The Real End of the Age

What does it mean in Matthew 13 when Jesus says to his disciples “I will be with you until the end of the age.” Jesus promises to be with them until the end of the age. The end of the age in Matthew is not the end of the whole world. Most American evangelicals quickly interpret this phrase and might I dare say read into this phrase; images of a Left Behind type destruction and the rapture of Christians out of this world during some type of apocalypse fantasy where God wages war on the earth, the devil and its ungodly inhabitants.

Instead let’s look at this phrase “end of the age” in context to what the present disciples and Jews were experiencing and would inevitably face in their actual life time, not our life time.

The end of the age was the end of an era, temple worship (John 4:20-) and ethnic status. The end of the age is the last judgment on God's chosen people Israel. When was this you might ask?

During the last days of his earthly life Jesus had assembled his disciples together on the Mt. of Olives overlooking the Temple. The disciples were uncertain and anxious about the future especially in light of Jesus' cleansing of the Temple and stopping the sacrifices, and his astonishing statements delivered in holy anger denouncing the Pharisees. The disciples opened the conversation by talking about the beauty of the temple and its courts. Jesus responded with his amazing and detailed reply by predicting the soon-coming destruction of that magnificent building:"You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down." As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?" (Matt. 24:1-3) “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” (Matt. 24:34)

Both the Temple and the City of Jerusalem were indeed about to be destroyed. With four Legions, Titus the Roman General, later to become Caesar, began the siege of Jerusalem in April, A.D. 70. He took the city and put it to the torch and burned it. He entered the temple and desecrated it. Every trace of beauty his army blotted out with fire, violence, rape and plunder. The eye witness historian Josephus records it this way, “no other city has ever endured such horrors, and no generation in history has fathered such wickedness. In the end they brought the whole Hebrew race into contempt in order to make their own purity a mockery in foreign eyes, they were forced to confess the painful truth that they were slaves, the dregs of humanity, and outcasts of their nation.”

When Jesus speaks of coming destruction and the end of the age, he spoke prophetically as the final prophet sent by God to declare “the weeds will be gathered out of the kingdom and destroyed (13:40-42), when the good fish are separated from the bad (13:49-50), and when the stones of the temple will be thrown down by an invading army (13:2-3), you will see in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation (13:15), and many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many” (13:5).

Jesus’ assurance at this particular point in the narrative is a firm one: he will be with his disciples every moment, no matter what they face. The only way out for them personally is for them to abandoned Second Temple Judaism and follow the Son of Man. As the Zealots were preparing to stay and fight for their national status and loyalty to the temple, Jesus was challenging them to turn their back on what they knew and to embrace the creation of a new body made up of Jew, Gentile, rich, poor, male and female. They needed to follow Jesus and let go of their "choseness" and build for a new Kingdom. Jesus is eventually vindicated for his radical departure from their current worship tradition, his resurrection and his fulfilled prophecy.

Jesus epic language about the judgment and final fall of Israel from its elected perch is declared when Jesus says “Heaven and earth will pass away” (Matt 24:35a). But what will survive and thrive in the midst of this tribulation in 70 A.D? Jesus makes it clear “my words will never pass away” (Matt 24:35b). This is the real end of the age and it has already occurred according to the context of scripture. Out of it has come the birth of a new Kingdom without borders.

Reclaiming the Kingdom of God

A snapshot from the study/conversation our Axiom church planting team is currently journeying through.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are all in their various ways about God going public on earth about the kingdom of God. The central message is that the Creator God, Israel’s God, is at last reclaiming the whole world as His own, in and through Jesus of Nazareth. That is the message of the kingdom of God, which is Jesus’ answer to the question, What would it look like if God were running this show?

Arguably the fullest vision of what the Reign of God looks like is contained in the great discourses of the Gospels, The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew (Matthew 5-7) and The Sermon on the Plain in Luke (Luke 6: 17-49). Here we are presented with beatitudes which turn the world upside down. The things which the world blesses; violence, greed, power, comfort, hoarding, self-defense, physical-indulgence, vengeance, selfishness and wealth are not blessed by God.

Instead, Jesus says that God blesses the meek, the teachable, the generous, those who hunger for truth, the desperate, those persecuted for their loyalty to Jesus, those who carry burdens for others, the pure in motive, the forgivers, those who are relaxed in God and not anxious for more, the welcomers or hospitable and the peacemakers. This is an astounding vision and one so at odds with the way the other empires of life tempt us to live! Jesus summons those who would be participators in His Kingdom to radical devotion and radical dependence on Him. His followers must be meek, must not retaliate, must go beyond the letter's law to its spirit, must do what is right when only God is looking, must depend on God for their needs and pursue his interests in the world rather than their own, and must leave spiritual measurements of others' hearts to God. In short, true people of the kingdom live for King Jesus, not for themselves, not for institutions, not for laws, not for governments, not even for moral codes. The vision of the Kingdom is an ever expanding community, permeated with the presence of Jesus and is to be the catalyst for goodness, justice and integrity in the world.

Yes Jesus did, as Paul says, die for our sins, but his whole agenda of dealing with sin and all its consequences was never about rescuing individual souls from the world but about gathering humans so that they could become part of his project of renewing this world (the Kingdom of God). The resurrection of Jesus is to be seen not as the proof of life after death or a heaven and a hell but as the launching within the literal world of space and time, the now public reality of new kingdom with King Jesus at its helm. Within 30 years, this was announced under Caesar’s nose openly and unhindered. The reason those who made that announcement were persecuted is, of course, that the fact of God acting in public is deeply threatening to the rulers of the world and the allegiance they require.

The incarnation, the crucifixion and resurrection are the defeat of evil, sin and Satan and the return of YHWH to his human project. The church has been entrusted with the ongoing task of implementing this achievement in the world. Our partnership with God is too build the foundation of His Home.

When Jesus said “the Kingdom of God has come” he meant it.  He meant it to the audience in front of him, in their time, on this planet. But the typical evangelical church struggles with this literal earthly 1st Century vision cast by Jesus because of a lens they read with. This tainted lens reads that all prophecies are in the future for us. This is a poor interpretation and a very western-centered hermeneutic. Many evangelicals think the world is getting worse and that the book of Revelation prophecies a world headed for destruction (the apocalypse) and somewhere in the time line we are raptured out of here and then God eventually ends everything.

When this "end-times" lens is employed it is very difficult to take Jesus words literally and therefore take our task of community, renewal and sacrificial-love seriously. If we relegate the Kingdom of God to a “heaven up there” we do not take Jesus at his word. When He said it was near, he meant it was near. When he said it had come, he meant it had come.

Inspired by Walter Brueggermann