would be when we’d truly, truly, most definitely and without a doubt, experience the Apocalypse.

Well, one hundred and eighty or so years later, we are still here and the failure of the Millerite prediction coming to pass is now known as the Great Disappointment.

Harold Camping, an evangelical radio host out of Colorado had the Millerites beat.

He predicted the end of the world, incorrectly I might add, four times: September 6, 1994, September 29, which happens to be my father’s birthday, 1994, October 2, 1995, and March 31, 1995.

Not all of this is fun and games, however.

Marshall Applewhite, the leader of the Heaven’s Gate cult, convince his followers that a space ship would be passing earth behind the Hale-Bopp Comet.

In order to rise up into the heavens and hitch a ride on the spaceship, Applewhite directed his followers to take their own lives.

Truly tragic and certainly madness.

And all of this has been proven untrue.

We have not faced an apocalypse, Armageddon is still just a really cool movie from the late nineties starring Bruce Willis, and no space ships have been found trailing comets.

And yet we continue to hear of the end times.

We continue to hear of calamities set to occur at a certain hour on a certain day in a certain month within a certain year.

And this morning we get an allusion to those disastrous times ahead where in Luke’s gospel we read, of signs in the sun and moon and stars that will warn people of what is to occur.

There will be distress and confusion.

People will faint from witnessing all that is happening around them.

All these things will occur and then, and only then, will people witness the Son of Man returning from the heavens.

So, this is what Jesus is saying will happen and some folks will read this passage and associate things going on in our own lives to point and say look.

There is distress amongst nations, this must be the time of Jesus’ return.

Look at what is happening in the world.

Pandemics.

Famine.

Disaster.

Calamity.

These must be the end times.

So, watch out!

Be fearful!

Now is the time, now is the beginning of the end.

Notice though what Jesus is not doing and what he is not saying.

He is not saying that Mercury will be in retrograde on the fifth Sunday of a month when the buds of May begin to bloom and that will be a sign of what is to come is coming.

But he does talk about the fig tree and all of the other trees.

He talks about how we notice the transition from winter to spring, from cold to warm.

We notice and anticipate such things.

But Jesus doesn’t tell us that every fig tree sprouting leaves is proof positive that winter is gone.

There are early frosts and late frosts.

Killing frosts in May that will harm the buds of summer.

It also may have been a dry winter so certain plants will withhold their bloom until they are sated with enough water.

The blooming fig tree is a sign of summer’s arrival, yes, but it is just a sign.

There is far more data out there that causes us to confirm that indeed, Summer shall soon be here.

A tree gathering leaves is evidence of the change in process and not a predictor of something that still may or may not occur.

We notice the buds on trees because the time is right for them to appear.

Yet every season there is a difference in when and how those buds begin to bloom.

And, if you happen to like being outside playing in the dirt like I do, or if it happens to be your profession, or even if you are the observant type, we can learn from those small signs not what is to occur, but what is happening now.

We only need to recognize the environment around us, its pushes and pulls of weather patterns, the fluctuations of dry and wet seasons are governed by mechanics great and small.

And that is what Jesus is saying.

Be aware.

Be aware of what is happening at this moment.

Understand the changes in what appears to be no longer routine.

Be vigilant.

Be on guard.

Do not be weighed down with substances.

So that you will not be caught up in the anger and the vitriol and the upset that will all be evidence of the kingdom returned, stay vigilant so you might notice such things and actively avoid them via the strength of forbearance and rectitude.

No, Jesus’ words are not a prediction of the calamity to come but a recognition that in every generation, there will be anger and injustice.

And those things can lead to even greater anger and even greater injustice if they go unchecked.

In every generation there will be upset and change and if we try to hide from all of that, if we do not address that which ails us, then we will be caught up in a greater strife.

But when we do take note of the changing world, when we do listen to so many voices crying from the wilderness, we see around us what is already occurring.

And we can avoid anger by addressing that which angers the angry.

We can avoid injustice by insisting upon justice from the unjust.

When we are awake and vigilant and alert, we will notice all the signs of a world thirsty for redemption, thirsty for the actions brought about by following the Word.

Do not listen to those who would tell us the end is nigh.

We need not pay attention to doomsayers who see in the signs of summer the ending of all things rather than the continued growing of the crops that will eventually see us through the winter.

Because it is one thing to talk about the end and yet Jesus is talking about staying vigilant and not participating in the things that do not lead us to a new beginning.

You see, Jesus is predicting nothing, instead he is asking us to prepare for the kingdom to arrive and when it does, we will not have been brought down by separation or strife for we prepared by living justly and with kindness to each other.

And still, this is the first Sunday in Advent.

This is the season we prepare for the arrival of a different beginning.

The birth of a child born to Mary and Joseph and God who would change the world.

That is one prediction I am willing to concede: a people reborn through the birth of a child.

God’s son.

Mary’s son.

Our savior.

All this calamity that Jesus talks about and wants us to avoid, we avoid through preparation and staying awake.

And by doing such things we will witness a world made new when we follow and listen to the Word.

When the kingdom returns is anyone’s guess and the promise of that return is the blessing we seek.

There is no sense in listening to false predictions when we have the hope of Christ before us.

So, now we prepare, both for the kingdom and the Christ child.

For the perfect and the good.

For the arrival.

And for the beginning.

Once again.

Amen.