Friends,

Christians are people of the almost, but not yet. In scripture we hear about how Israel was waiting for a messiah, and the messiah arrived in the form of the baby Jesus born in a stable. In Mark’s thirteenth chapter, Jesus tells his disciples to be ready for the coming of the kingdom and names off all of the terrible things that are going to happen that will be signs. Wars, rumors of wars, famine, earth quakes, and woe to those pregnant or nursing during these times. Like the generations of those who have come before us, we are waiting, but is what we are waiting for something we should look forward to or dread? The end times, the coming of the Kingdom of God, Christ coming back all seem to be tied to terrible things, and paradoxically, salvation itself. I think the two worst things we can do is try to quantify what we are waiting for, or to reject the fact that we are indeed waiting for something. Perhaps the most important thing is to acknowledge the fact that we are waiting, and to be ready for whatever is to come. Regardless of the lessons we can gleam from these lessons, I think I have recently gotten a glimpse into why conversations around the ends times seem so incredibly dissonant as they are simultaneously filled with hope and despair.

When my wife was diagnosed with cancer we cried tears of relief when they told us she was in stage 2A. For a month we were unsure if she’d be stage four, and all of a sudden we were face to face with our doctor talking about when she would get cured. I never thought I would have felt so much relief to hear my wife’s cancer diagnosis. Then the process began of understanding what she’d have to go through. Her oncologist calls her treatment the “kitchen sink” approach, because she got everything they have to offer and the kitchen sink. We learned and then had four months of experience in understanding how terrible chemo is, and all of the expected and unexpected side effects. I know what it’s like to get a call at 6:00 am on Sunday morning telling me to take my wife to the emergency room, because her tests came back and they are not good. Those tests ended up being a false positive for sepsis, but at the time it felt like my world was falling apart. For months we have been preparing ourselves for December 14th, which is when Leandra was meant to have surgery, and it was going to be her last worst day. Recovery, radiation and everything afterwards would all be a little bit more manageable after that day. We looked forward to the day, but also dreaded it for the pain she would have to endure. There was a crescendo of anxiety, planning and emotional conversations, and we were savoring every moment we had before December 14th. My dread for the day was rising with each day, then all of a sudden the surgery date was almost taken away from us.

My wife tested positive for COVID on Saturday December 9th and we were told that they were likely going to have to postpone her surgery by about a month, which could adversely affect her prognosis. We were crushed, but not left without hope, so we got busy. She got on anti-virals almost immediately, and both of us were feeling better after just two days. It was not until Wednesday morning, the day before her surgery, that we got the call that we were going to proceed. The second that terrible, life-giving day was threatened, we no longer dreaded it, but desperately clung to it. Everything still seems so highly dramatic, and maybe the drama helped us throw out all of the feelings that pointed away from the truth that this terrible and painful change was going to save her life.

In Mark 13 Jesus describes the terrible things before the coming of God’s Kingdom as the birth pangs. This is something I understood intellectually, but it did not feel real to me in the way that it does now. We cannot expect ourselves or the world around us to change without some sort of anguish. The Gospels are rich with examples where people cling to their wealth, self-importance, or power when offered eternal life. Letting go of these thing is painful, and we will cling to our sin tighter and tighter the more God tells us to let go. The second we got the news of Leandra’s cancer, she was ready to let go, and we thought of her surgery date as a sort of terrible day of reckoning, and after we were afraid it wasn’t going to come we could see it as what it was, the moment she takes a brave step to choose life even though there will be pain and many other struggles that accompanies it.

I don’t think the terrible things Jesus describes in Mark 13 are divine punishment, but just as Jesus has always described it, birth pains. It’s not punishment, but a side effect of choosing life, and I could not grasp how much this passage could resonate with me until our day of reckoning was almost taken away from us.

This is not some sort of theological exercise, but profoundly practical. Whether it is taking the leap to seek treatment rather than to embrace a couple of months or even years of comfort, finally letting go of that habit that you know is keeping you from living to your fullest, or letting yourself face that one truth that you spend so much time trying to ignore, we are faced with daily decisions to remain stagnant, or to try (and sometimes failing) to choose to be who God calls us to be. If we cannot make the hard decisions in our personal lives and see those days of reckoning as a gift, rather than a threat, how can we be ready to let go and be ready for God’s kingdom? God has given us this incredible time to practice letting go of the things that keep us from loving God and loving our neighbor, and to take on the mantle of Christ, so do not be afraid to take the leap and let go.

Blessings,

Nick