Mark 13:28-31
Have
you ever purchased a jigsaw puzzle at a yard sale? I am always hesitant to do
it. The reason? The missing piece! Few things are as frustrating as spending
hours putting together a puzzle, especially a very difficult one, only to
discover that there is a piece missing. You scour the floor, your pockets, the
couch cushions, but all in vain. And they you stand there looking at an almost
complete puzzle. The air gets taken right out of your accomplishments. I almost
completed a 2000 piece puzzle, does not sound nearly as good as I finished a
2000 piece puzzle.
Have
you ever taken something apart and put it back together and left out one small
part? And then you try to make it work, and it doesn’t work because of that one
small piece. The problem is, you don’t remember where that part went, or how to
get it back in its original position. You never could quite figure out what
that piece did anyway. Well, for one thing, it makes the thing work. Without it
you have almost fixed it. Almost fixed is the same as didn’t fix. Failure.
There
are many puzzles in life. Relationships can almost work. Marriages can almost
succeed. Pregnancy can almost happen. You can almost win the raffle. Accidents
almost avoided.
When
one small piece, one step in the process, is missing, many things don’t seem to
come together completely. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense.
Jesus
is helping His disciples, and us, to understand the timing of the destruction
of Jerusalem and the timing of His Second Coming. He shared, through Mark, a
few details about the kind of world that will precede these two events. Now
Jesus brings us to the point of giving us a picture of those times. Without
some of the details the disciples would have no idea what to watch for in the
coming days. They would be completely in the dark. But Jesus has thrown some
light their direction.
Now
Jesus gives them the picture of a fig tree. They can look at the fig tree and
recognize the growth and realize that summer is near. They look at the bark,
the new shoots, the leaves. Each of these details tells a little more about the
timing of summer. So it is with the details Jesus gave about the timing of
these events. The details Jesus gave are the fig tree bark, shoots, and leaves.
The
problem arises for us in the words “this generation” that Jesus mentions. If
Jesus is referring to the destruction of Jerusalem only when He says this, no
problem. There would have been people alive when Jesus spoke those words and
when Jerusalem was destroyed. To say 40 years from now these things will happen
would work.
But
in regards to His Second Coming which is still in the future, as of the time of
this writing, the words “this generation” don’t seem to fit. It is almost as if
we were missing a few pieces of the puzzle. Even when we add in what is taught
in all of Scripture, it still seems as though we are missing a few pieces. We
can’t quite nail down all the details of the end time events.
I
think that as the time approaches, and some of these things begin to happen,
more details will become evident. But we don’t need more details to get Jesus’
point. We are to be awake and ready. We are to be watching and waiting for His
return. We are to be growing in our relationship with Him and with each other.
We are to be obedient and willing servants. We are to share the love that God
shared with us with others.
One
thing is for sure, His words will come true.