Sermon for 2nd Sunday before Advent – “End Times?”, preached at the Eucharist, Sherborne Abbey on Sunday, 17 November 2024 by The Reverend Robert Green (Daniel Ch 12: v 1 – 3, Mark Ch 13: v 1 – 8).
A former Archbishop of York in a sermon said these words; “this world is in haste, and soon coming to an end”. I wonder if you can guess when they were preached? Sometime in the last hundred years? Perhaps around the time of the Reformation? Or perhaps even earlier? It was in fact in AD 1014, that is before the battle of Hastings, and this was still a Saxon cathedral, and they were spoken by Archbishop Wulfstan. A contemporary of his, Aelfric, a Benedictine Abbot, also wrote about the imminent end of the world, and quoted part of our Gospel Reading to illustrate this, and he argued that there were signs of the Apocalypse already happening.
There was a widespread preoccupation across Western Christendom at the end of the first millennium about the end times, and in fact even earlier in AD 500, and particularly in AD 850 following the Viking raids on the monastic community at Lindisfarne this surely was a sign of the beginning of the End, indeed around AD 1000 there was a consensus that this would be the time of the Apocalypse. There is a legend that the German Emperor Otto III dropped everything and went to Rome to await Christ’s second coming! We are not told what he did when it did not happen. Attempts to calculate exactly when all this might happen have persisted all down the centuries, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses have made several attempts to work out when; all to none avail.
As we approached the second millennium there was further speculation, but this time it took a more secular turn as individuals, businesses and governments panicked about the possible effects of the Millennium Bug, hardly a matter of much theological significance!
So to our Gospel Reading when Jesus speaks of “wars and rumours of wars” and nations rising against nations. In our world of mass communication and social media we are constantly aware of the conflicts all around us, even when some of it is based on lies, and it is tempting to see these words as being applicable to our present situation, but is this actually what Jesus is talking about? Our reading is part of a much longer discourse, in fact the whole of the chapter in which Jesus points to the seeming permanence of the imposing buildings of the Temple in Jerusalem, and warns his disciples that all is not as it seems. The present order will soon be overturned, and when that happens no-one will be safe. (In AD 70 the Temple was in fact destroyed by the Romans, and all that remains today is the Western Wall.) Jesus warns that persecution is coming. Society will fracture and their faith will be tested by false prophets. At the end, there will be glory for those who remain faithful- but at a high price. Naturally the disciples ask for a sign when this will happen, but Jesus doesn’t give an immediate answer. What he first says is that they must be wary of being led astray from his teachings. They must recognise what- and who is true. They must use their critical faculties and not be hoodwinked by impostors, because the first and greatest risk is that they will be, and this has been a constant risk all down the ages. I mentioned the Jehovah’s Witnesses, because they are the contemporary manifestation of a cult that has actually altered parts of the Bible, thus denying the divinity of Christ. It is as basic as that.
Enshrined in our faith is the Second Coming of Christ, and of course it is tempting to see if we can possibly work out when this might happen. What might the signs be? But Jesus is telling us that rather than occupying our time speculating when this might happen, we are to be faithful and discerning about our leaders, and especially about our faith leaders. We are to test their truthfulness, to ask if they are really of God or are we being led astray. Don’t let us be swept along by moral panic or fearmongering. We need to test the good faith of those who would seek to influence us, to be aware of fake news and to be clear about our faith and our relationship with God. We are not to be alarmed by the state of the world. Conflict, societal upheaval and natural disasters will happen. We may not be able to cling on to the old order as were exemplified by the imposing buildings of the Temple, because they may be swept away. As we have been remembering the sacrifice that so many made in two World Wars and subsequent conflicts, it is a miracle that this Abbey survived when some buildings very close to here were destroyed, but God is bigger than the structures we build and will outlast them. Despite all appearances to the contrary, God is in charge. Our focus is to remain on God, despite the voices that may falsely claim divine authority. Our authority is Jesus Christ and him alone.