Won’t it be nice when this is all over? What exactly is “this,” you ask? Let me turn it around and ask you – what is “this?” Isn’t it a sign of our times of how messy our world is when we need to clarify what “this” is? There are so many things going on in our world today that we don’t know where to begin.
The mess is so, well, messy, that it’s getting harder and harder to imagine it ever being cleaned up. And this is all taking its toll on us, as a number of people have expressed to me in recent weeks. The mess has gotten to us. Here’s why it has been so taxing on us all: we are so sick and tired about hearing how awful this year has been in so many different ways, yet we cannot escape it, because it impacts us daily in one way or another! We find ourselves on a daily basis weighing this concern against that one, feeling at peace with one decision only to have something pop up that leads us to question ourselves. As a preacher, I would love to be able to get through just one sermon without making any reference to how challenging this year has been, but if we are to see how God’s Word applies to our lives, then it’s going to apply to the messiness, too.
But that doesn’t mean our focus has to be on the mess. Rather, over the course of this “Christmess” series, we’ll give our attention to the hope we have in the midst of this mess: hope in a messed up world, hope for messed up people, hope for messed up plans, and hope when others want to make your life a mess. So as we anticipate a Christmas that has the potential to be more messy than merry, as much as ever, let’s hold onto our hope in Christ.
You might not think of the verses from Matthew 24 as being all that fitting as we are looking ahead to Christmas. But, the season of Advent which begins today, isn’t just a dry-run for Christmas; instead, it gives us opportunity to reflect on Jesus’ coming in every sense of the word – including his second coming, when he returns not in a meager manger, but amidst trumpets and triumph. When will that day be? Jesus provides us with the clues in our verses from Matthew 24.
Do you think your world is turned upside down right now? Try to imagine how devastating Jesus’ first words to his disciples in our verses would have been as he dropped his bombshell on Tuesday of Holy Week. “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down” (Mt. 24:2). Their lives centered around the Temple. It was everything in Jesus’ day. It was a breath-taking visual representation of the spiritual importance of God’s relationship with his people. Its stones were massive and magnificent. It had taken 46 years to rebuild. And to the disciples calling Jesus’ attention to it, he rocked their world by telling them the whole thing would crumble to pieces. Because Jesus’ disciples expected his rise to power to be an earthly one, and because they anticipate that event would happen simultaneously with the destruction of the temple, they asked for some indicators of when this all might happen.
What Jesus provided them with, however, are what the rest of the Bible makes clear to us are signs indicative of his Second Coming on the Last Day. And, assuming you have any familiarity with the Bible and these signs, it’s no spoiler alert to point out that they all have already taken place and continue to take place. The danger for us today is not questioning the signs, but perhaps becoming too used to them. We have seen and still see false prophets. We have seen and still see wars and the threats of war. We have seen and still see natural disasters. We have seen and still see Christians martyred. We have seen and still see – and perhaps are in the midst of – many falling away from the Christian faith. We have seen and still see wickedness on the rise while love is reduced. It’s all there and it’s all been there, so one danger for us is treating it like the boy who cried wolf and dismissing the signs, possibly to our peril.
There is another danger, a trap we must guard against as well. Contrary to what we might think, Jesus doesn’t point out these warnings to provide us with a “honey-do” list. It isn’t so that we can try to figure out how to fix all the broken things he’s pointed out. Consider an example from marriage. There is a common communication break down in a marriage that reveals a struggle typically more common for husbands. We struggle with listening. That doesn’t mean we aren’t listening, but the problem arises when we want to do more than just listen. When our wives are sharing a particular frustration or a struggle, we’re listening… so that we can figure out a solution. We are listening to gather just enough information to allow us to determine how to fix the frustration. While that can at times be helpful, as often as not, wives aren’t looking for a fix as much as they are just looking to be heard. So she sees the conversation itself as an opportunity to connect, while he is presuming she’s sharing to find a solution so that he can fix the problem.
Let me state this very clearly: Jesus is not providing these signs so that we can identify what needs to be fixed before he returns. He wasn’t pointing out problems to his disciples so they could put their collective heads together to figure out a ten-step process to remedy all that was wrong. He didn’t record these signs in the Gospels so that we’d know which problems still need attention before he could return.
No, these signs are not failures for us to fix; they are warnings for us to watch. If we confuse that simple point, we put ourselves at risk. We can have a very unhealthy attachment to this world, as if God’s purpose for placing us here was to solve the puzzle or crack the code. It is too easy for us to think that if we can just do that, then we can make things right and make this world livable and maybe even lovable. We just need to fix what’s wrong or make it more like the old days when things were better, as each and every generation has always arrogantly assumed. While this clearly shows that we know something is wrong with this world in general, we are in the wrong when we presume it is our place to fix it.
Ask yourself this: are you too busy trying to work Jesus out of a job? Because at the end of the day, if we could hypothetically put an end to abortion, world hunger, social injustice, climate change, etc. we’d eventually fix up everything so that there’s nothing left for Jesus to redeem. We won’t need him. We’ll have fixed everything and he won’t need to bother to return to usher in a new heaven and earth – we’ll have already established it on our own!
Is that what we’re hoping for? Is it possible that our lamenting over how broken this world is may indicate that our hearts are a little too attached to it? Jesus clearly told us all that we should expect in these end times, so why are we disappointed that his words are proving to be true? When we point out what’s wrong and how things aren’t as they should be, aren’t we actually taking issue with Jesus’ words in these verses? He said things would be messy – why are we so let down and surprised that they are!?!? Do we suppose we know better than he does where the world is and what it needs most?
Friends, this world is not some fixer-upper that we can turn around and flip for a profit. No, it is broken beyond our ability to repair it. And in fact, Jesus never asks us to; rather, he calls us to stand firmly in the mess until he returns. “The one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (v.13-14). We need to stop trying to fix what’s broken in the world, and start standing firmly in the One who fixed what was broken in us. Instead of longing for a better world here and now, take comfort in knowing that Jesus is coming back into this broken world to claim those he has fixed. He already came once to rescue and repair us, not in the way his disciples had first imagined, but with something far superior: the ransom price needed to buy us back. In fact, by the end of the same week of the gloomy end times predictions, on Good Friday, Jesus’ blood would pour the very foundation on which we stand. On that we stand firm until the end. On that hope alone we will be saved.
The good news gets better. Jesus promised that hope would be proclaimed to the ends of the earth before he returned. We don’t have to worry about anyone on the planet missing out on the hope Jesus came to bring. All have had and still will have the opportunity to hear of and believe in the events that took place later that week on Good Friday and that Sunday when the Messiah cleaned up this world’s mess by his glorious resurrection.
What is left? “Then the end will come” (v.14). And this will not be a bitter end, but a better one – like the end of birth pains when the child arrives. Like the end of a migraine when it all clears up and relief follows. It will be the best ending imaginable. Hope will be fully realized and the mess completely cleaned up. Brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus doesn’t need us to fix what’s wrong in this world – just make sure we don’t cling to it. Cling to Christ alone. When we do that, we no longer need to ask the question, but can rather boldly declare to each other, “Won’t it be nice when this is all over!!!”