See that you not be deceived, for many
will come in my name
saying, ‘I am he,” and “The time has
come.’ Do not follow them!
Luke 21:5-19
Here
is a story from the 1990s, when I lived in the rectory next door. It had been a
very busy week at the parish. I decided to go to bed early, thinking I would
get a little rest. Wrong! About an hour after I dozed off, the rectory
telephone rang. (When the phone rang
that late at night, back then, everyone agreed that I was the pastor.) The
caller was a panic-stricken, rural-sounding man with a house full of kids
screaming and yelling at each other in the background. He had gotten my number
out of the Yellow Pages. We used “yellow pages back in the 1990s! "Reverend,
is the world going to come to and end tonight?" In my groggy state, I presumed
it already had!"
Well,
after serving down in the Bible Belt as a home missionary for ten years, previous
to coming up here to Louisville, I had handled enough of these calls to know
that a long discussion on biblical exegesis would not work. This man needed a “yes”
or “no” answer from an authority - now! So, without batting an eye, I answered
with all the authority I could muster at that hour of the night. "No, sir,
the world will not end tonight. Please go to bed!"
He
put his hand over the receiver to deliver my verdict to his screaming brood.:
"He said it wasn't going to end
tonight!" There was a lot of muffled arguing before he came back on the
phone. "The kids came home from school today saying some preacher had
predicted the end of the world and all the other kids were talking about it.
They won't go to bed until you talk to them." Believe it or not, I had to
talk to five kids, one by one, and tell them in my most confident voice:
"Go to bed, honey! The world is not going to end tonight!" The father
came back on the line, thanked me, and hung up. I was so pleased with myself
that thought I would never go back to sleep!
Jesus
left this earth with a promise he would come back. Ever since, his followers have
become obsessed, every now and then, with predicting "the end time."
Nobody has been right yet! Some of his disciples, especially at the time of
Mark's gospel, were obsessed with the belief
that Jesus was come in their lifetime - any moment now! This gospel warns those
who were trying to predict the “time” to go on living and leave the
"when" to God. Even Paul,
after he had written to the Thessalonians about the imminent coming of Christ,
had to write to them again and tell them to get off their rear ends and get on
with their lives. Some had quit working and had sat down to wait for the end.
Friends!
You have no doubt been confronted by some who claim to be able to deal with
Biblical “end time” texts! Jesus warns us today not to follow them! He tells us
that many will come claiming “I am he” and “the time has come.” He tells us
today not to get sucked into their claims of being able to predict even from
Scripture. Every time the world gets complicated and events seem to be out of
control, a significant number of religious people comb the scriptures trying to
find clues to back their dire predictions. It’s as if they hope the
world is coming to an end! I guess that’s a lot easier than trying to fix it!
In
today’s gospel, Luke warns us about two things. He warns us “not to
follow" those who would interpret current events as signs of the world's
end, but he also warns us to "watch out" for our own behavior in the
meantime because we will have to face a lot of disruption and even persecution
before it’s all said and done. However, we can be at peace because we know that
the end has already been decided. Good will triumph over evil! So, it’s not a matter
of predicting, but a matter of perseverance. In other words, he tells us to
worry about living well and being a good disciples so that we don't have to fuss
about trying to "get ready" whenever the end does comes.
Friends,
how do we do that? We hunger and thirst for holiness, we keep our hand to the
plow, we lived prepared and, most importantly, we "wait in joyful hope" for the return of our
Savior, Jesus Christ. We need not live in fear and dread because, as Saint Paul
tells us, "Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it even dawned on human
beings, the wonderful things that God has in store for those who love
him."
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