The End Will Come
Mark 13:1-8 gives me a lot of anxiety and is, honestly, very triggering for me. I opened the lectionary** a few weeks ago and when I saw that this was the Gospel passage for that week I closed my Bible and thought to myself, "I hate this story so, so much."
(Just being real with you. I really do hate it.)
It's the story of the disciples coming out of the temple with Jesus and Jesus commenting that the temple and all of the buildings would one day be thrown down and that the disciples shouldn't be alarmed about the wars and rumors of wars that they will hear because these things must take place and that "the end is still to come".
These things, he says, along with ...
Kingdoms battling kingdoms.
Famines.
Earthquakes.
... These things, he says, are just "birth pangs", the beginnings of the end of the world as we know it.
Growing up in a conservative Evangelical world where I sat through Bible classes every day from the 4th-12th grades before going off to an Evangelical Bible College, this passage (along with the one in Matthew) were often handed to me as proof of ...
The End Times.
The Apocalypse.
The Second Coming of Jesus.
... As I was told over and over and over again that the world will get progressively WORSE long before it gets any BETTER and the only time it will get BETTER is when wars, earthquakes, floods, and famines absolutely obliterate and level everything that we have built on this earth so that Jesus can return to wipe away the wreckage and carnage and start over with a fresh slate.
"This is Good News", I was told.
This morning I opened up a few books to see what other people had to say about this passage (I was hoping for an inspirational thought to see this story differently!) and although most of them are written by more progressive thinking people, they all talked about how this story and Jesus' words refer to his inevitable Second Coming and how instead of focusing on figuring out when it's going to happen or what it will look like or whatever ... we should just focus on how we're living our lives now.
Ugh.
Yuck.
My Spirit threw up inside of me, honestly. I can't stomach talk about the "Second Coming" of Jesus anymore and I can't wrap my mind around the idea of Jesus returning to either rapture people away or destroy the world or remake the world or ... put whatever pretty spin on it you want and give me whatever pule of Bible verses you want, I just ... I just can't.
And so this morning I sat here with my coffee thinking I'd abandon #CoffeeThoughts for today and put up a cute picture of my daughter instead, but as I took a sip of coffee and stared out my kitchen window ... I had a thought.
And this a fresh idea.
A new idea.
So bear with me as I flesh it out.
But.
What if.
WHAT IF Jesus' words mean or could take on an entirely new meaning for me? And for you? And for others who have been spiritually abused and traumatized by this story? What if these words that are very triggering for me in a negative way could actually come to trigger something more positive in my heart and mind?
Jesus says that these things must happen ...
Earthquakes.
Famines.
Wars.
... These things are "birth pangs", he says, and that "the end is still to come".
I don't know about you, but I've experienced some earthquakes in my life. And I've gone through seasons of life where my soul has starved and has been hungry and has felt starved of joy and starved of anything good. I've gone through times where longstanding relationships have turned into wars and battles where we've gone back and forth and back and forth with absolutely no resolution.
But.
You know what?
All of those problems were birth pangs of ... the end. And what I mean by that all of those problems that shook the foundations of my life, starved my soul, and destroyed relationships - they all eventually came to an end.
Sometimes it took days.
Sometimes it took months.
Sometimes it took years.
BUT.
They have all, in some way, shape, or form .... they've all come to an end and have given way to peace, joy, new perspective - new life.
And so this morning as I re-read this story for the 10,000th time in my life Spirit whispered to me and said, "this isn't a promise that I will one day return - I am already here! Living inside of you. Living all around you. Why would I need to come again if I'm already here? Instead, these words are a promise that as hard as some of your days are and as much energy and life and joy they may try to suck from your soul, no matter how hard the ground quakes and no matter what longstanding friend, family member, etc. wants to go to war with you next ... every disaster that begins eventually comes to an end. Wars end. Famines end. Earthquakes end. Fires end. Their beginning is really just a sign that they will inevitably end, none of them last forever. And so this story is my reminder to you and my promise to you that when you see these things happening in your life ... the end of them will come and I will be with you the whole way through."
I don't know about you, but that seems like much better news to me ... that seems like Good News.
No matter what you're dealing with today and no matter what part of your life is quaking or starving, no matter what strong and longstanding relationships is coming down and crashing to pieces, know this - this season will not last forever. The hard times you are in are merely a sign that that they will one day come to an end because no hard time last forever, they all eventually come to a close.
The tears of today are merely birth pangs of the smiles of tomorrow.
Hang in there my friends. We're in this together.
(** The lectionary is a tool used by some churches and Christians where every week a different series of Bible passages / stories is assigned to be used in church services. The idea is that those passage should be the focus of the Sunday morning workshop services or even the focus of ones Bible reading throughout the course of the week. I have a series of commentaries called ‘Feasting on the Word’ where 4 different people write about each passage from the lectionary every week so that you get 4 different perspectives. Some writers are more conservative, some are super liberal / progressive, but itt’s been an AMAZING tool for me. PLUS, Barbara Brown Taylor is one of the editors and so you know it’s well done! Check it out, HERE.)