When Kris became pregnant with our oldest child Naomi, we,
well I, didn’t know what to expect when we were expecting or the great amount
of pain and upheaval that occurs round a baby being born. It was a nine month
process of getting ready, getting all this stuff we needed, pre-natal classes
horrible videos of labour and birthing, and learning stuff that we needed to
know so the baby could live and prosper. So we would be ready for Naomi.
But I don’t think as a bloke you are ever ready… for example
I found out about Braxton hicks or false labour pains, when Kris had stopped
work at eight months pregnant and on my day off we went out to Piha about 40
minutes outside of Auckland over a winding road through the Waitakere rangers.
I went out for a surf, and left Kris to lie on the sand reading a book. Kris’
mother was with us so I hadn’t left her all alone. After about an hour I looked
landwards and there was Kris’ mum standing at the end of the ditch, a series of
rocks at the end of the south Piha frantically waving and signalling me in.
Kris was having labour pains. Were we going to drive the long trip into
Auckland hospital or were we going to have a baby along the scenic drive, or
did we need to get the rescue helicopter to come? Fortunately it was a false
alarm and the contractions stopped. I didn’t go back out into the water however
and it was the last trip out to the Wild West coast before the baby was born…
About four weeks later and a couple of weeks after the due
date, it happened for real and we went through a harrowing forty hour process
of labour. I wasn’t ready for that. A long drive to the hospital stopping every
five minutes for a contraction. We went through a sleepless night and day with
all this pain and nothing much happening. An assessment by the leading
gynaecologist who decided that it would have to be a caesarean section. Rushing
to the operating theatre at 11pm and I went through the trauma of seeing Kris
be opened up. Then Naomi appeared. They held her up for Kris to see and said,
“see what you’ve got” and of course she couldn’t because they’d taken her
glasses away. I had to tell her it’s a girl. I got to hold Naomi for the first
half hour of her life outside the womb as they sowed Kris up. Looking at Naomi
my world changed forever for the good.
Birth pains that process of a child being born is the metaphor
that Jesus uses to answer his disciples question about the destruction of the
temple, the Parousia or revealing of Jesus as king and the end of the age.
Three things which we often think of as separate but to Jesus disciples would
have seen as the same thing, the same event. Jesus talks of all the trouble and
sorrow that was to come would be like the process of giving birth painful and
traumatic, but it would all be worth it when the kingdom came in its fullness.
The passage we are looking at is the beginning of what is
known as the Olivet discourse where Jesus talks about the future with his
disciples and tells them in a series of four parables what it means to follow
him and wait for his kingdom to come in its fullness. Many people have focused
on this first section of the discourse that we are looking at this week and
next and have, focused on the events or the last things that are to happen.
Along with other sections of scripture like Revelations it has become a
playground for idle speculation and elaborate timetables and systems of what
will happen before Christ returns and when.
The focus however and what we are going to focus on between know and
Christmas, advent… is Jesus instructions to his disciples on how to wait. Not a
passive sitting and waiting for a train out of here our eyes fixed on the
timetable kind of thing, but a living out that much awaited kingdom now, in and
through our lives.
Last week we saw Jesus finishing his time with the scribes
and Pharisees with a scathing series of woes, challenging them about the
blindness and hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees. Then he leaves the
temple. On the way out the disciples point out the wonder of the place. The
temple had just been refurbished and restored under king Herod. And Jesus tells
his disciples that the temple will be destroyed and not one stone will be left
standing. They are shocked as Jewish people they would equate that with God’s
judgment, like back when Jerusalem had been destroyed by king Nebuchadnezzar in
532 BC and God had taken the people into exile in Babylon. Maybe we get a
little of their confusion, if we think what it may have been like touring New
York city before September 11 2001 and seeing the grandeur of the world trade
towers and being told these tributes to human engineering and commerce would end up being just a pile
of rubble in matter of a few hours.
So as Jesus is sitting on the Mount of Olives on their trip
back to where they were staying. They ask him about what he means. What will be
the signs of this event happening and when. They would see it as the start of
Jesus reign as king, the word Parousia used here was used in common language to
talk of a king coming to a city, a royal visit. They saw this even being the
end of the age. The end of Jewish life as they had known it, for over a
millennia focused and built round the temple.
Jesus warns them that many false messiahs will come, people
with answers and solutions, saying they come from God. It is something he
repeats in three different sections of this passage. That there will be
earthquakes and famine, rumours of war and unrest as nations rise up against
each other. He says that the disciples will find themselves being persecuted
and put to death. That many will turn away because of false prophets. That the
kingdom will be preached to the whole world before the end comes. He then speaks of the ‘abomination that
causes desolation’ from the book of Daniel. That pagan symbols and objects of
worship would be put in the temple. That there will be a time of great dismay
and uproar that he encourages his people to flee from. Then we have what seem to be things happening
on a cosmic scale, with signs in the sky, the sun being darkened the stars
falling to earth and the heavenly bodies being shaken, a prophecy from the book
of Isaiah, which can be taken literally or seen as a metaphor for disruption of
the world order on a large scale.
Jesus speaks of the coming of the kingdom being an event
that will not be hidden as was now, but that the whole world would know who
Jesus is. It would be revealed like lightning flashes. He finishes by telling
them that they are to look for the signs. Just like when the fig tree starts to
sprout leaves and blossoms people know that summer is near. We have a fig tree
in our garden and it is quite amazing one week it seems to be dead and have no
leaves, and then boom it is sprouting leaves and starting to look alive. Of
course many people see the fig tree as a metaphor and symbol for Israel, so
with the reestablishment of Israel in 1948 there was a great expectation that
we were about to see Christ’s return. It sparked a whole industry around
that. The section then finishes with
Jesus saying that all this will happen before the generation alive then dies.
The way we understand this passage can really be split into
two main streams of thought. AS a photographer I really appreciate Matt Woodly
sums it up as being through a close up lens and a wide angle lens.
The close up lens says that all these things are fulfilled
with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the romans in 70ad. We know
about earthquakes and famine in those times, part of Paul’s later missionary
trip was to gather funds to help the church in Jerusalem and Judea as they
struggled with a famine. There were wars and rumours of war. The apostles
suffered persecution and death. Revolts in Judea itself which lead the romans
to act, ruthlessly putting down that revolt and bringing their legion standards
dedicated to various roman deities into the temple. Taking the temple down
stone by stone, as they had burned it and the gold of the temple had flowed
down between the stones and they had to be pushed over to extract it. Even the
gospel being preached to all the world could be seen to be true. At Pentecost
all the languages of the roman world were present. The Roman Empire was seen as
the extent of the world, and we have the gospels spread even to the heart of
the Roman Empire recorded in Acts. All this would happen before that generation
of apostles passed away. Before 70 ad
The other way of looking at it is through the wide angle
lens. That down through history the church have faced times of devastation and
change and upheaval. Earthquakes, famine and wars and rumours of war, a pagan
adoption of our Christian values. Faced false messiahs and teachers. It maybe
too soon but you just have to look at all the religious activity around
President Trump to see people in times of great change and uncertainty looking
for a messiah. Maybe today we are tempted not to look to the wilderness but to
the wired-ness of the internet, the screen in our inner room as the place where
we find the people in the know that have secret insight or all the answers. Just
look at the resurgence of conspiracy theories and the way many Christians seem
to be susceptible to them.
Both lenses have their value and are true. Both look forward
to a greater coming or awareness of the kingship of Jesus. However we can get
caught up in the details of the last times and last things and forget what the
last one, the alpha and omega, Jesus is the important one, and not listen to
what he is saying to his disciples and to us.
Let’s listen…
‘beware don’t get deceived… there are many temptations as we
face uncertain times to look for this answer and this solution, this guru, this
prophet, this supposed successful person with the answer. We’ve seen the obvious dangers of such
messiahs, things like Jones town and Waco Texas, but I wonder if we also need
to be weary of people who point to the latest business theory or practice as
the way forward for the church. The latest celebrity pastor, the new mega
church mogul. Even this political leader or that political party, haven’t we
seen that in our world and even our country recently, political messiahs, some
good some bad… Rather we are to look to and focus on Jesus Christ: It is his
kingdom come, a kingdom come though his service of others, his faithful
obedience to God, his costly love, his sacrifice, his resurrection from the
dead. It is Christ and his word…
Do not be alarmed, stand firm. It is easy when we see the
things that are going on around the world to become alarmed and afraid, to want
to lock down and isolate, to think it is all out of control, as like with the
temple the landmarks and symbols of stability and our way of life seem to be
swirling out of control. Particularly at a time like this which is a period in
world history in which change is happening at such a rapid, comprehensive and
unprecedented way. I’m not just talking about COVID… I remember a time before
TV. I still remember the manual telephone exchange. Punch card computing, and
computer screens before windows…for my kids I’m a dinosaur… and in the way
society and culture thinks it’s equally as rapidly changing. Leonard Sweet
talks about it being a waterworld all is fluid. Sexuality, social institutions,
language itself. He says there are two ways we can go we can hunker in the
bunker, or unfurl our sails and set sail on the wind of the spirit. Either way
we face all these times as Jesus encouraged his disciples, by standing firm and
not being alarmed; fixing our hope and our reassurance and our ability to live
openly for Christ in the fact that God is sovereign, and is working his plans
out in what is going on. The passage we had read to us today finishes with that
wonderful affirmation of the sovereignty of God, heaven and earth may pass
away, but my words will never pass away.
Finally that we should know the times… It’s easy to see that
as being aware of the impending end, catching an idea that it is all finishing
now. That by the way was how the people Matthew were writing to would have seen
it. The end of the temple meant the end of all thing. For many the big faith
dilemma was that Jesus seemed to be taking a long time… But as we will see next
week Jesus says that no one knows the hour or the day. Rather it is important
for us to realise we live in an in-between time, the already…when the kingdom
has been inaugurated in Christ’s life death, resurrection and ascension. It is
becoming known in this world by humble people living it out and sharing it by
the power of the spirit. And the not yet… there is still evil and trouble and
darkness in the world around us as we await the final revelation of Jesus
Christ and his kingdom at some future time. That we are going through the long
birth pains of God’s kingdom. To know we live in those already but not yet
times we are called to live with hope of thy kingdom come, and live out that
hope thy kingdom come, now in our lives and how we relate to all that is going
on around us. That just like with a baby we have time to get ready for its
arrival. Are you ready???
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