Matthew 24:29-31

I’ve heard these stories since I was a kid. My tradition didn’t focus on them specifically, but I heard them through Sunday School lessons primarily. There is an end and it’s coming, so pay attention! Looking back on those days and then studying my tradition(s) (the EUB Church’s roots that have become part of the United Methodist System has some significant differences from the Methodist Episcopal theology with whom we merged.), I now understand that some of those fears were simply misplaced primarily because scriptures like this were simply misunderstood.

Nowhere else in the Gospels or the whole of Christian Scriptures (New Testament) is there a description of the last times like Matthew’s here in chapters 24-25. In each section there are surely lessons to be gleaned. It must have been important to Jesus (and Matthew) especially since this sermon is his last before the final events of Holy Week. But Jesus’ purpose in sharing them might not be what we’ve always been taught.

Picking up where we left off yesterday (see March 12th Blog, “You’ll Know”), Jesus moves from the chapters of the story and begins to clarify the final chapter. Scholars are still not clear what it all means other than this, no one misses this one. Like the final chapter in a great book, you know when the last chapter begins because there are few pages left and all the loose ends are being tied up. Great novels often bring a focus to the last chapter that allows the reader to see clearly what may have been missed in the clues sprinkled throughout.

This is that…and in only 3 verses.

What comes after this in more lessons and parables is about what happens in the chapters that lead to the end, in a book where the last chapter cannot be identified. It’s more like a series with each book ending with a “To Be Continued.”

Yet the end Jesus describes here will not be missed by anyone…and it comes when the whole earth seems to be falling apart. “At that time all the tribes of the earth will be full of sadness.” Mt 24:30. What Jesus brings, then, is not more sadness or grief, but hope and the kingdom (as is described in Revelation and in the Lord’s Prayer, the kingdom descending to the earth). It’s about taking the chaos and putting it back in order. It’s about the New Creation.

It’s coming…sometime.

What it means for us now is simple. We must take Jesus seriously. And not just the final part, but all that comes before that event. If his Last Words meaning anything at all, it’s that all the others that led to them were just as important. All that stuff Jesus teaches about God, neighbors, prayer, enemies, justice, mercy, love, and grace are not just lessons to be learned, but kingdom life to be lived. That’s the real focus. - Chris