Jesus, we’ve said this before and still you just don’t get it. Here we are at the time of the year when we should be all bright and merry, and you come on with this end-of-the-world rant. Can’t you just join the party and make happy? We’ve had enough of bad news for too long.

Doomsday Commentary

Uh, if you’d just stop trying to control the show, maybe you’d see that’s the point. As it is, every generation has seen this kind of thing. The world never has been a safe place. Even today, NASA scientists monitor asteroids in case one should ever aim for our planet on a collision course. So much for “signs in the sun, moon, and stars.” That’s leaving out all the other scenes of devastation in which we live or may encounter due to the turmoil of “roaring seas and strange tides.” Not to be forgotten is how we are living through political divisions, social injustice, senseless killings, economic struggles, effects of drug abuse, and/or whatever is ripping your soul apart for now. The Trouble with Jesus is he gives fair warning.

Yet, it’s also fairly said this kind of commentary fits every generation of the past until now. No wonder there’s such a dismal view of what’s to come. People always have known fear, anxiety, and the desperation from what was and what never seems to change. In some ways, it’s understandable how these same perspectives are carried into what is seen now as well as expectations of what will be. This is not the first time people have thought the end of the world is near. Jesus has been saying all along: People, expect it to be rough out there.

Control and Security

If a common denominator in all of this could be found, it is centered in a sense of control. Control means to have power to direct and change, to have security over our lives and those around us. When the diagnosis is dire, when relationships don’t work as we expect, when there is lack or perceived lack of what we need, when the unthinkable happens, when control is slipping through your fingers, you might as well think the world is coming to an end. Bad things happen even to good people. The question is raised, where is God in all of this?

“So when all these things begin to happen, stand up straight and lift up your heads, for your liberation is near.”

Hope and Resilience

Yes, that’s right. That’s what Jesus is saying. Show that you expect something good to happen, and you have no fear of what it will be. No need to duck and hide, for you know and believe there will be release from what is into that which is good, better, a hope in the future. (Jeremiah 29:11)

How so? Just look around. In this case, Jesus gives a short lesson of a fig tree. When its leaves bud and form, you can expect that the season will change into summer, that time of warmth and light. These occurrences are common but contain lessons in the expectation inherent in what has always been known and predictable. Likewise, Jesus is saying when these horrors come to have a similar expectation. Change will happen. How so? In the answer to the question: God is near.

When it seems the worst could or has happened, that’s when God shows up.

(Dear Reader, remember that please. You’ll see it again.)

Oh, yeah? Well, aren’t you full of that familiar saccharine sentiment of the day. Next thing is you’ll be saying HO, HO, HO, and handing out candy canes. Just pretend like nothing has happened and get on with life. Guess you’ve never known what it means to lose and lose big.

This is not denial, acting like bad things don’t happen. They do, and the grief experienced in the aftermath can be crippling. When control slips through your fingers, loss hits the chest and severs the heart. That’s life, and no one escapes it.

Season of Hope

Hope is the gift that Jesus is promising here. Watch for it. Stay alert. Keep your eyes wide open! Don’t be trapped into diversions that create escapism but leave you with the hurt of a hangover. Don’t succumb to worry or anxiety about what has not happened. Look for that budding of hope.

Seek out those places and people who live lives of humility, gentleness, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, peace. Find it in a trust that knows life is not just about the trials of today but in the One who promises future. If anything, future is what this season celebrates. Not only has God come in a human form that can be known. The greater story is that God comes and is known whenever hope, peace, joy, and love is found.

But the greatest promise is realization that God is still coming. That “heaven and earth will disappear” is part of the story, as is the Son of Man arriving in the clouds. That’s why Jesus said, “my words will remain forever.”

Hope, expectation, an advent of new life to come in the midst of all that’s wrong in the world and about the world requires constant watch even while there are yet gifts to be purchased, ornaments to be hung, cookies to bake, or the worst is on your doorstep. May hope be found in your awareness of the Jesus who came, has come, and will come again.

“Stay alert. Pray for strength to get through these things that will happen

and stand before the Son of Man.”

Luke 21:25-36

The Trouble with Jesus: Considerations Before You Walk Away by Constance Hastings Available wherever you get your books or Click Here to support local independent bookstores!

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