July 18, 2021
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34 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
– Matthew 24:34-35
There are times when being a disciple of Jesus is hard. We want to be obedient to the call to love our neighbors, we want to share in the peace of Christ, we want to believe the best in humanity. However, humanity often doesn’t care. We look around us and if we listen too much to the news or believe the things we read that get shared the most, it would seem as though people are working harder for the world to end than for the kingdom of God to become a reality.
Jesus taught his disciples many things about an end. He told them about desolations and persecutions. He told them to look for signs, then he told them that they would not pass away until they saw these things. Jesus told them the truth. During the remaining days of the disciples, from the time of the resurrection until their deaths each of them saw horrible things happening to those who believed in the words of Jesus. And for those who made it to 70 AD, they saw the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, forever marking an end to a Jewish way of life. The disciples, now apostles were starting something new, in Jesus name, that would change the world.
It’s hard for us to imagine, about 2000 years removed from these events how the world changed, but it did. The ushering in of a new kingdom had begun in that generation. However, so many have looked at their world since then and thought, this can’t be the kingdom of God because it’s not perfect. Some have tried to re-predict an end based on their interpretations of signs in our world, others have worked to burn down (and perhaps still are) the world as we know it, in hopes that something new would arrive.
In all my studying, what I have come to understand is that the kingdom of God is here. It is being formed and created as people capture what it means to live together in community, sharing as each has need, and offer the reconciliation of God’s love to others.
We often want to see massive justice happen where God would end the chaos, and peace would come swiftly restoring all things to how they should be. Unfortunately the restoration of anything takes time and passion. Time and passion that those who believe in God must put in to see any change at all. The world may never cease to want to destroy itself, but the words of Jesus, that live in us, that we share to offer peace, reconciliation, and love will work against those things that want to destroy, in order to create something better.
These are the great words of hope that we hold on to from Jesus, that will live forever, that we would choose to bring new birth into this world, by sharing in expectant hope the love we have first know from the one who is love incarnate, Jesus our Lord.
Grace & Peace,
Sam