Are you adjusting now to the time change? Or at least the shorter days? The sun now sets before 5pm. And the change in time can play with our sleep habits and body’s clocks. In November 2018 California voters passed Proposition 7 to essentially abolish Daylight Savings Time, but the change still requires California assembly, senate and governor’s approval and that hasn’t happened. Most don’t see changing the time change anytime soon. Some things never change, do they?
There are seemingly impossible moments when our lives do change. Time changed. The world changed. And we’re not yet sure what the new reality will be. We are not going back. What do we even call the past? The good, old days? Pre-pandemic? The way things used to be?
- On June 12, 1987, then President Ronald Reagan issued a challenge to defeat communism in front of the Berlin Wall with the words: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
- On September 11, 2001, four coordinated terrorist attacks hijacked four commercial airliners and crashed down the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in rural Pennsylvania killing 2,977.
- On April 15, 2019, a structural fire broke out in the roof of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France collapsing the cathedral’s wooden spire, and wooden roof and nearly decimating the cathedral.
- Shortly after midnight on November 11, 2023, a mile-long segment of Interstate 10 in downtown Los Angeles collapsed due to a pallet yard fire underneath.
Perhaps you can recall your unsinkable monuments sunk in a blink. What makes something strong and will it last? The temple in Jerusalem was thought to be stronger and more permanent than anything, yet Jesus says in Mark, “Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down” (Mark 13:2).
“The times they are a-changin’,” so goes the song by Bob Dylan. As you move into unchartered territory, do you feel discombobulated? Out of sorts? From a faith perspective, we’re always living a kind of in-between existence. The reign of God comes near in Christ but is not yet fulfilled.
Everything is ephemeral. Institutions wax and wane. Buildings and our bodies need repair. Jesus tells his disciples in uncertain times: hold on.
Perhaps you can feel the constant change and the shifting transformation in our lives, in our nation, and in our world. How we hold on in liminal space has everything to do with what we hope will greet us on the other side of the threshold. The word liminal comes from the Latin word limens, which means “threshold.” You’re going from one space to another, but you’re not really in either space. It’s an odd and unstable place to be. We mark that in-between space every year in our Scripture texts these last weeks of November ending one church year and starting a new church year with the coming Advent season.
Being caught in the in-between is like a trapeze artist who has let go of one bar and not yet grasped the next bar. The identity we had is gone. And the next one has not yet arrived.
When the disciples point to the glory of the temple, Jesus sees a cracking foundation and a crumbling facade. Mark is writing to a community living through their apocalypse. The temple was destroyed in AD 70. Life as they know it is ending. The times are changing. There’s war, violence, persecution. An insurrection is in the making—with a promise to restore Israel and drive out Roman occupation. Yet Jesus urges non-violence and persistence.
As we hear in the apocalyptic reading from Daniel, in times of anguish, in times of suffering, be steadfast. Be filled with hope. Deliverance is on the way. The wise, the righteous, the faithful will shine like stars in the sky.
When Jesus speaks of doom and gloom, the disciples want to know when the times will change. When will these things take place, they ask? What can we do? Is it too late?
Though climate change is normal, that doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. Domination and governments wield power while politicians offer their promises and hopes. Extinction and suffering are real, and we our selves are finite and mortal. Despite our best desires and efforts, sometimes, we are just not able to meet the many needs others may have. And our deeply held convictions about life can be suddenly upended.
Jesus speaks of buildings that will not last forever. Buddhists teach the concept of impermanence. The shattering of illusions. Look more closely, Jesus seems to say. All this suffering and pain, loss and injustice, war and insurrection. It’s not the end. It’s the beginning of the birth pangs. In our readings for today, we have multiple reminders that God has been, is, and will forever be enough.
The times are a changin’.
Howard Thurman was born into a culture of white supremacy, one generation away from his grandmother’s experience as a slave. Thurman writes:
All around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new lives, fresh blossoms, green fruit. . . This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, and the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of a child — life’s most dramatic answer to death — is the growing edge incarnate.
Poet Jane Kenyon learned how to surrender as she faced both depression and leukemia. A poem of hers begins:
Let the light of late afternoon / shine through chinks in the barn, moving up the bales as the sun moves down. /
Let the cricket take up chafing / as a woman takes up her needles / and her yarn. Let evening come.
Jane goes on to name foxes and dew, stars and wind, and repeats the refrain “Let evening come.” The poem ends:
Let it come, as it will, and don’t / be afraid. God does not leave us / comfortless, so let evening come.
As autumn moves toward winter, as Advent creeps into these final Sundays of another church year, perhaps our focus is not only what we live on, but what lives on. Are we investing in things that matter? What kind of legacy will we leave for future generations? What will live on after us?
Did you know that as leaves drop from trees as they are doing right now, the buds for next spring have already appeared?
Author Wendell Berry views the apocalyptic through the hope of the here and now. Berry writes, “Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground / underfoot. Be lighted by the light that falls / freely upon it after the darkness of the nights / and the darkness of our ignorance and madness.”
The wise advice from Hebrews is for our spiritual support system: hold fast to the confession of your hope without wavering. For God is faithful. Provoke one another to love and good works. Do not forget to come together. Amid these changing times, do not tear down one another, but encourage one another with hope.
For the great Day is approaching. Christ is coming soon. The birth pangs are bringing new life.
