"Ready Rubble" by juleswrules, on Flickr

At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. (Daniel 12:1-3)

As [Jesus] came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!" Then Jesus asked him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down." When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished? Then Jesus began to say to them, "Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. (Mark 13:1-8)
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It feels like the end of the world.

Advent is just two weeks away, and our readings in these last Sundays of the church year tell us stories of the end of all things. Outside, the seasons are changing, and darkness falls earlier and earlier over the bleak, barren trees. We just finished an election season that preached doom and gloom messages of our world falling apart if you voted for the wrong guy. The news media is currently preaching the doom and gloom message of a so-called fiscal cliff our government and nation are facing. The east coast and islands in the Atlantic are working hard to clean up after the apocalyptically-named Superstorm Sandy. December 21 is just a few weeks away, and the more superstitious of us wonder whether the end of Mayan calendar means the end of all things.

It feels like the end of the world.

Over the last few days, too many friends have lost grandparents and loved ones, and there have been sick children and hurting people, and then there is the ongoing violence in Israel and ongoing news of wars and rumors of wars all around the world. You probably have your own similar stories of encounters with bad news and change and fear and uncertainty that makes you feel like things are turning upside-down. Like everything could fall apart. Like it’s the end of the world.

In today’s readings, both Daniel and Jesus address similar fears that the world might be falling apart. And today’s readings both fall into the category of “proclamations of good news that don’t really sound like good news.” These are both apocalyptic readings, which means that they are readings that speak in sweeping terms about a divine struggle between good and evil, locating the listeners’ current struggles within a cosmic framework. The point of apocalyptic readings like this is to say that whatever the present sufferings, no matter how bad things get, in the end, God always wins.

It’s a double-edged message that Jesus gives us in today’s gospel. He first has to remind his disciples – and us - that everything in this world will someday come to an end. But he then stands in front of us as a living reminder that even there, at the end, God reigns triumphant, giving us life even after all things pass away.

“See what large stones and buildings!” the disciples exclaim in today’s gospel. “See what big and unshakable things have been built by human hands! Surely these things will never pass away!” The disciples are us. We want to put our faith in the things of this world, believing that these things are ultimate, lasting, invincible, unshakable.

Theologian Paul Tillich says that “faith is the state of being ultimately concerned.” What he means by this is that whatever consumes us, whatever priorities demand our whole selves and promise us ultimate fulfillment in return, whatever ultimate concern we put at the top of our list, that is the object of our faith. And the difference between true faith and idolatrous faith is simple: “In true faith,” Tillich says, “the ultimate concern is a concern about the truly ultimate; while in idolatrous faith, preliminary, finite realities are elevated to the rank of ultimacy.”

See what large stones and buildings…see what human things we elevate to the rank of ultimacy…

The large stones that we fixate on might be the economy, our jobs, our desire to guarantee our children a good college education, or the preservation of a particular standard of living for ourselves and our families. The grand buildings we cling to might be our team’s win-loss record, our devotion to particular diets, foods, or exercises, our political views or hot-button social issues, or our jam-packed schedules.

“See what large stones and buildings!” we exclaim, elevating the concerns of this world to cosmic significance, hoping that we might build up for ourselves unshakable fortresses that will resist change or pain.

But Jesus steps in to remind the disciples – and us – that life is bigger than the buildings we create. The hard truth is that everything will one day pass away, that everything has an ending, that nothing in life is set in stone other than the promise and foundation we have in God. Trust me, this is a hard message. It is impossibly hard to hear that everything we care about, everything we love, everything that is part of our human existence, is ultimately shakable and will one day fall to the ground.

But this hard message helps us get our hearts into focus. It helps us seek the greater promises of God instead of fixating on the things of this world; to focus on things ultimate instead of things temporal.

When things fall around us, when our stones and buildings are thrown down, when everything we thought was permanent tumbles to the ground, out of the rubble, God’s new world emerges triumphant. It is the promise in today’s gospel and in all apocalyptic literature, from Daniel to Revelation: at the end of all things, God still stands, life still prevails, hope still reigns, salvation is at hand. Good triumphs over evil, God brings life from death, the end is not the end after all, because God has promised us life after the end.

This double-edged apocalyptic message – everything will end, but God still stands – is a message of freedom or us. Because Christ has won for us the ultimate victory over sin and death, we are free from the pressure to let the cares of this world become our ultimate concern. We are free to focus our hearts on God and to focus our lives on serving God and serving one another.

We have the peace of Christ in our hearts, which means that we need not fear. We need not get swept up in anxiety that the world is falling apart, and we need not indulge messages of doom and despair. This isn’t to say that we are immune from bad stuff happening in life. And this isn’t to say that we shouldn’t feel grief or pain or uncertainty.

But it means that we can trust God to walk with us through every storm, and be comforted by a savior who knows the sum of all grief and all pain, even unto death, and we can know deep in our hearts that we can choose hope over despair, and that we are bound up in God’s perfect love, which casts out all fear.

So the next time you come face-to-face with an end-of-the-world prediction, or the next time you hear a pundit predicting the demise of our country and our world, or the next time that your inner voices of fear wake you up in the middle of the night, Christ invites you to stop, and breathe, and be at peace.

Because whenever it feels like you are staring at the end of the world, you will see there is an empty tomb, and a risen savior, and a resurrected world bursting with new creation. God has not abandoned you, and God will not neglect his creation. As Jesus says, even our fears and struggles and pains are redeemed by God as the birth pangs to a brighter world that has been promised and won for us. And in this brighter world, God promises that we will “shine like the brightness of the sky, like the stars forever and ever.” For all things might come to an end, but God has promised us an after. So keep strong. Stay alert. And cling to the hope you have in Christ, our savior, our light, and our everlasting Lord.