Sermon Tone Analysis

Be prepared

A few weeks back there were bush fires all around the state, and while all this was raging, the weather forecast pointed to a day when all conditions came together to form what they called ‘catastrophic’ conditions.

Essentially this meant that the tiniest of sparks could turn into a raging fire in moments.

What happened next, in my opinion, was truly extraordinary.

People listened and acted on it.

People took extra precautions because they knew what the danger was.

Now in some ways, it’s easy to criticise the response.

After all, there wasn’t even a fire in our region.

And I must admit, on one level I think there was perhaps more panic than we needed.

But you know what?

There was reason for the panic.

It was because we knew what could happen.

Particularly here on the Tilligerry Peninsula, we had very recent experience of fire cutting off our community and threatening our homes.

And so while we perhaps could have done it with less hysteria, we were right to take action.

I know personally, we spoke as a family about what we would do.

And top of the list was: listen to what the firies say!

People cleared the gutter from their eaves.

They made sure their hoses were in order.

They ensured they had their important document and sentimental items ready to pick up in case they needed to make a hasty exit.

In the end, our region was spared, but we were ready.

Now this morning I want to consider this idea of being ready.

Of course, there are a lot of different things that we can be ready for.

But in some ways, the thing I’m wanting to focus on is actually the thing that will tie all of it together.

Ultimately I’m talking about when Jesus returns.

Return of Christ

Well, before I talk about what it means to be ready for the return of Christ, it’s important to understand what this is all about.

In fact, I’m going to suggest that in some ways, having a basic understanding of this is important to help us become prepared - just like understanding the impact of a bush fire helps us to actually be prepared.

Well, it’s worth noting that Christians tend to fall down one of two paths when we start talking about the return of Christ.

On the one hand, we have those who just love talking about it and can’t get enough of it.

On the other hand, we get people who tend to feel a little uneasy about the whole thing.

Perhaps understanding that there are a number of different ideas out there, but it just feels too hard to get your head around so in the end, just becoming content that it’ll all sort itself out in the end.

I’m going to suggest that at either end of this spectrum, whether completely obsessed, or a complete apathy towards it, we can be doing ourselves a disservice.

But it is when we begin to see how the whole sweep of the Bible is bringing us to a point, not just the few passages that seem to directly address it, that we will be in a position to truly make ourselves ready.

The biblical story

You see, if we very briefly survey the entire bible, we start with God’s perfect creation.

We then see sin enter and make a huge mess of it.

That all happens in just the first few chapters.

But then the vast majority describes God’s redemption of humanity.

Without going into all the detail now, God raises the right people up, sets up various patterns, all of which has the purpose of redeeming humanity.

All of this culminates with the person of Jesus Christ - the Word made flesh.

God as a human.

We could spend a long time exploring the ways he fulfills all the patterns God had set up, but for now we’ll content ourselves with the fact that he came at precisely the right time, and the right place and in the right manner, and in doing so, won the ultimate victory over death.

But while this victory was complete, this wasn’t the end of the scope of the Bible.

You see, it was the right time for that victory, but in God’s wisdom it wasn’t the right time to fully claim the victory.

And so we enter the time we are in now.

And it is a very interesting time because we know the victory has been won, but we are still living with evil in the world.

But we need to understand this time with this biblical direction.

You see, the redemption of humanity is going to culminate when Jesus returns.

The whole bible is pointing us in this direction.

It is as we understand this flow of the bible that we can see all of it as showing us how we should be preparing for the return of Christ.

Current turmoil

But we need to dig just a little deeper into our current position.

You see, it is as we look at this overall sweep of the bible that we actually make a lot of sense of the great turmoil that we see in our world today.

You see, the way the world is now should not come as a surprise to the close bible reader, but in fact, it is happening just like we might expect.

You see, Christ’s victory set up God’s kingdom in its current form.

But God wanted this kingdom to grow - to spread through all the earth.

It’s the small mustard seed becoming the huge spreading tree.

And it is only as it reaches it’s designated point that we will see Christ return.

But this kingdom isn’t growing in a vacuum, rather it is taking shape amidst the kingdom of this world.

And it is as this process takes shape that the turmoil we see today occurs.

Destruction of temple

But let’s step back a bit.

Because today, the text before us is from in a significant speech of Jesus known as the Olivet discourse.

(That’s actually just a fancy way of saying that he said it while on the Mount of Olives.

But you need to understand the context of what he is saying.

You see, the chapter actually starts with the context of the temple and while the disciples admired the beautiful building, Jesus informs them that it will be completely destroyed.

We know from history that this event had a very literal fulfilment only a few decades after Jesus spoke the words.

If you know you’re history, you might know that in the year 70 AD, after some turbulent times between the Jews and the Romans, a Roman army marched into Jerusalem and laid siege to the temple, completely destroying it.

It was truly a terrible time in the history of the Jews.

But it is back at the start of that the disciples are questioning Jesus as to when this will take place.

Now here is where things get a little tricky.

You see, not only are they asking about when the temple will be overthrown.

They also ask about when the end of the age will come.

So when Jesus gives his answer, it is a little unclear as to whether he is talking specifically about the destruction of the temple or his return.

Personally, I believe that Jesus is actually quite content to conflate the two events, because what happens with the destruction of the temple actually sets up a pattern we will see when Jesus returns.

Now, we can learn quite a bit about this temple being destroyed from various history books, perhaps most notably from the historian Josephus who lived around the time of Jesus.

It was a siege that lasted about four months, going from just before Passover in the year AD 70 and going to the month of August in the same year.

At the height of the battle, the scene as described by various historians is very gruesome.

They describe corpses being heaped higher and higher, and rivers of blood flowing down the sanctuary steps.

Now, it’s not my intention to go through all of the early verses of , but I just want to highlight how Jesus describes how we can expect turmoil.

What I do want to warn about these verses however is that we shouldn’t be trying to use them as some sort of key to unlocking when Jesus will return again.

It’s sometimes suggested that the wars and rumours of wars are a sign that Jesus return is imminent.

But look a bit closer to verse 6 which uses this phrase.

It tells us that wars and rumours of wars will come, but don’t be alarmed… because… “the end is still to come”.

Even when it talks about famines and earthquakes in verse 7, Jesus then goes on to say in verse 8 that these are only the beginning of birth pains.

Now that being said, I do believe in the bible we get the picture that as this age continues there will be an intensification of the this persecution and trouble.

And in some ways, this is where the analogy of birth pains works quite well.

A woman in labour starts with relatively minor pains.

They might seem strong during those initial contractions, but they are nothing compared to what happens just before the baby is born.

Why this speech?

So what I’m trying to say is that this chapter is not designed as a road map for the return of Jesus, but rather a general description of what we can expect during this age.

But what are we to make of it all?

Is Jesus just telling us this to give us a little glimpse of the future, or does he have a deeper reason for telling us.

Well, that brings us to the part of the passage that I do want to spend a little bit more time in this morning.

That is, the section starting at verse 36.

Keeping Watch

Well, the big idea I want to get from this actually comes from verse 42 which tells us: “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come”.

Now the big question that comes from that is: what does it mean to keep watch?

Not date setting

You see, I don’t believe that keeping watch means trying to predict the date by joining the dots of the various signs.