Consider the fig tree and all the other trees.
When their buds burst open,
you see for yourselves and know that summer is now near;
in the same way, when you see these things happening,
know that the Kingdom of God is near.
The signs Jesus had been describing were difficult and frightful things. Yet this analogy of the fig tree puts put them in a bigger and brighter context. From the perspective of a bud, bursting must be traumatic and even deathlike, much like a grain of wheat that must die before bearing fruit. But the radical nature of the change is necessary to prepare the way for the new reality of summer. The same was true of the frightful signs Jesus had been describing earlier. In themselves they might have seemed to be nothing more than destruction. The they were in fact proof that the Kingdom of God was near, about to burst forth into fruit at any moment, leading to the summer of the Messianic age.
Amen, I say to you, this generation will not pass away
until all these things have taken place.
That generation did indeed witness the signs and see the downfall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. But there is a sense in which no generation will pass away without experiencing something similar albeit often at a different scale. We too are called to recast all of the signs in our own world that give us anxiety and make us almost die of fright as signs that a spiritual summer is coming, and that, during such trials, the Kingdom is especially close. Those in Jerusalem just before the siege of Rome were called to be attentive, ready to flee the city at a moment's notice. Like them we want to be especially attuned to the voice of the Messiah so he can keep us sheltered by his divine protection.
Heaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will not pass away.
There is no earthly place that is so fixed, safe, and defended, that we are not at risk. No matter how comfortable our lives seem, if they are built on anything other than the word of God, they are built on shifting sands that will not survive the storm. Those in the generation of Jesus were able to survive the siege of Jerusalem precisely by trusting in his words more than they were attached to their lives in the city. We too need to learn to hear his voice and to find our safety and security more in his words than in our status quo.
If we trust in the words that will not pass away we will not risk accepting the mark of the beast of worshipping its image. By grace and the power of the Holy Spirit we too will in some measure reign with Christ, bringing about his Kingdom by the works of mercy he prepared in advance for us to do. Then, at the end, we too will be among those whose names are written in the book of life. We too will be found worthy to live in the new heaven and the new earth. We too will worship forever in the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, experiencing the fullness of the reality that is present but veiled in our worship here on earth. We will finally know the full meaning of our own existence, "prepared as a bride adorned for her husband", ready to consummate the wedding feast.
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