Today we are going to chat a little bit about the eschaton; who can tell me what the word ‘eschaton’ refers to? Eschatology? Eschatological? End times.
We have just had Friday the 13th this week. Friday the 13th this week also fell on a full moon. Apparently this was the first time in 13 years that Friday the 13th had fallen on a full moon. For any who are concerned by these kinds of things, this would be particularly concerning.
When I was younger there was even a horror/thriller franchise, a bunch of scary movies entitled ‘Friday the 13th’ – I don’t know if everyone knows about those or not. The premise is that there is this person and later like some kind of monster (as the original bad guy – or bad gal, in the first one - dies in the movies) who goes around killing people. It is scary stuff.
Matthew 24:9-22a has some elements of this in it when it talks about the eschaton. (What does ‘eschaton’ mean again?)
9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
15 “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. 18 Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. 19 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 20 Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.
22 “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive…
This is scary stuff – right out of Friday the 13th. And Matthew tells us that Jesus continues: verses 36-44
36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
Again this is scary stuff. Picture this movie, ‘Friday the 13th: the Eschaton’ by Matthew: Two men are working outside the house, in the field and then it will happen, all of a sudden – and one man will escape but the other will be taken away (presumably to be handed over to be put to death, as in Verse 9, or to drown as in Verse 39) … Then, in rapid succession, the next scene: two women are working away in a different location, presumably not too far from the first. They are carrying on their conversations about whatever it is that people like to chat about when they are working away…and then it happens. All of a sudden, one of them is dragged off. The other flees…but one of them is taken.
This is scary stuff. Now theologians like to disagree about this kind of stuff. Some contemporary North American theologians think that the people who are taken away are happy about it – there is a whole theology built up around the idea of the ‘rapture’, which I am not going to get into today but maybe you have read those books, ‘Left Behind’? Some people, like the author of that series, see those who are taken away by surprise like this as being ultimately happy about it. (Never mind that the whole story is prefaced with people being taken to be persecuted and put to death and the fact that the people in the preceding sentence who are taken drown in Noah's flood and the fact that the very next sentence compares the whole thing to your house being robbed and who of us likes to have our house robbed?) Nonetheless some people think that those taken are the ones that are better off. Either way: whether people see the ones who are taken as better off than those who escape or whether those who get away as better off than those who do not – either way, it is scary stuff that some will survive but some will not.
Matthew then continues, talking about people working again, both in the field and in the home; the person in charge of both. He says:
45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? 46 It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. 47 Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 48 But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ 49 and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. 50 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. 51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
This is some scary stuff. Matthew goes on quite a bit about “Friday the 13th: the Eschaton” – what does eschaton mean?
Matthew 25 tells us more about being ready for the eschaton and being ready in Jesus’ the parable of the 10 Virgins, Verses 1-13. Due to time we won’t read the whole thing but the long and the short of it is that those who aren’t ready don’t get to join the Bridegroom when he comes back. They miss out. But those that are ready get to come into the party and enjoy the celebrations.
Matthew then tells another story right away. Verse 14-30 about the eschaton and faithful servants (good employees) and an unfaithful one. The faithful servants do what the master wants them to do with His things while he was away. The unfaithful servant does not. The good employees are commended and the best is rewarded while the unfaithful servant is fired or worse.
Matthew then tells the parable of the sheep and the goats from Verse 31 on and the point of this parable is, in short, that as we love God, we will love our neighbour – which means that we will feed the hungry, water the thirsty, invite the stranger in, clothe the naked, and so on. And as we love God and our neighbour we will be safe from all of the scary stuff, the eschaton.
I have one more story.
My daughter Rebecca worked at camp all Summer; she had a great time meeting new friends, reuniting with friends from the previous years and across the province. She didn't really want to come home; she didn't want the Summer to end. She knew it had to and she knew that we, her family, were coming to get her.
The rest of the family, as the time was nearing to pick Rebecca up, we took our holidays near the camp. One night, while everyone else was asleep, Sarah-Grace (Rebecca's closest sister in age) and I decided to go and surprise Rebecca.
Sarah-Grace and I drove to the camp, found out where her cabin was and Sarah-Grace went inside to see her. Rebecca was glad to see us but her first response was one of fear and surprise. "What are you doing here?" "It's not time to go yet?" "I am not ready to go!" "We're not going!"
Sarah-Grace calmed her down. We were just visiting. We went to the dining hall and visited with Rebecca and a friend or two and then left them there in the dining hall. We had a very good visit.
As we were leaving the camp Sarah-Grace told me about Rebecca's reaction; so, we decided to stop by her cabin again (while she was still in the dining room) on our way out. In Rebecca's lipstick, on a piece of paper she attached to the wall, Sarah-Grace wrote, "Matthew 24:36" (She could have equally written "Matthew 25:13" or Matthew 24:42 or 44). When Rebecca looked up Matthew 24:36, it read: "But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." The implication was that we could show up anytime (unexpectedly like now) and take her away from her Summer job. (And that is really what it is like with the eschaton and also with the end of our own life. None of us know when our time here is complete; so we should all be ready.)
Regarding Rebecca. We put her mind at ease and told her exactly when we were going to show up again with her mother and her other sister so she wasn't really worried about the note but it was a fun memory we shared.
This is not unlike our scripture today (Matthew 24:36-44). When the Lord returns it will be good for us to be with be Him but we need to be ready. (And we can be ready by praying, reading our Bible, loving God and loving and taking care of our neighbour) We all miss our friends who pass on. None of us should want to end our shift at the metaphorical Summer Camp that is this life too soon. And when we do have to go, there are inevitably some things that we would have still wanted to do and we couldn’t but the truth is we need to be ready because we do not know when our Father is coming to get us.
Are you ready?
Let us all get ready for our Heavenly Father by praying, reading our Bible, loving God and loving our neighbour.
Let us pray.
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