Daily Lesson for July 12, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Matthew 24 verses 1 through 8:

As Jesus came out of the temple and was going away, his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple.2Then he asked them, ‘You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’ 4Jesus answered them, ‘Beware that no one leads you astray. 5For many will come in my name, saying, “I am the Messiah!” and they will lead many astray. 6And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places:8all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs. . .”

The end of the world as we know it is always the beginning of something else. This was true for us at the beginning of life, when our little world shaked and convulsed and suddenly we were expelled from the safety of our first home. The process felt like death; we later came to know of it as birth. 

“In my end is my beginning,” T.S. Eliot wrote. This is the universal principle of circularity. A new beginning always means an end. A birth of the new always means a kind of death of the old.

Jesus said to his disciples on the night of his death:

“A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy,” (John 16:21-22).

The time of grief is now for many. The world as they’ve known it crumbles. The institutions they had faith in have fallen or all but fallen. This is true about everything across the board including labor, religion, schools, politics, and government. It is indeed a time of grief.

But the end of an old order means the beginning of a new. Something is dying so that something else can be born. The birth process is terrifying and convulsive and changes everything.

“The one who endures to the end shall be saved,” Jesus said. We shall be saved like women in childbirth (1 Timothy 2:15). There will be pain. There will be suffering. There will be fear.  Everything that happens will be beyond our control. It will feel like the end. It will be the end. 

And it will also be the beginning.