· Isaiah 64:1-9
· Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 (7)
· 1 Corinthians 1:3-9
· Mark 13:24-37
"But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come."
I wonder about that. Not when the time will come, since only the Father knows. But I wonder whether I will know, and whether I'm ready.
As we read in Isaiah today, God used to manifest himself clearly. In the days of the patriarchs and the Exodus, it is written that God would appear in awesome manifestations, like pillars of fire, burning bushes, whirlwinds, or that thing in Ezekiel. But when Christ came, the Jews who had been waiting for him for two thousand years did not know him. So I wonder, how will it be when Christ comes again? Will he come in a blaze of glory, with a thousand thousands saints attending, or will he come quietly again?
Jesus told us that on that day, "the one on the housetop must not go down to take what is in the house; the one in the field must not turn back to get a coat." (Matthew 24:17-18) There will be no time to hesitate or think things through, and yet we don't even know what the sign will be.
Even if I recognize the sign, will I be ready? This summer the fire alarm went off in my building one day at 10:20 AM. I wasn't working and I had fallen asleep while reading. I had never heard the alarm in this building before. It took me a while to start reacting. Then I used the bathroom, changed from sweatpants into jeans, grabbed my camera, laptop, wallet, keys, phone and dog, and finally evacuated. It took me about ten minutes. Out of 107 units, only eight people evacuated. Three of us brought our cats, dogs and digital cameras. One brought out a child. And that was it. And mind you, the fire department here can't do high-angle rescues, so if the building is really on fire, nobody's going to rescue you. And yet, only eight people responded to the fire alarm.
So if this is how we respond to a sign we know, and a scenario we've practiced, how will we deal with the Last Day? What are we supposed to do, anyway? It says "run for the hills of Judea." Really? That's gonna be an awfully long swim. And who's going to look after my dog? Remember one time a guy said to Jesus "I'm coming with you, just let me bury my father," and Jesus told him "let the dead bury the dead"? I take it we don't take our dogs on the Last Day. What's going to happen to her? Technically, God has a Covenant with the animals as well, that he won't destroy them all. But that doesn't mean my dog will be taken care of. Will she be taken too? Do all dogs really go to heaven?
Then I ask myself, am I ready to leave my dog? I won't take a job that would make me spend too much time away from her. We're almost never apart for more than ten hours. If I had time to think about it, I'd probably trust the Lord to provide for her, and go without turning back. But there won't be time to think. In an emergency, my first reflex is to get my dog. Exactly what Jesus said not to do when the time comes.
So, I wonder. I think I'm ready to follow the Lord, but I'm not. I have no idea what the sign is, what to do when it comes, and whether I'd run in the right direction, or turn back to get my dog. If the day comes before I die, I'll be just as unprepared as the heathen.
I guess it's going to be a leap of faith, almost literally. In my work, I'm trained to respond to specific emergencies without thinking. Evacuate, alarm, assess. Stop the flow of product. Eliminate sources of ignition. Straight ahead and power on. Use the stairs, not the elevator. I know these things reflexively, without thinking. When something happens, I trust my reflexes, not my thinking. So hopefully, when the sign comes, I will reflexively trust the Lord rather than trying to think for myself. Hopefully, I'll recognize the sign without having to think about it.
Maybe it's all metaphorical and there is really no such thing as the desolating sacrilege and the Last Day. Maybe it's just making a point. Many people think God is telling them exactly what to do, in so many words, day by day, almost hour by hour. Sometimes it's about the most trivial things, that I can't imagine God ever caring about. Yet God, Jesus, didn't even tell his own disciples how to recognize the Last Day and what to do when you see the sign. That seems like a pretty important omission. So maybe the point is, none of us can claim to know the will of God, and neither can we claim that we are ready. Maybe it's a lesson in humility. However great we think our faith is, none of us really know how God will manifest his will, and none of us can be sure that he or she is ready.
Ultimately it's also a lesson in trust. God didn't tell us what sign to look for and what to do when we see it, but he did tell us, be ready at any time, because when the time comes there will not be time to dilly-dally. So we have to trust that when the time comes, God will be there to lead us, and not leave us guessing.
Praise be to God, the First, the Last, the Manifest, the Hidden, the Most Kind.
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