We are nearing the end of Ordinary Time as Advent draws near and so the theme this time of year is on the Second Coming of Christ at the end of the world.
People are telling end of the world jokes like there is no tomorrow! E.g., A comedian spoke of a Pentecostal preacher who had predicted the end of world wrongly two times. He said that this minister says now that the new date for the end of the world is November 21. If it rains, it will be November 22.
To set the record straight, we hear in our Gospel today that only the Father knows when the end of the world is. There are several verses in the Bible when Christ speaks from His humanity or human consciousness, just like the rest of us humans do. But Jesus is also fully God. In his human nature, Jesus says that he does not know when the end of the world will be, although he does know it by His divine nature. At any rate, that means that the date of the end of the world cannot be known based on prophecy: Only the Father knows.
However, certain things must happen before the end of the world as the Catechism teaches in the entries in found the 670’s section.
E.g., Note the qualifier in today’s Gospel from Mark 13:24, “In those days after that tribulation.” “That” refers to the general falling away from the faith by many Christians due to false prophets and false Christs; and there must be a completed number of those saved; including a mass conversion of Jews to the Church, along with many natural disasters (Mark 13:19) including the greatest earthquakes that will ever be recorded (Revelation 16:18-20). Plus, there will be major wars (Matthew 24:7), and the Anti-Christ appearing offering a god-less utopia and subsequent persecution and martyrdom for those who don’t join-in.” (Matthew 24:9-10). All told, it will be the biggest tribulation and ordeal the world has ever seen says Matthew 24:21, but Matthew 24:13 promises that "he that shall endure unto the end, shall be saved."
We are not in those times, yet, although the Catechism says that we never know what could happen in the coming months or years (673).
The Second Coming of Christ at the end of the world means the Last Judgement. The “four winds” encompass all directions or the “four corners of the earth”: north, south, east, and west (Jeremiah 49:36; Matthew 24:31). All who ever were conceived or lived during the history of the world will be assembled, “…. some shall live forever, others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace,” we hear today from our First Reading from Daniel 12:2
Despite all the upheaval when the world is ending, we are given a tender image to prepare for Christ's return by noting certain signs: a fig tree in spring: "Learn a lesson from the fig tree,” Mark 13:28 says, “When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near.”
1). Tender branches mean new growth: perhaps the conversion of the Jews to Christianity, especially since the tender shoot is the biblical symbol of the Messiah coming from David’s line popularized by the Jesse Tree. This could include another condition for the Second Coming which is that the Gospel be preached to all nations, which results in the complete evangelization of all nations- where most of the nation comes into the Church.
Tender also means pliable; a heart that is responsive to God and is open to listening to others and being corrected.
2.) Next, the branches sprout leaves- this could mean religious deception, and natural disasters and wars. Jesus says that this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. "This generation" may not the generation to whom Christ is speaking, but the generation of the last days when Christ actually returns to earth.
On another level of interpretation, the world did seem to end when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD and in 410 when the Vandals sacked Rome, or September 11, 2001. Before that day we Americans thought we were untouchable, that no one would want to, or be able to, breach our security and take our lives in such a brutal and horrendous way.1
In all those cases, one world ended and another one began.
The leaves commencing to show on the fig tree also mean that deep in the roots, the sap is rising. Contact this life deep within yourself, which is the Holy Spirit, for your own spiritual well-being. To prepare to meet Christ, recall the feelings of dissatisfaction that your sin and bad habits brings to you. Feel its unpleasantness, what your soul is saying to you. Watch the pattern and the chain of cause and effect so you can interrupt it.
Considering our end-times, when we will die or the world ends: Everything is passing, –all difficult things, this job; financial struggles, being sick in bed, changing diapers-- testify to the impermanence. The initial thoughts and impulses arise and pass. Our most dangerous upheavals are pride, envy, laziness, gluttony, greed, anger, and lust. Simply put, as temptations they first exist and then disappear. This teaches us to refrain from the action phase of the pattern by consent of the will. This is the space of choice. Redirect away from the sin or bad habit.
Christ does not want his elect "Shaking like a leaf" in fear.
Jean Danielou said that “the great mistake we make in our spiritual lives is to tarry at these intermediary zones instead of going straight to God. We let ourselves be infiltrated by regrets, plans, desires, cares…..like the diver on the platform, the believer’s task is not to tarry on the edge of the reality that is God, but to plunge into the divine abyss despite our fears and allow ourselves to see that God dwells in the world everywhere.2
No one can go back and make a brand-new start, but anyone can start from here and make a brand-new end.
1. Travis Edward Turner Poling, Everytime the World Ends,: Brethren Life and Thought
January 1, 2006, pg. 240
2. Jean Danielou, God’s Life in Us (New York: Dimension Books, 1969); pg. 30.
