Thursday, February 11, 2021

Birth pangs of the Kingdom Matthew 24:1-36


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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