Birth Pains and Tender Branches
Mark 13:24-37
November 25, 2018 – Redeemer
Twice in Mark 13 Jesus speaks of the end with a hopeful picture. In vs 8 when he speaks of wars, and earthquakes, and famines, he says, “These are but the beginning of birth pains.” Then in today’s text, as he speaks of great tribulation, darkening skies, and the moon being snuffed out He uses the illustration of the fig tree. “As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near.”
Before a child is born there is planning, fear, pain, and work (why do you think it is called labor?), but all of that is endured because of hope – the delight of God giving a husband and wife the privilege and pleasure of creating a new human, a living soul.
I’m already anxious for tree branches to become tender and put out their leaves. I don’t care if it is a fig tree or and oak tree. Why? Because I’m already hoping for winter to end.
All the trouble in your body, soul, and the world is a harbinger, a signal, like the fig tree and birth pains. Something good is coming. Actually Someone good is coming – then [you] will see the Son of man coming in the clouds with greater power and glory. And then He will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.”
Jesus made it clear to the disciples that they would endure touble and suffer pain, fear, and death because of Him. If you are a believer in Jesus you should expect to get what your Savior got. His family thought He was crazy. He was betrayed by a friend. He got arrested. He was accused and convicted of crimes He did not commit. He was put to death. This is happening to Christians right now, even in Saint Cloud. We have a couple of videographers who are fighting with the state of Minnesota over their right not to film the unnatural weddings of two men or two women. A cake baker in Colorado by the name of Jack Philips won his case before the Supreme Court for exercising his freedom of religion by not designing a cake for a gay wedding. As soon as he won, the State of Colorado immediately charged him with refusing to bake a cake for a local lawyer’s gender transition. Barronelle Stutzman employed LGBT people and served them in her floral shop, but she drew the line at same-sex marriages. The State of Washington and the ACLU sued not only her business but her personally. The case made it to the US Supreme Court who returned it to the Washington Supreme Court. Many businesses publicly post a sign that says, “We reserve the right to refuse anyone service.” That seems to be OK, unless you are making a moral or religious statement.
All of this trouble is of our own making. The very first sin was an inversion of God’s order. Adam went silent and Eve led the family into sin. Adam was to lead according to God’s Word and protect His bride. We broke the greatest gift – marriage, human sexuality, and once the chief foundation of society is broken, it all breaks. Where order is destroyed there is chaos. Wars and rumors of war. Nation against nation. Husband against wife. Children against parents. The whole of creation is caught up in our sin. God created the seas for the fish and the sky for the birds and set their boundaries. Now the seas flood and the skies churn with hurricanes and tornadoes. The land was made for all the creatures and especially man to live in peace, but now even it is in rebellion with fires, and landslides, and earthquakes.
We destroyed the order and brought this chaos. Jesus came to restore order, by bringing us back under our Father. The Son of God, by whom everything in creation was made, became a Creature. But He was not broken and disorder. He was born of a Virgin and therefore without sin. He was tempted by the Devil, but never undid God’s good order. He always obeyed His Father’s will and submitted to that will, even when the Father’s willed Him to be arrested, convicted, and crucified. Judgment day already happened. It happened when the Creator died for His creatures, when the Son of God died for the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. Jesus was judged for you, guilty of your sin, damned in your place. The signs of the end were all there – earthquakes, darkness, and even the rising of the dead.
Jesus’ last word from the cross was “It is finished.” He could have spoken what His Father saw at the end of creation, “It is very good.” Jesus on the cross did not look good, but His death was good. Sin was finished and with the end of sin came the end of death – that is why the saints around Jerusalem rose. Jesus dying on the cross was the birth pains of a new life. From the dead tree of the cross, the body of Jesus would be laid in the ground but that dead seed would burst to new life for us. Jesus’ word, “It is finished,” will never pass away. Your freedom to confess Christ might pass away, but His forgiveness will never pass away. Your body might pass away before He returns, but His life will not pass away. Your sin is finished. Your death is done. You have life and the resurrection is yet to come. This is very good.
Christians have hope. We’re looking forward to new life, to an eternal summer, but that doesn’t mean we ignore the world and sit around pining away for heaven or wishing to die. Faith does not escape the world, but plunges us into it, because our faith is in the One who plunged Himself into the world to save us. I have rehearsed for you many times the work of Christians which brought great blessing to the world. The hospital, the orphanage, and the asylum – all started by Christians. The fathers of modern science – devout Christians. The end of the slave trade – Christian. Treating women as equal and restoring their God-given rights – Christian. C.S. Lewis the English apologist said, “Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.” In other words, “Those who know they have heaven, live their lives in service to earth. Those who live for earth, live only for themselves.”
Our hope as Christians does not lead us away from the world, but into the world, for Christ has saved the world. He died for all and wants all to be saved. So we are on guard and awake. We don’t sleep our lives away in sloth and indifference. We are very much like those servants in the text, whose master is away. We do whatever He has given us to do. We work and serve our neighbor. Some bake cakes or arrange flowers. Some build buildings. Others sell products and services. In our homes husbands love their wives and wives respect their husbands. We raise our children in the fear of the Lord. Our hope compels us to watchfulness and work. Faith and hope keep busy even in the midst of trouble, for faith knows we are in the birth pains and life is coming. The branches are getting tender and summer of the resurrection is on the way. So we watch and work with hope and faith in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
November 24, 2018 anno Domini