Luke 21:5-19
When Will This Be?
Anyone who has traveled with children is familiar with this question: "Are we there yet?" Little ones have little patience when it comes to long car rides.
Of course, the same is true with older ones and the long ride of history. As Jesus unfolds for his followers what is going to happen to them in their near future, they, like little children stuck in the back seat, immediately want to know "when will this be?"
This is no doubt a common feature of human nature. We want to know what the future holds. Whether we are trying to invest in an uncertain stock market or trying to figure out which car will give us the best service or simply trying to eat right so as to avoid health problems down the road, peering into the unknown tomorrow is a perennial human activity.
What we can know
As we stare into the unknown, what are some things we can actually know? For one thing, we know that whatever is happening right now, whatever is real for us, is going to change. The great Greek historian Heraclitus said, "You cannot step into the same river twice." In other words, before you can get one foot out and the other one in, the river has moved on.
We can count on that as we peer into the future. Think about the changes from the past 50 years. Think about how education, religion, politics and science have changed. Think about the difference in the world just since September 11, 2001. The river of reality is constantly moving on. We can be sure that what is crystal clear today will be obscured or changed or refuted tomorrow. We can count on it.
In our text, Jesus was making this point in dramatic fashion with his followers. And not just about something temporal. He was talking about the temple — the holiest and most sacred of all places for first-century Jews.
Of course, Jesus was also reading the signs of the times. With Roman occupation chafing at the very core of Jewish nationalism, Jesus knew that trouble was brewing. He knew that eventually extremists would provoke a rebellion against Rome and the stones of the temple would come tumbling down. That is exactly what happened within 40 years of Jesus' death. He saw with prophetic clarity where the people of Israel were headed.
The same can be true for us. We know things are going to change, and if we pay attention to social and economic trends, sometimes we can predict where the changes will actually occur and what form they will take. We may not have the prophetic clarity of Jesus, but if we pay attention, we can at least tell what direction the river is flowing.
What we cannot know
The other perennial quality of human nature is the desire to know what we cannot possibly know. Jesus' words, with their apocalyptic character, inevitably send us into reveries about the end of history. Not only do we want to know what is going to happen next, but we 3iso want to know when the great promises of scripture will be fulfilled. When will the kingdom of God fully and finally come? When will the great injustices of history be resolved? When will we see the Son of Man coming on clouds of heaven?
Quite an industry, both print and film, has grown up around the subtle suggestion that there are hints and clues that may tell us what we obviously cannot know. Even Jesus said on one occasion that he did not know.1
And even if we are not dealing with the great climax of history, we wonder about our own denouement. We know that death is in our future, but we don't know when or how.
Certainly part of the urgency of wanting to unravel the mystery of an unfolding future has to do with our own personal part of it.
What we should know
So we know things are going to change. We may not be able to predict what they are, but we know things are going to be different down river. We also believe that God has a plan for history, even if we cannot know exactly when and how it is going to come about As Albert Einstein once quipped, God does not play dice with the universe. There is an order, a purpose and a destination.
In the meantime, what are we supposed to do? How are we to live with all these uncertainties? Is it possible to simply block out our innate curiosity about tomorrow? And what do we do with the anxiety that comes from knowing our own mortality? The world may not end in our lifetime, but our life will not extend forever.
First, we should act on the best knowledge we have. Over time, we learn and experience things we know are true. For instance, if we are married, then fidelity, loyalty and devotion for our spouse are things we know to do. If we have children, caring for them, loving them, meeting their physical and emotional needs are things we don't have to puzzle over. If we have a job, faithfully performing our duties, working hard and honestly to advance what the goal of our employment involves does not require any agonizing wonderment. Show up for work every day and do our job.
In other words, as we puzzle our way through life peering into an unknown and unknowable tomorrow, the best thing we can do along the way is to do faithfully what we do know. Sooner or later the future will disclose itself to us in the form of a new now. When that happens, we can respond accordingly. In the meantime, we should do to the best of our ability the last thing we understood and saw clearly.
What does the future hold?
Jesus' words about the end of the temple and the warning of coming persecutions may not sound like the kind of future we would like to enjoy. But we have to be honest with ourselves. Since we cannot know what tomorrow brings, we must be prepared for good or bad news. No one could have predicted what happened on September 11, 2001, or how the world would change because of those tragic events. Now we know.
But there is an undercurrent to the biblical notion about the future that should inform our queries and our ponderings about it. We believe that God has created the world purposefully. There is an order to creation that suggests a plan, maybe even a dream. God invites us in faith to embrace that order, that dream. We may not know what tomorrow will bring, but we can trust that eventually God makes all things right.
This is the source of Christian hope. Tomorrow may bring us personal tragedy. We may witness national catastrophe on the scale of the fall of the Jerusalem temple or the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. But these calamities do not define for us the character of God's ultimate reality. As we embrace the notion that at the heart of the universe there is a plan, we are able also to embrace hope. And hope will sustain us no matter what may come.
Heraclitus was most certainly correct. Life is like a flowing river and we can never put our foot in the same river twice.
But the promise we have from God is the river. It may change; we may change with it. But because of the grace of God, the river will always be there.
1 Matthew 24:36
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