Jesus certainly paints a frightening picture of the end times in the portion of Luke’s gospel we hear next Sunday. Perhaps his mood was colored by what was coming next for him – betrayal, arrest, trial, torture and execution, experiencing the full range of human capacity for cruelty. But the apocalypse he foretells is one all of his followers would face. Whether that prophecy was realized in persecutions wrought by the Romans, or whether it is a cosmic cataclysm still to come, he urged them to stay alert and prayerful:
"Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
The end of the world has come many a time upon people and families and communities and nations. It comes in natural disasters and in man-made horrors like war and famine. The Syrian people have been enduring it for far too long. Is there a final “end” for which we are to be ready at all times?
The early Christians thought so. They took Jesus’ words at face value and thought his return would be imminent. This assumption led some to religious rigor, and others to licentiousness – if the world is going to end any minute, why bother with rules? As weeks turned to years and to decades, people realized they needed to focus on living in the now, releasing the power and joy that are our inheritance as beloved of God. So Paul, writing to the church in Thessalonika (in a passage we'll hear for this Sunday), says:
"May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints."
This is another way to prepare ourselves to “stand before the Son of Man” – to learn to love more wholly, to train our hearts in the ways of holiness, to practice repentance and forgiveness, and excel at showing love and hospitality when it is challenging to do so.
We don’t have to wait for the end of the world to stand before Jesus, though one day, we’re told, this present reality will end and we will face him as judge. If we turn our hearts toward that relationship in the here and now, the “then and later” will become something to anticipate, not to fear, no matter how traumatically it occurs.
Practice in your prayer today – stand before Jesus and say, “Make me ready. Make me ready for your life in and around me.” I believe he will answer that prayer in amazing and wondrous ways.
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