North Central Christian Church Blog

​What If They Are Right?

A Sermon Based on Mark 13:32-37

By Don Tuttle, senior pastor

North Central Christian Church, San Antonio, Texas

Preached April 29, 2012

         Do you remember Harold Camping?

         He is the Christian radio host and preacher who predicted the world would end on May 21, 2011.  When that didn’t go as thought, he predicted the end would come five months later, on October 21.

         Oops!

         Camping joins a host of others who have embarrassed themselves with such predictions.

·                 In the second and third centuries Chiliasm predicted the imminent return of Christ, leading some of its adherents to stop cultivating their land and sell their goods while others trekked off into the wilderness to wait.

·                 The Montanists believed Christ would come again in the second century, returning to the village of Pepuza in Asia Minor.

·                 The 1500s produced two apocalyptic movements.  Hans Hut predicted Pentecost 1528 for Christ’s return.  Melchior Hoffman disagreed.  He said it would be 1534, in Strasbourg.

·                 William Miller, founder of the Seventh-Day Adventists, declared the second advent of Christ would come in 1843, and, when that didn’t happen, in 1844.

·                 More recently Hal Lindsey has suggested that the end was near in the ‘70s, and then the ‘80s, and then before the year 2000.  And he’s still out there doing his thing even today.

a          Now there is an important theological word to describe such predictions.  The word is “hooey.”  Say it with me:  “Hooey!”

         Practitioners of such nonsense never seem to learn from the mistakes of others.  They take apocalyptic literature, which was never intended to be taken literally, literally.  They assume that the God who existed before time, who has no past or future but only the eternal present, is somehow ruled by the Gregorian calendar.  They presume to know what the very Scriptures they claim to revere tell them is known only to God.  Oh, they can preach it with passion and argue it with conviction, but it is hooey!

         That said, what if one of them happened to be right?  What if we knew that next month or next year, Christ was coming to judge the living and the dead?  What would that mean for you?  What difference might it make in your life?

         Some suggest it would lead to repentance. 

         And that could certainly be one response.  The reality of life’s end--regardless of how it might end--often leads people to contemplate their place before a holy God. 

         Years ago a church member asked me to visit one of her friends, one who had just been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.  With only months to live she had begun to think about her life.  Suddenly she had questions that needed answers.  Now, ultimately, she confessed faith in Jesus Christ and was baptized, but it was the impending end that led her to repentance and God’s grace.

         Of course, repentance is always a good response to God, but what if one already has faith?  What might we do?

         Some suggest knowing that Christ is coming will intensify our efforts to serve him.  It would lead us to work harder.

         I understand that.  Every so often Joan will take Owen to a soccer tournament out of town while I stay at home to work.  The interesting part takes place in the hours immediately before their return.  That is when I scurry to wash the dishes and make the bed, to vacuum the carpet or sweep the floors.  Joan’s imminent return prompts a new intensity to my work.

         Knowing of Christ’s imminent return might lead many of us to an intensified devotion.  We might pray harder and study more.  We might be more generous with what we possess.  We might serve others more freely.

         I suppose that would be a good thing, but for some reason I can’t imagine God being all that impressed with such efforts to do what we had not done before the potential for judgment became clear.

         So how might we respond if we knew the end was near?  The best response might be the simplest.  It would be to continue to do the work God has given us—worshipping God, proclaiming the Gospel, teaching the faith, tending to the needy.  It would be remaining faithful to that which we have been called.

         That is the response Jesus suggests in this section of Mark 13. 

         Shortly before his death, Jesus told his disciples that no one except God knows when the day of his return might be.  But that didn’t matter, because their job was to always be watchful, to always be ready.  To clarify his point, he told a parable on how they were to wait.  Imagine being a servant whose master decides to go on a long journey.  He leaves you and the others in charge of the manor.  What do you do?  You go about the work you have been given.  You tend the master’s business, you tend his home, you till his land.  You do so always anticipating that he might return.  Oh, you don’t know when, but it doesn’t matter.  When he does return you will be ready.  That, Jesus said, is the way my disciples wait.

         There is a wonderful scene in the movie “Mrs. Brown” that illustrates the kind of faithfulness to which we are called.  The movie recounts the relationship between Queen Victoria and one of her servants, John Brown.

         Following the death of her husband, the queen sinks into deep depression.  He barely leaves her room and even then never leaves her home.  She refuses to make public appearances expected of the queen.  Fearful that the monarchy will be damaged, her advisers try to cheer her.  Recalling her loving of riding, they send for her horse to be brought to Balmoral by its handler, John Brown.  When he arrives, he prepares the horse to be ridden and takes it to the queens courtyard, where he stands, reins in hand, waiting for the queen.  But the queen is in no mood to be cheered.  In fact, when she spies Brown standing at attention next to her steed she is furious.  She won’t even go to the courtyard where he waits.  And yet the next day, when she looks outside, Brown is there again.  He returns the next day, and the next, and the next.  Finally, the queen sends word that she’s not interested in riding and may never ride again, but that doesn’t matter to Brown.  Every day he saddles her horse, leads it into the courtyard, holds the reins, and waits for word.  “When her majesty does wish to ride,” he says, “I shall be ready.”

         No one knows when the end will come.  But for the Christian, it doesn’t matter.  We go about the work God has given us, so when the majesty does come, we will be ready.