Waiting for the End of the world
I’ve been thinking about the end of the world a lot lately.
And I don’t know why I keep thinking about it, other than maybe it shows the End of the world—the One who made it and the One for whom it was made1—is thinking about me. About us.
And by end of the world, I mean God’s definition of the end of the world, where the world system that is opposed to Him and infested with sin ends so that His can begin.
“The end of the world” to the world means death and destruction. “The end of the world” to God means new life and righteous reign. Everything set right.
Perhaps one reason I keep thinking about the chief End of this world (our sweet Jesus) returning is because it’s everywhere in the Bible. You wouldn’t know it by how we live and how some of our churches neglect to mention it, but it’s absolutely a major thing in the Bible, both Old Testament and New. This means if you read the Bible, you run into it a lot, and it gets you thinking about it.
Here’s an example of the subtle pervasiveness of it:
He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ…
That you may be sincere and without offense til the day of Christ…
Holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ…
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Philippians 1:6, 10, 2:16, 3:20 NKJV emphasis mine
Philippians is not one of those books you turn to when you want to find verses about the return of Christ, and yet there it is. When Paul says “day of Christ,” it is very intentional. He is thinking about the End of the world.
It has been said that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ is mentioned 318 times in the 260 chapters of the New Testament and that this teaching occupies one in every twenty-five verses from Matthew to Revelation. It was upon some such evidence as this that Dr. Alexander MacLaren declared, “The primitive church thought a great deal more about the coming of Jesus Christ than about death; thought a great deal more about His coming than about Heaven.” Source
One of every 25 verses in the New Testament talks about Jesus’s return. Incredible. I wish one out of every 25 of my thoughts was thus occupied…2
Also (and I didn’t realize this til last night) did you know that when God poured out the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost that the very pouring out of His Spirit upon man was a sign of “the last days?” Peter says it when he’s quoting the prophet Joel in the speech he gives to those wondering at the freshly created gift of tongues:
17 ‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
19 I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
20 The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
21 And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.’-Acts 2 NIV, emphasis mine
The fact that the Holy Spirit is residing within you right this moment is indicative of many incredible things (“the earnest of our inheritance”), but one of those things is as an end-times sign of Jesus’s return. Have you ever seen yourself as a walking, breathing sign of the return of Christ???3
Some of you are panicking right now, though, as you read this.
You’re like, “O my gosh, Cas has turned into one of those end-times people who only talks about the book of Revelation.” Or you’re like, “Isn’t this supposed to be a motherhood blog? Why are we even reading about this?”
The first concern is no concern. There is no need to worry or unsubscribe.
The second concern is valid and I will tell you why a Christian motherhood blog absolutely should contain reminders about Jesus coming back:
This is an important tenet of our faith that I think some of us have too easily forgotten. It seems to me that something that is mentioned on average 1.2231 times every chapter in the New Testament4 is probably something God wants us consistently thinking about.
As we’ll see in the verse below, one of the things that can take away from our awareness of His coming is the “cares of this life,” and those can be even legit cares that aren’t sinful in and of themselves. What shall we eat? What shall we drink? Wherewith shall we be clothed?5 Jesus never says these aren’t real needs, but He does counsel against making them our whole world (Mat. 6:31-33).
I would venture to say that something like motherhood can definitely fall under the category of “cares of this life.”6 Why? Because motherhood equals cares. Lots of cares. TONS OF CARES ALL THE TIME.
Letting those cares run off with us is a really, really dangerous thing for our faith. If we aren’t careful, one thing having kids can do to us is make life alllll about the cares, to the point where we are so buried by them and focused on them that we forget the big picture. The healing, invisible, powerful big picture. You guys know what I’m talking about—the deeply drained feeling where there used to be purpose and joy.
Speaking of His return, Jesus says in Luke:
34 “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. 35 For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. 36 Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”
Luke 21 NIV
I think it’s interesting that Jesus links those who “drink and carouse” with those laboring under the anxieties of life. People do party to momentarily escape their anxieties, but it still seems like an odd pairing to me. When I think about the words “carousing and drunkenness,” I think of frat boys holding red Solo cups or full dive bars at 1am. My mind does not then drift to those sitting in their homes freaked out by the what-ifs of life. So what is the connection Jesus sees between these two groups?
I think He is connecting them because they both come from a place of misplaced focus.
The Greek word for “cares” is merimna and it is “derived from a root which means ‘to be drawn in different directions,’ thus, ‘to be distracted.’ The word means ‘care’, in the sense of anxiety.”7
Carousing and drunkenness are from a “live for here and now” mentality. That’s a given. But Jesus is trying to point out that so is the seemingly more understandable state of letting the anxieties of our lives be our focus. Carousing and drunkenness are distractions, no doubt, but so are my worries. The Greek mind had no problem calling worry and anxiety what they are: an attack on one’s focus.
He says this misplaced focus can weigh our hearts down. He says this misplaced focus is a trap.
And what does He say we should do instead? “Be always on the watch, and pray…”
So, by inference of what Jesus is saying here, what will the ancient emphasis on watching for Him and praying do for us? What will thinking often of the relief of His coming create in us?
It will create the opposite of a heavy heart about to fall into a trap, which is a light heart that is free. An unencumbered heart that won’t be tragically caught unawares. It will create focus on the most incredible thing in our lives: Jesus.
So.
There are 1.2231 mentions of Jesus’s return for every chapter of the Bible.
And we are mothers, chest deep, like poor Atreyu’s horse, in the mountain of cares and anxieties that accompany being human in a fallen world.
And Jesus is reminding us that real freedom and a light heart—the very things we yearn for when we are chest deep in cares—are right there with us if we fight the black bog of shallow distractions and regain our singular focus on that Day.8
And what, essentially, are we actually focusing on when we talk about that Day?
Jesus and oneness with Him.
The oneness that began with our salvation and that will only get more intense and complete when that Day comes and forever more. The oneness that is our reason for existing. The oneness that testifies that, against all odds, we are completely intertwined with the most important, beautiful Being in the universe.
I’ve been thinking about End of the world a lot lately, and I hope you’ll join me.
And I hope we never stop.
Maranatha.
Here’s a song meant to wreck you that goes along with this post. I cry every time:
“All things were created through Him and for Him.” Colossians 1:16 NKJV
“We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” 1 John 3:2-3 NKJV
Side note: I saw a girl wearing a sweater the other day that said “Living proof of a loving God” and I was like that’s an awesome sweater.
318 mentions divided by 260 chapters equals 1.2231 mentions of Christ’s return per Bible chapter.
Matthew 6:31 KJV
Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: Mark by Kenneth Wuest, p. 88. Other places where merimna is found: Matthew 13:22, Mark 4:19, Luke 8:14, 2 Corinthians 11:28, 1 Peter 5:7.
“There are only two days in my calendar,” said Martin Luther, “This day and that Day.”