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Jesus says, “Nation will rise against nation and country against country”—disasters caused by humans—"there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines”—natural disasters that humans can’t exactly cause all by themselves. It sounds like Jesus is describing the end—the end of all life? The end of creation?
But then he says, “This is but the beginning of the”—chest pains, signaling the heart attack that is to come? The beginning of the dark clouds of a never-ending storm? The beginning of the spark that ignites an eternal fiery blaze, destroying everything and leaving only ashes behind?
NO. Jesus did not say any of that.
The disciples are asking Jesus for a sign: when will we know that the current order of things is crashing down? When will we know that the Temple is about to fall? Come on, Jesus, you’ve been teaching us all this time about God’s reign, how God is in charge, and we are ready for it. We get it now! So tell us how we can be prepared and ready to step in and lead when everything is falling apart. Tell us how we’re gonna avoid the pain to come, because we are so focused on God and so focused on salvation that we’ll probably just ascend directly into heaven, skip all that messy death stuff, and just, you know, bring glory to God with our praise. So…what’s gonna be the code word? What’s the signal? You can trust us with this secret information, we’re good.
This is one of those times when I imagine Jesus heaving a deep sigh. “Beware that no one leads you astray,” he says, knowing he won’t be the one sitting with the disciples in an easily-understandable bodily form. So much bad stuff will happen that you’ll wonder if everything really is falling apart, if the world is ending. But the world is not ending, Jesus said, This is but the beginning of the BIRTH PANGS.
I just love that Jesus tells these men about the future of God’s reign using such a colorful and specific metaphor—alright, Peter, James, John, and Andrew, if you’re not aware what birth pangs are, ask around to your women friends and maybe someone can explain it to you. So let’s take this metaphor and “flesh it out,” as they say.
What are birth pangs? Labor pains.
Ew, pain. Who experiences this? Pregnant women.
Do labor pains mean that something is wrong with the woman? No.
Do labor pains mean that something is wrong with the baby? No.
Can this pain be avoided? Not really.
What if labor pains never happen? Well, that would be really bad, maybe the baby died, or the woman’s life might be in danger.
What happens if you ignore labor pains? Labor pains don’t go away, they just get stronger. And if you’re somehow able to ignore them, well, you’re probably about to have a mess on your hands.
So when do labor pains stop? Sometime around WHEN THE BABY IS BORN.
Because labor pains are particular. A whole lot of types of bodily pain do signify that something is wrong: some body part needs healing or rest or is broken. But labor pains are a necessary part of the whole process of birth. They’re not pleasant, they absolutely demand your full attention, whatever you were planning to do, well, you’re gonna stop doing that and redirect to deal with this immediate situation.
And for a woman who has been pregnant for a full term, with the swollen belly and probably swollen ankles and breathlessness and fatigue, labor pains mean “the end is near” and that’s a good thing because she can’t keep doing this pregnancy thing anymore. There might be fear, there might be resentment, but there might also be some expectant joy because the pregnancy is almost over.
Labor pains mean that something new is trying to be born.
The dominion of God is not about power, but about servanthood. God’s reign is not about getting ahead, but about noticing who has fallen behind. The kin-dom of God is not about protecting insiders but about extending invitations. The methods of God are not compulsion but freedom.
Jesus has this conversation with his inner-circle disciples under the canopy of the open sky. At this point in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has left the temple, departing from the system that impoverishes widows and sells hope for coins that enrich a class of scholars and leaders who aren’t doing enough to serve their community.
Jesus is sitting in this city of the Roman Empire, with its socioeconomic strata and brutal peace. The system of government does not exist to help Jesus, and Jesus doesn’t find a way to work within the system of religion, either, but does he quit or tell his disciples to give up hope that God is still in charge? No.
Does Jesus pronounce judgment on the world? NOT YET. That’s the work of the Second Coming, for which we are still waiting, thousands of years later, and which we still patiently confess in our creeds: Jesus “will come again to judge the living and the dead.”
And is it foolish to keep waiting? Sure. It’s as foolish now as it ever was to follow Jesus. The stakes are just as high. Jesus still invites you to follow him, and, oh by the way, in order to save your life, you’re gonna have to lose your life, rearrange all your priorities so that instead of building up your own wealth and building up your own security and imagining how good you’re gonna have it someday, you spend your life caring for the needs of your neighbors and looking out for the most vulnerable people in your community, showing up for the people who are hurting, who are scared, who are scary and annoying and angry and maybe even qualify as your enemy—those are the ones who may need God’s love and may need your love the most.
Does that sound foolish? Of course it does! But it’s the only way you’re ever going to see the kin-dom of God being born.
The temple where Jesus walked around, it burned down just a few decades after Jesus died; all that’s left now is one wall, where pilgrims still go to pray. The city of Jerusalem still exists, but it’s been a real long time since it was part of the Roman Empire, which also fell long ago. Empires, religious systems, all the things that humans can build—none of it will last.
All the things that Jesus could have built in his lifetime—can you imagine? He could have commissioned great buildings, maybe something like hospitals or places for healing, but he didn’t do that. He could have piled a few rocks together and built at least an altar somewhere, but he didn’t do that, either. He could have written his name on something, for crying out loud, but the only nametag he ever got was the inscription nailed on his cross, translated in three languages: The King of the Jews.
Jesus never gave up investing in people, even when we were like these disciples, just unstoppably ridiculous. Jesus didn’t lose his patience even when he must have wondered if his disciples are just willfully misunderstanding him. Jesus went to the cross and to his death, just as he had promised his disciples would happen. And guess what, even with that advance notice, the disciples still didn’t seem to recognize what was going on.
Even if Jesus gave us a sign, it wouldn’t really work on us humans. Instead, he gave us his presence. Jesus gave us parables—look all around you to discover the evidence of God’s reign, it’s there in the mustard plant that’s annoying you by clogging up your farmland but that same mustard plant is also making homes for the birds who God takes care of and you weren’t even thinking about. God’s kin-dom is there in the kid running around—you want to see greatness? Follow this child into the kin-dom of God.
Our only hope of understanding any of this is through the Holy Spirit, reminding us of Jesus’s words, recalling God’s promises, and showing us where we might take even a tiny step forward in faith. Because Jesus also gave us resurrection and eternal life, the hope that any of our suffering in this world could have meaning, the assurance that our suffering in this world will not last forever in the same way that labor pains don’t last forever.
Something new is trying to be born. Is the kin-dom of God being born into this world? Because in this metaphor, in this image, it’s God who is doing the heavy lifting and it’s God who is doing the birthing. We’re just here to welcome new life.
So are you going to persist in the old ways of obsessing about power that only leads to death? Or are you ready for the new life that God is bringing?
As the psalmist writes, “You will show me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy…”[1]
Amen.
Pastor Cheryl
[1] Psalm 16:11
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