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The Rev. Dr. Brian Rajcok

After The Birth Pangs

The movie This Is the End is a comedy about the end of the world.  In it, actors Seth Rogan, James Franco, Jonah Hill, and others all play themselves.  It’s set in modern-day Hollywood when the Apocalypse happens.  They’re at a party at James Franco’s house and Seth Rogan leaves for a moment to go to a convenience store.  While he’s there the rapture happens, and he sees people disappear into heaven.  He goes out on the street to see cars whose drivers were just raptured crash into buildings and all sorts of destruction starts happening around him.  He rushes back to the house party.  Everybody’s still there and nobody’s noticed that anything different has occurred.  Until suddenly, sinkholes appear and start sucking everyone into hell.  A small group is left to live in a post-apocalyptic world where they have hopes of doing enough good deeds to earn their way into heaven. 

 

It’s a fun movie, certainly not theologically accurate, but a fun movie nonetheless.  Unfortunately, it portrays a number of common misunderstandings about Christian theology and the biblical view of where the world is heading.  For example, the idea of doing good deeds to get to heaven is something we Lutherans push back against.  Another example is the idea of the rapture.  The concept isn’t even found in the Bible; it’s an idea that was developed in the 1800s by American preachers.  The actual biblical understanding of the world’s future is not one of doom and gloom, but one of new birth, spiritual transformation, and the promise of a new creation.  

 

The Gospel reading today begins with Jesus’ disciples commenting on how glorious the Temple is.  Jesus seems unimpressed and basically says, “Ah whatever…it’s all gonna fall down someday.”  His disciples are SHOCKED!  This is God’s Temple, how could it ever be destroyed?!?!?!  They assume if the Temple is destroyed it must be because the world is ending.  So they ask Jesus when this will happen and what the signs of its coming will be.  Jesus addresses the need for signs saying that there will always be people claiming to be Him returned, and there will always be people claiming the end is near, and there will always be wars and rumors of wars.  None of that is a sign that the end is coming.  It is all just the beginning of the birth pangs. 

 

Now the Jerusalem Temple was in fact destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.  Some of Jesus’ disciples thought this meant the end of the world must be coming soon, but others in the early church remembered what He said and understood that some sort of birth was coming. 

 

Jesus often warned his disciples of the trouble ahead, the risks and dangers and violence and disasters.  What he called the birth pangs.  But he also said repeatedly that these dangers would not be the end.  The painful birth pangs would lead to a birth.  A rebirth of humanity and the world.  The trials and tribulations he prepares his disciples for will not lead to the end, but to a new beginning.

 

False messiahs, religious persecution, nation rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom—Jesus says these aren’t signs that a catastrophic end is coming, but that some sort of birth is happening. 

 

This is the same idea that the Hebrew prophets foretold.  Isaiah’s peaceable kingdom where the wolf lays down with the lamb and swords are beat into plowshares.  And Jeremiah’s promise of a new covenant where God’s law of love is written on our hearts: a world where all people know God, follow God’s will naturally, are in right relationship with God.  I’ve sometimes called this God’s Vision of Shalom.  And it’s this same vision that Jesus seems to have meant when he spoke of the Kingdom of God.  That alignment of heaven and earth that was fully manifested in Him and will become manifest in all the world someday.  And it’s this same idea that Paul writes about in much of the New Testament for which he uses the phrase new creation. 

 

So throughout the Bible we find an optimistic vision for the world’s future.  That of a transformed humanity living in union with God.  A truly just society—a world of peace, love, joy, a world of shalom.  That world hasn’t been born yet, and the birth pangs are a painful process, but it is the biblical promise that awaits this suffering world.

 

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest, theologian, and paleontologist who wrote extensively in the first half of the 20th century.  As both a scientist and theologian, he was one of the first to seriously explore the relationship between evolution and theology.  He understood the universe as still being in the process of creation and that humanity is on a journey of spiritual evolution—growing more and more aligned with the divine.  Having been redeemed by Christ and sanctified by the Holy Spirit, Teilhard understood humanity as evolving spiritually through the sometimes painful birthing process of a new creation.

 

Hear again these words that we read in our first lesson from Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul wrties:


“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.  For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:18-21).                

 

 

This idea is found throughout the Bible.  In the Old Testament prophets, in Jesus’ preaching, in Paul’s letters, and in the Book of Revelation.  This vision for the future explains why Jesus says that all the suffering and violence in the world today is but the beginning of the birth pangs.  Creation itself waits with eager longing for humanity to live into the divine image we were created to be.  Then all creation will be free and manifest the glory of God in the world. 

 

It may not seem like the world is moving in the right direction sometimes.  You might be worried about the future of our country and the future of our world.  And there is definitely a lot to be concerned about.  But Jesus tells us that yes suffering will come.  He never promised it would be a straight and easy path of progress.  But a new birth is coming.  A new birth for each of us individually and a new birth for the whole world.  The fruition of the prophets’ Vision of Shalom, the birth of the Kingdom of God on this planet! 

 

So as much fun as it would be to float up into heaven like Seth Rogan and his friends finally do at the end of the movie, that’s not really a biblical perspective.  There is eternal life yes, but not a rapture or doomsday.  A much more faithful biblical perspective is that God is at work transforming our physical world to algin with heaven, to be a realm that manifests God’s goodness, peace, and love.

 

What’s more is that we can live into this Kingdom now.  Though it’s a future reality, we can participate in the Kingdom today.  This new birth is what we live into every time we gather for Word and Sacrament.  It’s what we live into every time we do spiritual practices like contemplative prayer.  It’s what we live into every time we serve those in need.  It’s what we live into every time we share God’s love.  And it’s what we’ll celebrate Levi living into in a few moments when we celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. 

 

Jesus calls us to live into the Kingdom in this place.  That’s what the church is for: to manifest this promised future here and now.  The church is called to be a midwife for the birth of the new creation.  To practice living this new reality now.  To be a place where the Kingdom of God is already present.  It's an exciting mission we have!  And so let us follow our call to embody this new creation here and now, and to live into this promise of a new creation.

 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.


Pastor Brian | November 17, 2024 | Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost



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