The Pastor's Sermon - 18 November 2012 - Pentecost+25

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

• This is one of those times where the reading from Scripture sounds like 11 o'clock news or the international section of the newspaper. Things haven't changed that much from the time of Jesus to our day, except for how fast news travels and how many competing and conflicting versions of any story there are.
• As the church year draws to a close, we hear again the apocalyptic words of Jesus. To look at them without concern and thought or to look at only a part of them without reading them in their fullness would leave us in terror and despair. But that is never the intent of the Bible. Nor are the words of Jesus, of Paul and the other New Testament writers, or of the prophets of Israel and Judah meant for destruction and emptiness. In the final analysis, the intent and the direction is always for hope.
• So where is the hope here? The disciples are impressed by the size and grandeur of the the Jerusalem temple; Jesus is not. When they can, his closest disciples, Peter, James, John, and Andrew, ask for some explanation of his words: When would this happen and what sign would accompany the event?
• We might wonder if they were asking out of concern for all those who would be effected by a disaster that would throw down the Temple. It is possible that they were asking in order to gain an “inside track” on special knowledge to once again have a special place in the community of all the disciples, whether close or distant. They might have even been frightened for themselves and their welfare.
• In any event, Jesus never really answers their question. He tells them to beware of false teachers and fake messiahs. He tells them of events in general that must take place, although “wars and rumours of wars” were not unusual in the time of the Roman empire, even in the relative peace of Jesus' time and place. In looking back, we know that this peace would be shattered in Mark's time with the brutal Jewish War that would destroy the temple and scatter the Jewish people. The passage in Mark continues with further cautions and with images of what would come soon and in some later time.
• In the face of this, what would be left for us but to give in to despair, throw ourselves into wild pleasures, or to withdraw into the hills and caves and dig in to fight for our survival.
• Well, Christians are not armed survivalists by definition. Nor do we fill our days with indiscriminate pleasures, believing there is nothing more to life. This is not what we are about. For us, it is the last sentence of our reading today that holds the spark of hope: “This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”
• If we value these words of Jesus in any way, we don't anticipate the destruction of all creation and all human society. Something more than destruction and disaster is in store and we look forward to nothing less than a new beginning, a turning point in our history and our entire reality that leads to an “end and after” for our story and for our journey with God.
• The words we hear in the Gospel today are not meant to be a blueprint or a road-map to show exactly where to go and what to do. They are a call for us to stay watchful because God is active in the world and that activity is often beyond the understanding and even the notice of the human race. They are a reminder to all of us to seek out justice and true righteousness in our world now rather than simply waiting for it in what is to come. In doing that, we become part of what is to come.
• All that Jesus said in this passage from Mark and in what follows is a reminder and maybe even an advertisement for God actively working for the good of humankind. In a way, those words might act as a warning to keep awake -like the grooves cut into some of the roadways around here- to jar a traveller to alertness while moving along what might be an otherwise uneventful and dangerously numbing trip.
• When we are faced with words such as the ones we hear today, we become aware that something is coming to its fullness, like the ripening of a crop. Jesus says “This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” Infants are meant to be born and I don't recall anyone ever saying “Let's stay pregnant forever.” Births are generally seen as good things, full of potential and promise. Babies are meant for birth and God's future is what we are made for and usually entire families are involved.
• What is to come is never simply “out there”, as if we were just observers or even victims of what is to come. As people of faith who live in hope of God's Kingdom, we are now already part of what is to come. And that gives us hope as we watch and wait together.