Tensions are running high. For the past nine months, we have been living with a novel virus, politicians playing power games with the virus, people losing their livelihoods, social unrest because of police actions resulting in deaths, and, now, political unrest because of the questions about the legitimacy of the recent election. Societal anxiety is high. Whether or not you have felt the pinch directly from any of these things, you are affected. The anxiety is in the air. Our leaders, who have the power to allay societal anxiety, have not only refused to do so but rather they have exacerbated it by their blatant hypocrisies as well as using it as an opportunity to enrich themselves and increase their power. We are sitting on a powder keg with a bunch of hysterical toddlers playing with matches. We know the explosion is coming. The anticipation of disaster creates anxiety.
Whenever these sorts of things happen in a society, people look for relief. We need rest. We can’t live like this. We’re going to pop. All of this sets us up for some type of messianic figure who will lead a revolution. It may or may not be bloody, but it will be revolutionary and promise peace. With the potential for rest, we will give up our heritage of liberty and just about anything else. If we believe in his cause, we may even fight. Tensions must find resolution.
As Christians, we know that one day there will be the great resolution: Jesus will come again, raise our bodies from their graves, and put the final touches on the creation before he presents it to the Father (1Cor 15). Before we move into that new age, we will endure quite a bit as the church throughout the world. These societal upheavals will dot the timeline of history. Pressure will mount on societies for various reasons. There will be times that societies will look for scapegoats; people to blame for the tensions and whose deaths will bring peace. Christians at times throughout history have been and may again be those scapegoats. All of these things we should expect to happen.
What we learn from Jesus’ words to the disciples in Luke 21 is that when all of these things inevitably happen, as Christians we are not to get caught up in all the hysteria, be distracted from his words, and fall in with “false christs” who promise immediate relief from the suffering. Instead, we are to persevere, faithfully obeying Jesus in day-to-day responsibilities, trusting that he will not let a hair of our heads eternally perish (Lk 21.18, 19).
Getting caught up in the frenzy of being “people of action” is tempting. Physical force changes things. Canceling people changes things. Re-shaping narratives changes things. These are the actions being used by some in our country to mold society into their beatific vision.
Jesus is not against us being people of action. It’s just that the actions he wants us to take are not deemed to be effective by the world’s standards. Jesus calls us to live faithful, quiet-as-possible, praying, diligent, suffering lives. Jesus calls us to beware not to try to escape the tensions through the immediate relief of drunkenness or getting caught up in the anxieties of life so that we seek relief in the present without considering the future consequences of our decisions.
We are tempted. We want the pain to stop. We want to be at rest. We are tired of the fighting. We are depleted of strength. We are wondering, “What’s the use?” Jesus tells us that in these times we are to stay awake, praying at all times that we will have the strength to escape all of these things that will take place and be able to stand as faithful before the Son of Man (Lk 21.36). N. T. Wright sums up the answer for Christians who face these anxious times:
The answer is the same for us as it was for the Jerusalem Christians nearly a generation after Jesus. Keep alert. This is what you were told to expect. Patience is the key. Pray for strength to keep on your feet. There are times when your eyes will be shutting with tiredness, spiritual, mental, emotional and physical, and when you will have to prop them open. This is what it’s about: not an exciting battle, with adrenalin flowing and banners flying, but the steady tread, of prayer and hope and scripture and sacrament and witness, day by day and week by week. This is what counts; this is why patience is a fruit of the Spirit. Read the story again. Remind one another of what Jesus said. And keep awake. (Luke For Everyone, 260)
