World Without End
Ps. 93; Rev. 1:4-8; Mk. 13:24-37[1]
“End of the World” scenarios have been around for a long time—probably from the time people began recording history! In our day, the threat of nuclear weapons, the ecological crisis, and overpopulation have fueled fears that the world is coming to an end sooner rather than later. Anybody remember the “Doomsday Clock” that stood only a few minutes before midnight? Then there’s Nostradamus, the medieval “prophet” whose predictions are just vague enough to give anybody with an active imagination a means of envisioning the end. And in recent days, there’s the idea that the Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012.
Today is the day set aside in the Church Calendar to celebrate the “reign of Christ,” but I’m afraid it’s not much of a celebration for us! Talk of the “reign of Christ” puts us firmly in the realm of those “things that are not seen” that belong to our faith. And it inevitably points us toward the end of all things—with all the confusion and misinformation that brings. If we’re really honest about it, talk of a “reign of Christ” is about as foreign to us as talk of the end times.
Perhaps we should start unraveling this tangle by talking about the concept of “reigning,” especially as it relates to God. In our Psalm text for today, we see the idea expressed in dramatic terms—God reigns over all things, and that means that God “has established the world; it shall never be moved” (Ps. 93:1). Among other things, I think that means because God is sovereign over even the most awe-inspiring forces of nature, we can rest assured that the ground under our feet will not give way, the stars will not fall from the sky, and the sun will come up tomorrow. It’s the promise of the rainbow in Genesis—God will never again destroy the world (Genesis 8:21-22; 9:8-17). God’s reign is the power that keeps this old world turning, that keeps the rain falling, and that keeps the seasons returning—it is an expression of God’s faithful and everlasting love.[2]
Well, so far so good. No need to worry about bomb-sized meteorites crashing into the earth, or huge chunks of continents simply falling away, or a giant tsunami washing over the Himalayan Mountains and the rest of the world on December 21, 2012 (with all due respect to the Mayan calendar and Hollywood!). But then Jesus comes along in our Gospel lesson and says, “Heaven and earth will pass away” (Mk. 13:31)! Granted, that statement is in the context of the assurance that “but my words will not pass away.” The main point seems to be a reference to the upheaval that marks the end of history and the beginning of the kingdom of God on earth. Most people are curious about when it’s all going to happen. But you guys know me well enough by now that you won’t be surprised if my response to “Heaven and earth will pass away” is “Say what?!?”
What I want to know is how you can possibly reconcile the idea that God’s reign means that creation is firmly established with the idea that God’s reign means that creation will be destroyed![3] We see this contradiction in those who are obsessed with all things “end times”: they seem to take a perverse delight in the destruction of nature, the animal kingdom, and the vast majority of humankind! I cannot see how such a vast annihilation of creation can be construed other than “the annihilation of Yahweh’s faithfulness.”[4] And with it, the annihilation of all meaning and purpose in human life[5] as well as our faith!
Well, I think that at least part of the answer is that the “passing away” that Jesus and the Apostles expected refers to the “form of this world” (1 Cor. 7:31). They’re talking about the structures of the present world order.[6] What will pass away is the “godless fetters of this world” that lead people astray and keep them away from God’s grace and peace and love.[7] The writer of Hebrews envisions everything that rests on that kind of shaky ground being shaken and falling into ruins (Heb. 12:26-29). I think that’s what Jesus means when he says “heaven and earth will pass away”—he’s saying that even the most exalted human institutions, even the most apparently solid structures in “the present world order” will vanish, not that God’s good creation will be destroyed.
I think another part of the answer comes from the reading from Revelation. There, God is named “the one who is and who was and who is to come” and “the Alpha and the Omega.” Now, you will understand the connection between these two affirmations, since Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. God is the one who is “First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” It’s an affirmation that, as millions of Christians sing every Sunday morning, “as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen! Amen!” God will act no differently at the end of all things than at the beginning of all things!
So, from this perspective, what can we say about God? Well, God is the one who created all things in the first place as an act of self-giving love, and always has and always will rule this world in a manner entirely consistent with that act.[8] Jesus the Christ is the one who gave his life as an act of self-giving love and who now lives and reigns in a manner entirely consistent with that act.[9] The Spirit of Life is the one who was brooding over all things at Creation’s beginning, and who rules over all things at the present time in a manner entirely consistent with that—watching carefully over this vast and wondrous world of nature and humanity to ensure that we all wind up where we’re intended to be.[10] This God is the one who is “First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”[11] This is what it means to believe that God will act no differently at the end of all things than at the beginning of all things; this is what it means to joyfully affirm that “as it was in the beginning”, so it is now, and so it “ever shall be, world without end, Amen! Amen!”
[1] © 2009 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 11/22/09 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.
[2] Cf. Shirley Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 149.
[3] Cf. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, 2:289, where he reminds us that the biblical view of the end times is couched in symbols that should be taken seriously but cannot be taken literally “because it is not possible for finite minds to comprehend that which transcends and fulfills history. The finite mind can only use symbols and pointers of the character of the eternal.”
[4] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 129; cf ibid., 114-15, where he expresses the idea that “God is the same God all the way from promise to fulfillment” in terms of the vision that “the whole creation” which was “made good” will “come to its own in his all-embracing lordship, his peace and his righteousness” as the meaning of the promise that “the ancient promise ‘I am Yahweh’ will be fulfilled in the … glory of God, that fulfils [sic] all things.” Cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology, 270-72, where he discusses the Reformed Tradition’s insistence on “God’s steadfast faithfulness to his creation” (emphasis original).
[5] Cf. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, 2:287: “the end as finis is a threat to the end as telos.” In other words, if the end of all things is dissolution rather than fulfillment, then life is meaningless.
[6] Cf. Moltmann, The Coming of God, 270; cf. also Shirley Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 375
[7] Cf. The Theological Declaration Barmen, The Book of Confessions 8.14.
[8] Cf. Presbyterian Church in the United States
[9] Cf. The Study Catechism, 1998 , ques. 41, which speaks of Christ’s reign in this way: “He was the Lord who took the form of a servant; he perfected royal power in weakness. With no sword but the sword of righteousness, and no power but the power of love, Christ defeated sin, evil and death by reigning from the cross.”
[10] Cf. Declaration of Faith, 5.1, which speaks of the Holy Spirit as “ the Lord and Giver of life, the Renewer and Perfecter of God's people, the One who makes real in us what God has done for us.”
[11] Cf. Jeffery Siker, “Revelation 1:4-9,” Interpretation (April 2007): 212-13: Revelation “emphasizes the utter all-encompassing identity of God, who is the Alpha and the Omega, the one ‘who is and who was and who is to come.’ Just as surely as God was present with God’s people in times of old, and just as God remains fully present in the here and now, so God will be faithful to God’s promises in the future also.”
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