The End Game of God’s Mission

Introduction

We have reached the end of our brief series on God’s reconciling mission to the world. We began with a look at God’s mission to “the nations”: God seeks all the families of the earth for full reconciliation. We continued with God’s mission expressed as covenant: God makes us into a priestly kingdom, set apart for the gospel of peace. Last Sunday, we considered the salvation that lies at the heart of God’s mission: We are saved from self-rule and saved for God’s reign in the community we call the church. This salvation is not simply a moment experienced in a conversion experience, but rather it is a way of life yielding repeatedly to God met in each other.

Now we come to the end game. God’s mission began with the fall of Adam and Eve – “for as in Adam, all die” – and reached its climax with the death and resurrection of Jesus, the second Adam – “even so in Christ, shall all be made alive.” Malachi points towards that climax, but he does so in surprising words: “But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?” Jesus’ first coming points towards his return, the final end of all things, when the heavens and earth “pass away” and Jesus reigns in the new heavens and the new earth.

These are complex matters, and we may think we cannot understand them. But perhaps they are not so difficult; perhaps there is a more straightforward missionary call here. A word of hope for a world in despair. We look at the prophecy in Malachi, with some of Jesus’ own words from the end of his ministry on earth, to grasp the end game of God’s reconciling mission to the world.

Malachi 3

The name “Malachi” means “my messenger”. One might say, “God’s missionary”. The prophet lived about 450 years before Christ’s birth, around the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. His great concern in this last book of the Old Testament is that God’s people have forsaken the covenant God made with them. He calls them back to the covenant and tells them that God will renew the covenant by coming to them, first through his messenger and then directly as “the Lord” (3: 1).

This coming is good news, in that God will purify God’s People so that they can live in a new and restored relationship with God. This coming is also terrifying news: “Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?” (3: 2) In this combination of fear and joy, we see a basic truth of the gospel. The gospel is good news – to those who will receive it. Those who try to satisfy God without yielding to God will live and die without God.

 

Matthew 24

The passage in Malachi points directly to Jesus. The messenger who prepares the way in Malachi 3 comes as John the Baptist. The Lord who comes as a refiner’s fire is Jesus. At one level, Jesus’ life and ministry is a commentary on the book of Malachi. Malachi’s concern is that God’s people have broken God’s covenant. Jesus brings in the new covenant in his life, death, and resurrection.

One can understand the disciples in Matthew 24, then. They recognize him as the Messiah, and they quite reasonably think that the end of the age, the time prophesied by Malachi is here. So they ask, “Tell us, when will this [the destruction of the Temple, which Jesus had just described] happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

Immediately, we can see that they have grasped a major change from Malachi. The coming of the Lord, Jesus’ own life and death, is not the final end. Jesus had told them that he would leave, and he had told them that he would return. They knew they were in what we sometimes call “the last days”, so they wondered when the consummation of the end would arrive.

Jesus gives them a surprising list of answers:

They ask, “When will this be?” Jesus says, “Many will claim to be the Messiah returned. Don’t believe them.”

They ask, “When will this be?” Jesus says, “There will be all kinds of problems, the sort of things you have already seen – wars, hatred, and conflicts around the world.”

They ask, “When will this be?” Jesus says, “You will face death and persecution for Christ’s sake, and many of you will fall.”

They ask, “When will this be?” Jesus says, “False prophets (messengers) will tell many lies.”

They ask, “When will this be?” Jesus says, “You can stand firm in the faith, in community, and in Christ. When you do so, God will save you.”

They ask, “When will this be?” Jesus says, “The primary task throughout this period of persecution is preaching the gospel that God reigns over all the earth. Keep doing that until I return.”

The last item is the most important. For two thousand years, Christians have lived at odds with a world of violence. Jesus did not want his disciples to answer the question, “When?” Jesus does not want us to find the answer either. Jesus wanted them and us to preach “the gospel of the kingdom” until he returns. Some people use this truth to say that preaching the gospel hastens Jesus’ return. Jesus says, “You’re asking the wrong question. Stop trying to figure it out. It is not for you to know the times or the seasons that the Father has set in his own authority. Your job is to preach the gospel of the kingdom. Your job is to help renew the covenant and to witness to the saving grace of Jesus.”

Why any Reference to the End?

We may wonder, then, why Jesus refers to the end of the Temple? Why did Malachi prophesy the end of all things? Why are these references in the text? If our job is to participate in God’s reconciling mission to the world, why bother with the texts we have read – or with related passages such as Rev 21 and 22, which portray the New Heavens and the New Earth, the New Jerusalem, in vivid detail.

 

I suggest that we take these descriptions of the End of all things seriously – not so that we can tell “when the End will come”, but so that we can orient our lives in the way God wants us to. The End is not simply the time when this earth passes away; the End is our goal in life. It is what we live for. It gives us purpose and direction. [Compare the way that the Carver model for board governance uses the term “End”.]

 

With these thoughts in mind, what do these passages about the End of All Things tell us? Here are four brief thoughts.

1) The coming of God’s Messiah, Jesus, is the cure for our rebellion. Malachi reminds us that the Messiah will refine and purify God’s People and make them whole.

2) The coming of Jesus, God’s Messiah, is good news, but not everyone experiences it as good news. If we have oriented our lives away from God, God’s appearing is terrible. Malachi asks, “Who may abide the day of his coming? Who shall stand when he appears?”

3) Many people will misuse the promise of Jesus’ return at the End. God wants us to prepare for the End and to live in the light of the gospel of peace. “False prophets” and fake Messiahs will try to derail us.

4) Our task is twofold: To gather in community living for the new heavens and earth; and to invite others into the community of God’s Reign.

 

Living for Heaven

I have made this point often before: We live for Heaven while we are living on earth. “Aim for Heaven, and earth will be thrown in.” I want to develop it more fully in the rest of this sermon.

 

Revelation 21 and 22 gives a wonderful picture of what we call “Heaven”.

21 Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. ² I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴ ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”….

22¹⁷ The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

 

There’s much more here. The goal of our lives is a perfection and delight. Joy without ceasing. A great dance in which we celebrate all that is good and beautiful. No stains of sorrow, no shadow of pain, nothing to mar or detract from the glory in which we live. C.S. Lewis preached a sermon in June 1942 titled, “The Weight of Glory,” a reflection on 2 Corinthians 4. He was preaching in Oxford, England at the height of World War Two. In the middle of wartime, he and the congregation took time to think of Heaven. I recommend his sermon in full – a simple Google search will find it for you.

 

Lewis summarizes what we learn about Heaven thus:

The promises of Scripture may very roughly be reduced to five heads. It is promised, firstly, that we shall be with Christ; secondly, that we shall be like Him; thirdly, with an enormous wealth of imagery, that we shall have “glory”; fourthly, that we shall, in some sense, be fed or feasted or entertained; and, finally, that we shall have some sort of official position in the universe—ruling cities, judging angels, being pillars of God’s temple.

 

He observes that these ideas are less attractive to us than they would have been to the first Christians. We live in a different place and time. But they make the point that Heaven is glorious! Finally, Lewis comes to his conclusion, which I find immensely moving.

… It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. …

 

Wow! This is the very heartbeat of our participation in God’s reconciling mission. Everyone we meet, everyone we know, represents God and potentially reflects God’s glory. How could we do otherwise than greet them in the gospel of God’s Reign?

 

God’s Mission

This idea reminds me of the way that Mother Teresa used to say that she saw the image of God whenever she served a beggar. A quick internet search turned up this quote: “I see Jesus in every human being. I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. I serve because I love Jesus.”

 

Our series on God’s reconciling mission in the world leads us to see everyone around us the way that God sees them. We never give up on someone, thinking they are too bad for us to love. We always see, as Lewis puts it, their potential glory. When I relate to the server behind the counter in a restaurant, I see someone who may shine like the sun, even when they’re having a bad day. How can I do anything other than relate to them in love and in wonder?

 

We might think, then, that our lives are the whole message, and we need no verbal witness. That idea is, I believe, mistaken. Our goal is to relate to the image of God before us, but why would we not talk about God when relating to the image of God? Why would we conceal the source of glory when relating to someone in whom that glory may shine? Our goal is not to make another conversion; rather, our goal is to come to God together with everyone we meet and to immerse ourselves together in the love and peace that God gives us in the person of Jesus. Our goal is to preach the gospel of the kingdom until Jesus returns. Jesus’ return is the end game of missions, when our missionary task is over and we worship God together forever in the New Heavens and the New Earth.

 

Steinbach Mennonite Church

7 February 2021

Texts:

Malachi 3: 1-6

3 “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

² For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. ³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, ⁴ and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.

⁵ “So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud labourers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty.

 

Matthew 24: 1-14

The destruction of the temple and signs of the end times

24 Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. ² “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

³ As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

⁴ Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. ⁵ For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. ⁶ You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. ⁷ Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸ All these are the beginning of birth-pains.

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.”

 

Excerpts from Revelation 21 and 22

A new heaven and a new earth

21 Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. ² I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴ ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

….

 

22¹⁷ The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

 

Going Deeper Questions

1. What do you think of when we talk about “the End Times”?

2. I suggest that “when will the End be is the wrong question. Why is it the wrong question? What should we be asking instead?

3. What does “the End Times” have to do with missions?

4. How can we use a lively belief in the return of Jesus as a vital part of our daily Christian lives? (I don’t want to be a crackpot, but I do live in light of “the End”!)

5. What does the word “End” mean, anyway?