"The End is Near"

The texts for this week's sermon are Isaiah 65:17-25 and Luke 21:5-19

The End Is Near

When I was in college, my friends and I spent a lot of time planning for the future.  But since we were all also very much like the characters on the television show “The Big Bang Theory,” our planning for the future probably didn’t play out the way that it does for other college students.  Rather than talking about what grad school we thought we might go to, or what summer internships we were applying for, or what our dreams were for families, career, homes, or anything else, our time was spent laying out plans for that day when all the movies we’d been watching became a reality and we found ourselves right in the middle of a full blown Zombie Apocalypse.  We had nights where we’d get together and watch George A. Romero’s zombie movies as “homework,” learning from those poor, unprepared saps on the screen what we should and should not do in the event of an outbreak of zombie co-eds on our campus.  By the time we graduated, we’d actually put together some pretty solid plans, which we passed down to some of the underclassmen in our circle of friends to help them be as prepared as we thought we would be.  We’d picked out which campus building we thought would be most secure and worked out how we’d keep ourselves supplied and defended.  We had a classmate who was in the National Guard who told us about a base not far from our campus that would be the perfect place to go.  It had even gotten to the point that when we were meeting new students who had found their way to our small haven of geek/nerd-dom on campus, we’d determine how well they fit in with us based on their own plans for “Z-Day,” as we called it.

To this day, I don’t really know why we were so obsessed with the idea.  It started out of an idle conversation and then developed into something much bigger from the ridiculous amount of spare time we seemed to have on our hands, but it was something that captivated us and had us engaged in a way that I guess our classes weren’t engaging us.  It was a way for us to use our imaginations, to be creative, to work together, and perhaps… maybe it was also a way for a group of people who weren’t all that secure in themselves or about their own futures to find something that they did feel secure in, to know that there was at least something coming up in our futures that we felt completely prepared for and ready to face.

What’s really fascinating, though, is that my group of friends and I were hardly alone in engaging in this somewhat macabre pastime.  The idea of a “zombie apocalypse” has absolutely captivated many people in our society - one of AMC’s most popular shows right now is The Walking Dead, which follows a small group of men and women as they try to survive in just such a world turned upside down by hordes of undead.  And then there are also shows like Doomsday Preppers on the National Geographic channel that give us an in-depth look at real families who devote the better part of their time and energy into being prepared for a worst-case scenario - some of whom are genuinely putting into action the same kinds of plans that my group of friends and I just idly made together over lunch and as we hung out after classes.  These families do emergency preparedness drills, learning how to camouflage themselves, to hide in plain sight, to stockpile food and water, fortify their own homes, and to deter any possible invaders with near-military efficiency.  And yes - some of these families are even preparing for a zombie invasion because they believe it to be a possibility.

It seems lately that this is the new reality in which we find ourselves at the center.  We live in a time of fear, of distrust, of violence and uncertainty.  We move from one threat to the next, paying attention when that multi-colored index pops up on the news screens telling us we’ve gone yet again into another elevated state of alertness.  We hear the preppers out there warning of the dangers of economic collapse, the radicals calling for revolution, and the people who feel it’s just “better to be safe than sorry.”  We’re constantly watching and waiting, dreading that time when the bottom drops out and the world changes.  People pore over passages of scripture like the one we heard from Luke’s Gospel today, picking them apart piece by piece trying to work out exactly when the “end-times” will be upon us.  And every few years or so, we hear about yet another man like Harold Camping who claims to have worked out down to the very day, hour, minute, and second when exactly Jesus will return and the world will end.  It seems that this is our obsession anymore, what with television preachers and popular Christian authors painstakingly explaining what they believe is going to transpire as described in John’s Revelation at the end of the New Testament, making sure that nobody will be “left behind” and trying to encourage us to “be sure” that we are prepared for that day when Jesus returns and to know for certain that we’ll be included when that roll is called up yonder…

But even looking at Luke’s passage again, we can see that this curiosity and obsession with the future is nothing new - it’s something that was going on with the disciples, and even before Jesus was born as people wondered time and time again when this kingdom that God had promised through the prophets would be brought about.  There have been almost as many candidates for the role of “anti-Christ” as there have been candidates for political office (and some would even argue that some of those candidates shared the same office).  In every time of war, every natural disaster, every time we see something that even remotely looks like the images that Jesus paints in these sections, there are people who grab their paintbrushes and make another new sign proclaiming that “The End is Near!”

We’ve been saying that phrase for centuries… the end is near.  The end is near.  And the fact is - we know that the end is near.  We’ve known the end is near since Jesus himself said it to the disciples.  But Jesus doesn’t dwell on that.  Jesus actually discourages the disciples from buying into the hype.  Jesus tells them plainly that they will experience tribulations, that people will put them on trial and that they will be persecuted for their confession, but oddly enough, despite the fact that Jesus tells them these things precisely to prepare them for what is to come, he also tells them not to prepare for it!  “Make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance,” Jesus says, “for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.”  Jesus tells the disciples to let these troubling times, these times of fear and of uncertainty, to be an opportunity - in the midst of all the stress, Jesus points out that there is a message which we have been given, and that message is a message of hope.  It’s a message of the kingdom.  Yes - we know that “the end is near,” but that’s not our message!  Our message, instead is: The beginning is near.  Even more, “the beginning is here.”  It’s strange to see Isaiah’s message of hope placed alongside Jesus’ warnings of impending disasters and trials, but there’s a reason for that.  Jesus boldly proclaimed the kingdom of God because that was what he came to begin on earth.  And we are called to carry that message out, to proclaim it above the voices of fear and anxiety - that God is creating a new heaven and a new earth, that these times of pain and strife will no longer even be remembered, that we will no longer shed tears for lives cut short, where sickness and suffering no longer exist, and where justice shall prevail and all shall be known as children of God.  And more than just proclaiming it, we are called to live into it as well, to embody it and strive toward it in everything we do.  We are to be the ones that take every opportunity that is given us to testify to the truth that we believe and know in our hearts to be true.  We are to be the ones that work for justice as a result of that testimony, to go out and to make this world a better place in anticipation of the next world.  And by our endurance, we too can smile with joy as we enter into that kingdom and look to hear our Lord’s acclamations of “well done, good and faithful servant.”  To God be the Glory.  Amen.