Preaching text: Mark 13:24-37
I had an interesting conversation a week or so ago. I was working on my sermon for last Sunday, for Christ the King, when Stephanie, who is a good friend of my wife who was staying with us for Thanksgiving, popped her head into my home office. She asked me what I was doing and I told her I was working on my sermon, getting ready to preach on Jesus’ famous parable of the Sheep and the Goats from the Gospel of Matthew. As that parable is one of the End Times, that got us talking about the Second Coming. Is it soon? Don’t you think things are so bad that Jesus is bound to return soon? Etc.
That answer I gave her is “No, I don’t think it’s soon.” Part of it is my historical perspective. I have a hard time believing, even as much as I loathe this age in which we live, that things are the worst they’ve ever been. I know better. Yes, the age of Trump and terrorism, AIDS and Global Warming, nuclear North Korea and a resurgent Nazi party is pretty bad. We’ve got Trump, Hillary, Kim Jong Un; bad haircuts and worse politics, but hardly as bad as the European genocide of the Native Americans, from the Spanish conquistadors to the cowboys of the Wild West. Hardly as bad as Vlad the Impaler and the reason for his nickname or Attila the Hun, the “Scourge of God” or other brutal conquerors. Hardly as bad as the Black Death, a plague that killed 1/3 the world’s population.
Hardly as bad as the original Nazis, Hitler, the Holocaust, the devastation of Europe or their allies in Japan with the rape of Nanking and still more atrocities. Krakatoa that blew a whole Indonesian island to kingdom come or Vesuvius that buried Pompeii. No, as bad as we think things are, they could be a lot worse. And if that’s our criteria for what compels our Lord and Savior to return, how the bad things have gotten, we’re in for a disappointment if we’re starting at the sky expecting his arrival any minute now.
I have to confess though there are times when I wish he would show up. I didn’t live through any of those other nightmares I mentioned, so my perspective is that of the scholar, not someone who’s actually experienced one of those monstrous events in history. So while mentally and intellectually, I know things are not as bad as they seem, emotionally I share the desire of many to see Christ return now. I see the evil of our world and it frightens me. It frightens me for the sake of my flocks, for the sake of my family and friends, and for myself; many of whom could be on the firing line if things get just a little bit worse. And I feel powerless to make a real difference in the world. The work of charity and compassion that I endeavor often makes me feel like the boy in the old story where he sticks his finger in the dike to stop the coming floor. It doesn’t feel like it matters.
So, yes, there are times I want Jesus to come back NOW. I want him here to set the world right at last. To inaugurate the new age that I often speak of in funerals, the time when evil is no more, death is put asunder, hunger and thirst are no more, and every tear is wiped away. I want the new heaven and the new earth. I want the promise of eternity fulfilled. I want the streets of gold and all that is broken put back together, restored, redeemed. I want all the things that we trust God will bring when the Kingdom comes in its fullness.
Part of it, I’ll admit is my frustration, my weariness. I’m tired. I’m burned out from trying to do good in a world that does not reward it, but instead prefers evil, deceit, and hatred. And I don’t think I’m alone. I think a lot of folks who pine for the End of Days feel the same way. “We’ve tried, Lord. We did as you asked and, despite our best efforts, the world is just as rotten as ever.” Come, Lord Jesus, and fix what we cannot.
As tempting as it is to make that our prayer, that’s not how this works. The parables of Matthew that we had over the last several weeks make clear the reality of Christ’s absence from the world.
The Bridegroom has not come, the master of the household has gone to a far country, the king is away while his sheep and goats do as they do. Our Gospel lesson today from Mark carries forth that same theme. “It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work.”
I don’t know when the Master is returning. No one does. It very well could be today or tomorrow or a thousand years from now. It’s not for us to decide. What is ours to decide is what to do today for the sake of the Kingdom. What to do with the time we’ve been given.
Seems I’ve heard that somewhere before. Oh, yeah, Gandalf’s counsel to Frodo in my favorite books The Lord of the Rings. “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil.”
Frodo shares our frustration, having the quest of the Ring thrust upon him and having to face a Darkness so terrible it threatens the world entire. Tolkien wrote those books in part as a reflection on his own experiences in the trenches of WWI, yet another of history’s nightmares. The wisdom of his fiction reminds us, as does our own Scriptures (not coincidentally, given Tolkien’s faith), that even in the worst of times, we have work to do.
But as Gandalf said to Frodo, so it is also true for us. There are other forces at work in our world. And the work we do is not done alone. Yes, Matthew emphasized the absence of Christ in a post-ascension world. But that absence is not total. Yes, Christ no longer walks this Earth as a physical human being, but his Spirit is ever present. Paul speaks of this in our Second Lesson in his introduction to his letter to the church in Corinth. We are not lacking in any spiritual gift. We have been strengthened and enriched by a faithful God who has called us into his fellowship.
We are stronger than we know. Our voice is louder than we realize. And we can make a difference in this world. Isaiah reminds us as he reminds God that “we are ALL your people.” The hungry still need fed. The poor still need advocates. The sick need care. The world needs US. The Bridegroom is still not back. The Master of the household is still away in that far country. The king sits on his throne and lets his sheep and goats do as they please. And what shall we do? Christ came to this world to announce a kingdom of God where all the evils of the world are put right. And we believe in that kingdom, but the world Christ came to save does not. Or should I say “does not believe in it YET?” You know what makes the difference. All of us living out the work that Christ has entrusted to us until he does return.
We have work to do. Amen.
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