A few years ago the Knight-Tribune News Service published a humorous column imagining how some of the leading publications in our land might headline a story on the end of the world should such an event take place. Here are the various headlines that might appear in different publications.
The Wall Street Journal might announce the end of all things with this headline: “Dow Jones Plummets as World Ends.”
Sports Illustrated might use this simple headline: “Game’s Over.”
Discover magazine might feature a more sophisticated headline: “How Will the Extinction of All Life as We Know It, Affect the Way We View the Cosmos?”
Ladies Home Journal might try this appeal with its subscribers: “Lose 10 lbs. By Judgement Day with our New Armageddon Diet.”
Inc. magazine could offer this appeal to their business-minded subscribers: “Ten Ways You Can Profit from the Apocalypse.” (1)
Each year we begin the season of Advent focusing not on Jesus’ birth but on his Second Coming. And it’s a little scary. Listen as I read the first few lines of today’s lesson: “But in those days, following that distress, ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”
I said it was a little scary. You might want to keep the kids inside on such a day!
We need to put Christ’s words into perspective, however. Many followers of Christ have abused Christ’s teachings about the day of his return.
First of all, Jesus was insistent. Nobody knows when this climatic event will occur. According to Jesus, the angels in heaven don’t know. Even Christ himself did not know. That’s something worth thinking about. Speaking of his return, Jesus told his disciples, “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” He says it again in Matthew 24:36, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Imagine that. Even Christ does not know when his return will occur.
Someone asks, when will Christ return—when will history come to a climax and a new world order, a world order straight from the heart of God, be introduced? The answer is, we don’t know. The early church thought it would be in their lifetime. It’s been more than 2,000 years. “Why does the Lord tarry?” many ask. We don’t know.
Now, there are some people who would not say, “I don’t know.” That is not what we expect from Jesus, certainly. But that is what he says as plainly as it can be said.
That wonderful preacher and retired seminary professor, Dr. Fred Craddock tells about hearing a Nobel Prize-winning scientist from Princeton University speak about the frontiers of medicine and science today. Afterward he opened the floor for questions. There were questions about cancer, AIDS, and Alzheimer’s disease, and to every question, this Nobel Prize-winning scientist said, “I don’t know.”
“But even so,” writes Fred Craddock, “you never expect Jesus to say, ‘I don’t know.’” Then Craddock says, “It’s disappointing. In fact, when the scribes sat and copied the scriptures you know, hand by hand, word by word, faithfully copying it exactly as it was—and they got to Matthew 24:36, when they came to the expression, “Jesus said, ‘1 don’t know,’ “they couldn’t write it, so they left it out. And we still have copies,” says Craddock, “of those ancient manuscripts in which reverent, Godfearing scribes said, “I can’t write those words! I can’t stand for Jesus to say, ‘I don’t know.’” (2)
Think about that the next time you decide to spend your hard-earned money to buy a book that promises to tell you that Jesus is going to come again at such and such a time. Jesus said, “I don’t know.” And here someone writes a book about Jesus’ return that says that he knows more than Jesus about Christ’s return.
We should not be too surprised that he said, “I don’t know.” There is much in life that God has not revealed to us. We don’t even know what tomorrow might bring.
Be careful about how you evaluate your life. We live in an uncertain world. Don’t waste time listening to someone who has got it figured out just when Christ will return. We don’t even know for certain what this evening will bring. Let it go. Trust God and let it go. Jesus was insistent—nobody knows when his return will be.
And we really can’t say much about what will happen when that day does come. The scriptures provide us with very few details about the nature of Christ’s return, and much of what we do have is written in a kind of code that can be widely interpreted, or misinterpreted as the case might be. As for all the best-selling books on the Second Coming, the End of time, the anti-Christ, etc., read them for entertainment but don’t let them keep you awake at night.
The parts of the Bible that foretell the end of time, the apocalyptic literature—as it is called by scholars—is written in a kind of code and is open to much interpretation. And, obviously, it is all pre-space age imagery. My own guess is that, if it were being written today, instead of Revelation 19:14 describing the armies of heaven going to war at the end of time “riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean,” they would be coming in rockets or flying saucers. Horses don’t have much of a chance in modern warfare, but the writer wrote using signs and symbols from the world he knew. But do not look to Revelation for a literal description of how Christ will return.
In other words, don’t let the fear mongers cause you undue distress. We have very little information about the end of time. Certainly, if the return of Christ means the end of life as we know it, then it will be dramatic. But other than that, we don’t know when it will happen, and we don’t know many details of what’s coming. Therefore, rather than sitting around worrying about it, let’s focus on how Christ wants us to live here and now. That’s the purpose of today’s lesson from Mark. It is to remind us of two essential truths: One, the future is in God’s hands, not ours. And two, we can trust the God who loves us for the future.
Let’s begin with truth one: the future is in God’s hands, not ours. Just as we don’t know when Christ’s return will be, so also, we don’t know what the future may hold. Some people are excited about the future. They see cures for cancer and all kinds of diseases. They see human beings routinely living in good health 100 years, or 200 years, or more.
The World Future Society released their forecasts for the next 25 years a few years ago and some of those forecasts were upbeat. For example, these futurists predicted that by the year 2025 the world will have a billion millionaires. That’s a lot of wealthy people. I hope you’re one of them. And that you tithe.
They also forecast a new process to remove salt from seawater and make it drinkable at a much lower cost than previously thought possible. They predicted drastic improvements in artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, nanotechnology and robotics—much of which has already occurred. These advances will improve every aspect of our lives.
But they also report that the threat of another cold war with China or Russia, or both at the same time, may be in the cards. Scenarios for a war with China or Russia would certainly be a nightmare. Also of deep concern is climate change with the disappearance of much of our bio-diversity—did anyone get hot this past summer? They also predicted widespread flooding and water replacing oil as the most precious commodity on earth. (3)
How much of this will occur? No one knows. But here’s what we do know. We know Who holds the future. “He’s got the whole world in His hands.” God loves His creation with a love that cannot be comprehended. Here’s what you and I need to do. Make good decisions about the future to the best of our ability and then trust God. The future is in God’s hands, not ours.
The century in which Jesus spoke these words was just as turbulent as our century. In 70 A. D.—about the time Mark was writing his Gospel, the Roman army did the unthinkable—it destroyed the great Temple in Jerusalem to punish Israel for an earlier insurrection. Of course, Jesus said that would happen. At the same time, the tiny Christian community was being severely persecuted. The times were dark, so dark that most Christians believed that Christ would surely return in their lifetime. There is much evidence of this belief in the New Testament. But it was not to be. Instead, Christ instructed his disciples not to be afraid.
This is not to say that we should ignore Christ’s words about his return. He wants us to live expectantly, but it would be a travesty if the words of the one who constantly reassured his disciples to “Fear not, I have overcome the world,” should be distorted by slipshod biblical interpretation to cause fear in the very people whom Christ loves enough to die for us. Christ will return someday, but it will be an occasion of rejoicing, not of heartbreak and fear.
Meanwhile let’s do the best we can to live as Christ would have us live here and now. How would it look to live as Christ wants us to live? Let me give you an example.
An awards ceremony was held January 27, 2016, at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. The purpose of the ceremony was to honor Roddie Edmonds, an Army master sergeant in the II World War with the highest award Israel bestows upon non-Jews. Edmonds was given the “Righteous Among the Nations” award, an award which recognizes the heroics of non-Jewish people who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Edmonds was the first American serviceman to receive the award, which is granted by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust remembrance and educational organization. He’s also one of only five Americans to be so honored.
Edmonds had participated in the landing of the American forces in Europe and was captured and became the highest ranking U.S. non-commissioned officer at the Stalag IX-A prisoner-of-war camp in Germany where, at the risk of his life, he saved an estimated 200–300 Jews from being singled out from the camp for Nazi persecution and possible death by the Germans.
In January 1945, as the war was winding down, the Germans ordered all Jewish POWs in Edmonds’ camp to report the following morning in front of their barracks. Edmonds feared the worse for his Jewish soldiers. Therefore, as the highest-ranking officer in the camp, master sergeant Edmonds ordered all of the camp’s POWs—Jews and non-Jews alike—to stand together in front of the barracks. Together this mass of soldiers, representing multiple religions, totaled about 1,275 men. Upon seeing this large mass of prisoners, the German officer in charge said, “They cannot all be Jews.”
“We are all Jews,” Edmonds replied. Edmonds stood his ground, even when the German officer pulled out his pistol, pressed the barrel against Edmonds’ forehead and threatened to shoot him. Edmonds made it clear to the German officer that to shoot him or any of the other 1,275 “Jewish” POWs would constitute a war crime under the existing Geneva Convention, as prisoners were only required to give their name, rank, and serial number–not their religion. The German officer finally gave up and left the scene. Because of Edmonds’ refusal to give in, some 200-300 American Jewish soldiers were saved that day.
“Would we have the courage of Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds?” then-President Barack Obama asked during the awards ceremony. Edmonds “went above and beyond the call of duty,” Obama said. “His moral compass never wavered. He was true to his faith.”
Edmonds’ son, Chris Edmonds, a Baptist pastor, accepted the honor on behalf of his father, who died in 1985. The younger Edmonds, accompanied by a dozen family members, described the award as “a fitting tribute” to his father, who he said, “lived by a sincere Christian faith and loved everyone.”
If he were alive today, “Dad would say, ‘Son, what is all the fuss? I was just doing my job,’” Chris Edmonds said. “But what he did is right today, it’s right tomorrow, it’s right always,” his son said.
In his remarks, Obama described Edmonds’ bravery as “an instructive lesson” for other Christians. An attack on any faith “is an attack on all our faiths,” he said, and, for Americans in particular, it’s an assault “on the very idea that people of different backgrounds can live together and thrive together.”
“When any Jew anywhere is targeted just for being Jewish,” Obama said, “we all have to respond as Roddie Edmonds did—‘We are all Jews.’” (4) Roddie Edmonds stayed true to the values he learned at a small Methodist church in his hometown of Knoxville, TN.
We need to have more people who have a moral compass like that of Roddie Edmonds. We need people who can be counted on to stand for what is right—not for what is convenient or what is easy or what is popular, or what is safe—but what is right and good and just. In the meantime, remember, we don’t know what the future may hold but we know Who holds the future and we know God’s counting on all His people to be like Master Sgt Roddie Edmonds, with a strong moral compass by which all people one day can be guided into the Kingdom of God.
1. C. Thomas Hilton, The Clergy Journal, Jan. 1999, p. 8.
2. Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2001).
3. futuristupdate@wfs.org.
4. The main source for this material was a story in The Knoxville (TN) News-Sentinel. Many of the details were supplemented from several online articles.