but it's one of those endings where no one claps

'cause they're sure that there's more

The holy Gospel according to St. Mark the 13th chapter!

Like a portent from heaven, a few weeks ago, I received a revelation from the Lord! …It came in the form of a divinely generated playlist! A celestial suggestion to listen to a Nickel Creek song…

Now, I know what you’re thinking, but bear with me!

Nickel Creek was a band at the forefront of the americana revival in the early aughts. And while you may not be familiar with their work, it’s less likely that you’re unfamiliar with their influence. 

For instance, the sound track to the excellent Coen Brother’s film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou.” You know, with the banjo and fiddle. That’s the americana sound. 

And the band leading this revival was a group of musicians barely old enough to vote! The album that finally broke them through to a wider audience was their second, 2000, self-titled album, Nickel Creek. 

But, as you’re probably not be surprised to learn, the Lord was too subtle to send a message from any breakthrough album. No, my omen came from a track of their mostly-for-fun, 2014, reunion album, “A Dotted Line.”

For as understated of an album as the Holy Spirit chose though, the topic was about as subtle as an eclipse. 

The song opens with this; “It’s time to bid this world goodbye. Oh, glory, time to fly away. We’ll meet our savior in the sky. Hallelujah, the 21st of May”

This song’s about the very topic Jesus takes up today in the Gospel! The great last day when the book of history is finally closed, once and for all. 

And the Holy Spirit delivered this song at exactly the right time, too! Before all these right and proper COVID-19 measures went into place, but at the point it was apparent they were all coming.

Since then, I’ve listened to this song a number of times for the pure comfort and joy it’s brought me during these days when so much feels so uncomfortable and so joyless.

The next stanza of the song is, “Sinner, heed these words of mine, ‘bout the coming Judgement Day. Yes, the end is drawing nigh. Hallelujah, the 21st of May.”

By now, I suspect you’re thinking those lyrics didn’t sound all that comforting, and what’s the deal with that line, “the 21st of May.” 

Well, that’s actually the title of the song in question; “The 21st of May.”

At first I didn’t pay much mind to the lyrics, I just appreciated the picking and fiddling. But, I couldn’t help but be drawn in as the song’s progression built up suspense with every stanza!

Here’s the next two; “The laughed while Noah built the boat. Then cried when came the rain. They mock me now, but I will float—on the 21st of May. /

And then, here’s the one that’s clue to the whole song: Well, I’ve never been so sure. And I’ve never led no one astray… ‘Cept the fall of ’94. But, Hallelujah, the 21st of May.”

Upon closer listening this song turns out to be a not so subtle wink and nod to Harold Campings failed prediction of the end of the world way back in 2011! 

On, yes, you guessed it, the 21st of May!

And that line about ’94, is a reference to another one of Harold’s failed end-times predictions!

This song has comforted me, not only because it’s just plain good, which it is. And in these days when big things are being shifted around, holding on to a small thing, will not fail you.

But, I’ve also been comforted by this song because of the humor and playfulness it brings to a topic that usually gets our hearts racing.

Like the disciples upon hearing the center of their life, the temple, is about to be thrown down, we’re jittery about the prospect of our center shifting.

Like the disciples we’re on the lookout for some timeline or sign to point us around all this upheaval.

But, and here’s an unexpected thing, you’ll notice Jesus is a lot more interested in, like the members of Nickel Creek, cracking wise about the the end of days, than he is about offering any life-hacks for them!

No, when the disciples ask for a sign of the times, Jesus doesn’t play ball. Like opening day this year, he just skips right on past it. Instead, he cautions against being lead astray by all this end-time hand-wringing, advising against getting too alarmed at all this. 

Which isn’t easy. Is it? Especially when it feels like the world as you know it is shifting under your feet.

After all, the only reason the folks in Nickel Creek were able to smirk about the 21st of May is because that day had already come and gone!

But it doesn’t feel like that’s where we’re standing right now. Does it? 

No, it feels like we’re in the thick of it. Standing where the disciples stood, still reeling at the news that things are about to change.

Well, just like you needed the all of the context to draw comfort from the song “The 21st of May,” so it is in our lives. When we, like U2 sang, get stuck in a moment, we do well to step back and take a little perspective. Which is hard to do when you’re in the thick of it, so instead let’s just take a look at the larger perspective of today’s Gospel. 

After today’s gospel, Jesus’ final 24 earthly hours begin. And his final teaching is this odd little parable about servants. Servants whose error was not that they were unprepared. After all, the servants were prepared. They had a plan.

No, their problem was that their plan didn’t take into account the Master’s presence. The servants in the parable, like us in our anxiety think we’re in this alone. 

But, that’s patently not the Master’s masterplan!

Jesus closes this final parable with this, “Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at cockcrow, or at dawn…”

And then, before you know it, it’s evening and Jesus is going to the Garden at Gethsemane where he tells the disciples the very thing he told us in the parable, “keep awake.” But they fail to. Each time Jesus comes to them, they’re sleeping

Before long it’s cockcrow, when Peter can’t even bear to admit he knows Jesus, denying him three times. 

But the, the light of dawn shines over those seemingly godforsaken moments, revealing that even into those moments the master was present and working!

When the women go to the tomb that first Easter dawn it turns out Jesus isn’t even there! While everyone else was sleep, Jesus was busying emptying out the enemy’s last arsenal, the tomb!

…If Nickel Creek could yuk it up about about the 21st of May because that date had come and gone, Jesus can razz all the doomsayers because in his death and resurrection all that has already happened!

In Revelation Jesus says he is the alpha and the omega. The beginning AND also the end! And that’s what he is!

At the cross, when Jesus said “it is finished” he brought an end to the world as we know it, once and for all! Full stop. Period.

And that includes this moment, too. Why, it even includes you! 

When you were baptized into Jesus you came to an end, too. This is true right now. Not a week from some Tuesday, but now. You are not going to get more dead in Christ than you already are right now.

So, as you patently sit here reading this sermon, not over and done with, one last, final, unexpected turn takes place; in Jesus’ pierced hands, the end isn’t the end at all!

Good Friday wasn’t the end! Three days later, from that death, when dawn came ‘round, Jesus ROSE unexpectedly and victoriously over the great, last foe; Death! And when he rose, he began a new creation! A new creation lived on the other side of his death and resurrection!

In the empty tomb we see the beginning of entirely new world! One that came in the last way we expect, not by skirting around the end, but by going through it!

in Jesus, the current sufferings are not death blows, but rather pangs of NEW birth! What felt like the end has, in Jesus’ pierced hands, turned out to be only the beginning! A beginning that rises unexpectedly from the other side of the end! And in Jesus you’ve been carried kicking and screaming into it!

And now you stand on the other side free and clear!

Now you are free to wink at all those clutching this old and dying eon. Free to sing along with Nickel Creek if that’s your thing! Or whatever band it is that get’s you though. No judgement here. 

You are free to sit at home. Sit at home for other’s wellbeing. You are free to sit at home contended and calmly! 

To joyously care for those who are within your four walls. Which includes yourself! To do nothing more, than nothing at all! To tell your anxiety to give it a rest already! To just watch whatever’s on netflix and raid whatever’s left in the ‘fridge! Might I suggest Netflix’s “The English Game.”

Why, you’re even free to send along whatever pennies you’ve saved up to those whose livelihood has been affected by these temporary measures designed to protect the most vulnerable among us!

Now, I know all this may sound foolish, but as Jesus says, the really foolish thing is to live as if this old life were really the end!

You really are free from this old life! You’re been carried through it. In Jesus’ empty tomb, this old life has been emptied out, and now there’s noting left in it for you anymore!

Now your life is hidden in the one who stands on the other side of the end, and unexpectedly gives you this new life, gratis!