Daniel 12:1-3
Mark 13:1-8

The end of the year is approaching rapidly and will occur in two weeks. I’m referring to the end of the Christian year rather than the calendar year.  The Christian year ends Saturday before the first Sunday of Advent. Confusing isn’t it, to have so many calendars?  No wonder our lives are so hectic and fretful!  With all the schedules, events, activities, and calendars to maintain, we often are overwhelmed.  I thought our lives were overscheduled when we had three children at home and therefore at least five individual calendars to manage.  It seems like things are just as hectic for us now with Peggy’s work schedule, my work schedule, and some semblance of a social calendar. 

I’ve been intrigued since high school with the identification of graduation ceremonies as Commencement Exercises.  I thought graduation represented finishing something but commencement means to begin something.  There is wisdom is indicating that the end of one thing is the beginning of another.  And it happens throughout our lives.  One stage ends, another begins.  Written over the entrance to the National Archives Building in Washington, DC is the phrase, “The Past is Prologue.”  Is this another way to say the end is the beginning? 

How do you react to the ending of a phase of your life?  For some there is some anxiety as they anticipate the beginning of new decade in their lives, turning 30 or 60.  For me, there usually is some sense of anxiety before I actually move forward emotionally to the beginning of a new life phase.  I recall having some anxiety as I began my work as your Senior Minister in 2002.  One phase of my life had ended.  Another phase, which involved moving to an area we had only visited twice and both of those visits were very brief, was beginning.   You’ve had similar experiences. 

The greater the stakes involved in the ending of something, the higher the anxiety usually is.  The ending of a career and the beginning of a different one causes higher anxiety than a promotion within the same field of work.  The ending of work life and the beginning of retirement raises great anxiety for many people. Thoughts about the ending of life may raise even higher anxiety.  

The biblical passages that are out texts for today have often been identified as referring to the end of the world.  A better way to understand the passages is that they describe something of what the writers experienced as they saw the world ending as they knew it.  The writers are describing the ending of an era rather than the literal ending or annihilation of the entire world.

Of course, it is possible for the entire world to end instantly and catastrophically.  However, if that happens it will be the result of what people do.  Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, and numerous others have made a fortune writing novels like Late Great Planet Earth and Left Behind.  It is important to keep in might that these writings are novels and their popularity results from theirpreying on the anxiety and fear of people.  There is great destruction and devastation happening in the world but it is neither the work of God nor the result of God’s judgment and vengeance.  Most of what is happening in the world in terms of destruction is the result of what people are doing.

In times of heightened anxiety, people of faith have often run to their Scriptures in search of answers.  Jews to the Hebrew texts, Muslims to the Qur’an, Christians often to the New Testament, and Hindus to the Shastra.  Anxious Christians have scurried to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament.  They have made claims about Revelation that the letter itself does not make.  Or they have sought solace in the book of Daniel in the Hebrew Scriptures.  And some have grabbed on to the passage in Mark’s Gospel that was read a few moments ago.  The theme and tone of this material is referred to as apocalyptic literature.  This is literature written in highly figurative, symbolic, and imaginative language in dealing with the end of an age.

As Mark tells the story, Jesus spoke the words of our text from Mark at the end of Tuesday just days before his crucifixion.  He and his disciples were standing in the area of Jerusalem known as the Temple Mount, gazing at one of the most opulent temples ever built.  The white marble courtyards glistened in the bright sunshine.  The stones that formed the temple wall were huge and magnificent.  The city was filled with pilgrims, priests, beasts and lots of money.  There Jesus and his disciples were and they were dazzled by the sheer enormity and beauty of the place.  Then Jesus made one of those stunning statements for which he became famous and which got him into trouble, “Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”  Talk about adding anxiety to anxiety.  Jesus was not in the most favored position with those in power and then for him to suggest that these huge, beautiful stones that Herod had had put in place would be torn down was paramount to treason.  Jesus was just asking for trouble. (“Living by the Word,” Keith D. Herron, The Christian Century, November 14, 2006, p. 20)

Jesus looked beyond the huge crowd, beyond the grandeur of the moment, beyond the temple and saw nothing but ruins.  The disciples were blown away by Jesus’ statement and asked when was this going to happen. Every generation of believers since then has struggled with those questions.  To those who fear that the end is approaching, Jesus speaks with unwavering certainty and clear advice.  He warns of misleading voices and contorted messages that are meant to strike fear in people’s lives.  He does not pretend that the chaos will go away; in fact Jesus underscores that the chaos will continue but it is he says, “the beginning of birth pangs.” Was this Jesus’ way of saying the end is the beginning?

Historically, what has happened is that the world ends one life at a time.  We are unaware of the thousands of deaths that occur every day throughout the world.  We are oblivious to the fact that more people are killed (app. 28,000) on the highways in this country in a year than were killed in the destruction of the towers of the World Trade Center.  This is not to dismiss the great loss that occurred on September 11, 2001 but rather to put it in the context of the daily experiences of people all over the world. 

Natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes heighten some people's awareness and interest in passages like today's text from Mark’s gospel.  We have intense visceral responses to natural disasters.  An earthquake happens without warning, lasts fifteen or twenty seconds, and the destruction is unimaginable.  One second everything is under control and the next second nothing is controllable.  We are frightened because our mortality is underscored.  We are angry because we have no control.  We feel guilty because in a flash we can think of several instances when we wished we had been kinder and more understanding of another person. 

A series of convulsions shook the biblical world in the first century.  Many concluded these were signs of the end of time.  Wars, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and famines had occurred between the time of Jesus' ministry and the writing of the Gospels.  There had been wars and massacres.  The Jews once again were becoming increasingly restless, resentful, and revengeful under the oppression of Rome.  Vesuvius, a powerfully destructive volcano, erupted in 79 CE and buried Pompeii (Interpretation: Revelation, p. 10).  Earthquakes were reported in Greece and Asia Minor.  Disease epidemics and famines occurred during the reigns of Claudius and Nero.

Initially, the Christian interpretation was that Jesus would return soon after his resurrection.  Followers of Christ were urged to prepare for and anticipate this happening very soon.  This thinking led the Apostle Paul to tell people not to marry because Christ would be returning and this would change everything.  Obviously, what was being expected did not happen.  Eventually, this interpretation was revised. 

Some of the disciples asked Jesus when it would be that not a single stone would be left in place in the Temple.  Why did they ask this?  Were they puzzled?  Were they frightened?  Were they hoping for inside information?  Perhaps it was all of these reasons. 
And these are the same reasons why people raise the question today.  These are the reasons that people, aware of a natural disaster, or a tragic event caused by one or more people, give the situation a global, cosmic interpretation. 

Usually the cosmic interpretation is coated with horrifying images that exacerbate people's worst fears and deepest guilt.  Numerous are the examples of people who have been so preoccupied with last things that they have failed to give proper place to first things.  G. K. Chesterton is credited with saying that too many people had the last word on everything and the first word on nothing.  (Interpreter's Bible, George A. Buttrick, editor, vol. 7, p. 856)  We may very well be at the end of another age, perhaps the information age.  One of the signs of the end of an age is great chaos that results because of the changes that occur. 

Eschatology is a big word that means end of the age.  It often is used in a narrow sense to mean end of time but the more accurate understanding is that it means the end of the age.  It refers to the end of the age as we know and experience it and the beginning of a new one.  In one sense there have been several eschatons in the development of civilization.  Some of these eschatons include the Ice Age, the Bronze Age, the Industrial Revolution, and others.  People living in the Bronze Age did not wake up one day and say the Bronze Age has ended and a new age has begun.  Neither did people suddenly recognize one day that they had moved into the Industrial Age.  Many of us have lived our lives in the Space Age, but we didn't recognize it at the time.  When did the Space Age begin?  Was it June 30, 1957?  The date for the beginning or the ending of an age cannot be month and day specific.  Certainly, it was an historic day when the Soviet Union put Sputnik in Space.  It was an historic day when the United States put a man in space.  But neither of those days really were the beginning of the space age.  Actually, we would push back the beginning of the Space Age to the invention of the airplane or the flight of a plane several thousand feet above the earth or the breaking of the sound barrier or all of the above.  Now, it is suggested we have moved out of the Space Age and into the Information Age.  When did that occur?  Was it when the first computer was built or was it when you bought your own personal computer?  The movement out of one age and into another is gradual and only in retrospect are people able to see clearly the line of demarcation.  The end of one age is the beginning of another.

Regardless of how we understand the biblical statements about the end of the age, Jesus said that is not what comes first.  What comes first is a time of testimony, a time of sharing of God's good news and that time is now.  The end of the age is later and nobody but God knows when that is.  The end is the beginning.  What is needed, what the call to Jesus' disciples in Mark’s day and in ours is is the call to faithfulness and endurance under threat, under arrest, and under penalty of death.  These are the qualities that we are to have.  Jesus said, "By your endurance you will gain your lives" (Luke 21:19).  Here is a significant distinction.  Someone has noted, "Belief is something that people are willing to kill for.  Faith is something people are willing to die for."  That is a huge distinction.
Jesus says, "Look!"  Not at size or quantity; look at the ethical and spiritual quality of your life and culture.  Jesus' eyes wandered off in search of other things, evidences of a richness of inner life and devotion to God.  He looks for the love and sacrifice akin to the gift of a poor widow, for the undivided allegiance of lives that acknowledge God.         

It takes individuals contributing themselves to others to make a significant society.  Any hope for a saved world lies in people who take heed to the quality of their own lives, and who are willing to make dominant in themselves the motives and goals they would like to see prevail in the outside world.  Alice Walker offers this insight; "To the extent that it is possible you must live in the world today as you wish everyone to live in the world to come, otherwise the world you want will never be formed." (Quoted in Pulpit Resource, October, November, December, 1998, vol. 26, no. 4, p. 30.)  In the turbulent days of persecution in the early church, what counted was the quality of individuals.  It was the fidelity and fortitude of those who did "take heed to themselves" that made possible the survival of Christianity as leaven in the world.  We must not wait for some ideal, perfect preparation before we go into action.  We need to come with the best we have when the need arises.  We need to give our best efforts.  Efforts are our concern; results are God's concern. 

We live in strange times!  Some, fervent in religious spirit, destroy those who do not understand God as they do.  Political and military leaders baptize their actions in religious language.  But these times are no stranger than what people in other ages have experienced.  "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times" is the timeless statement that Charles Dickens used to introduce A Tale of Two Cities, a novel written about the French Revolution.  Could not every generation quote Dickens' statement as descriptive of its time?
           
When the Gospels were being written, the church was being persecuted.  It could have been described as the best of times and the worst of times.  No one wants to endure persecution.  A natural desire and question is, "When will this be over?"  "When will there be an end to this?"  The answer many leaned toward was that it would all be over at the end of time.  But when will that be?  They were reminded of Jesus' words that no one knows the day or the hour.  The answer was God rather than a date on the calendar or an hour on the clock.  The answer was faith in a dependable God.  This was what kept up the morale and endurance of the early church.  It is what has kept up the morale and endurance of followers of Christ through the centuries when they have felt squeezed in and pressed down by forces of oppression and hatred.

The answer to living with uncertainty is God.  Our calling is to be faithful.  Hardship, persecution, disappointment, devastation, tragedies, needless, senseless killing of innocent people, natural disasters, human calamities, wars, famine, earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods are terrible, awful things.  But unfaithfulness to God is worse.  We are called to be faithful to God everyday in the little things, in the little advents of God each day.  Only in that way can we possibly be prepared for the big finale whatever that is, whenever it is, and wherever we are when it happens for us. 

Only through a growing, maturing relationship with God can we cope in a time when people believe that the destruction of an individual enemy or an enemy nation will bring peace.  These are uncertain times, but no more uncertain than any other times have been.  We are called by God to live with uncertainty.  And only with an abiding faith in God can we possibly face and live with uncertainty.  And then, when the end comes, whatever and whenever that is, the end of our individual lives or the end of this age and the beginning of a new age, we will have done what Jesus said we are to do, give testimony about God's good news. There is no better time to give testimony about God’s good news than at the end of an era, unless it is at the beginning of a new one. So anytime, every time, all the time is a good time to give testimony to the good news of God.