But that doesn’t mean that Christ’s activity has come to an end. Instead, toward the tail end of the Season after Pentecost, we begin to hear these passages that speak about the end of days, and what needs to happen before the return of the King. These passages of scripture teach us about how we are to live our lives even during the tumult and torture at the end of the world as we know it.
Many of us, in the days following the riot and attack on the capitol building on January 6th of this year, have come to wonder how people who claim to know Jesus could have ended up storming the capitol with the intent of causing harm to those within its walls. Causing harm, when the Jesus they claim to follow expresses the mandate to “love your neighbor,” and “pray for your enemies.” Nowhere does Christ seem to indicate that violently beating your enemies with a flagpole is the way of love, nor even something he wants his followers to do.