One day in 1957 Dr. Albert C. Outler, a prominent theologian who was not at all prone to sensationalism, returned from a White House-sponsored conference of theologians and scientists and announced to an assembly of students at his seminary that the industrial civilization as they knew it had only a few more years to live. The subject of the conference had been the nuclear arms race. The participants were informed that the United States and the Soviet Union had both built up huge arsenals of nuclear weapons. Missiles with explosive cargos many times more destructive than those dropped on Japan were already poised and aimed at every major population center in the western world. Any act of aggression, either intentional or accidental, would provoke immediate retaliation from the enemy. It would all be over in a few hours. Dr. Outler, who was a competent historian as well as a theologian, said that in the history of the world there had never been such a buildup of arms that did not finally lead to a war. For that reason, he said he believed that there would be a terribly destructive war and that it would happen soon.

Needless to say, the announcement got the attention of the students. They began to imagine what it would be like for all of the things they thought were so substantial to be vaporized in a nuclear blast. They imagined the impressive buildings in which they met, with their massive Grecian columns, simply disappearing, and with them the shelves of books that represented the accumulated wisdom of the ages -- yes, and the chapel with its hallowed traditions. Inevitably, they had to think about what it would be like for the students themselves, with all of their plans and ambitions and relationships, to simply disappear. Then, they began to wonder if the missiles were already on the way. Were there only hours or minutes left? It was a very real experience for many people in those days.

Many of the people who lived in the days during which the New Testament was written lived with a similar kind of anxiety. They believed that the world was moving toward some catastrophic end. This expectation may have been formed partially by the memory of the devastation that their people had experienced in their past at the hands of the conquering armies of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. They knew that a similar thing could be suffered at the hands of their Roman oppressors. But the expectation had moved beyond a memory of history. It had taken a theological shape. The people believed that human history was moving toward some day of judgment that would be an act of God.

It is apparent that Jesus himself thought in those terms. The passage of scripture that we read today comes from a two-chapter collection of teachings of Jesus having to do with the last things as the people he knew expected them. In our text and several others in these two chapters, Jesus urges his followers -- Jesus urges us -- to keep things in perspective and to be watchful and ready for the ultimate reckoning with God.

Now, what are we to make of that? These passages have been troublesome for many people who have taken the teachings of Jesus seriously. Jesus did not come as a prophet of doom. He came as one who brings good news. Yes, he pointed forward to the coming of a new age, but it was an age of promise. The summary of his message was "repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near" (Matthew 4:17). It is clear that when Jesus talks about the kingdom of heaven, he is not talking only about something that is to happen in the future. He is talking about a new possibility here for us in each present moment of our lives.

His teachings -- the Sermon on the Mount, the parables, and all -- are descriptions of the new and radically different kind of life that God makes possible for us. The two chapters in which Jesus says so much about the last days end with the familiar parable of the last judgment in which the Son of Man comes to judge all people and to separate those who are saved from those who are lost as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. You remember the norm by which the judgment was said to be made: "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40). It is clear that this teaching about the last days was intended to show us how to live in the here and now. In fact, that is a good way to read all of the biblical teachings about the last days. They are meant to help us get things into perspective. And the norm by which we should expect everything to be judged is the question of whether or not we have learned to live in love.

Then what is to be gained by all the talk about destruction? It helps us to put things into perspective and to distinguish between the things that are really substantial and the things that are not. We have a way of getting that all mixed up and it can get in our way. Our culture keeps telling us that the really important and substantial things are things like cars, houses, office buildings, bank accounts, battleships, and missiles. We find ourselves believing that, and that belief gets in the way of our seeing life like Jesus wants us to see it. In fact, in Matthew's gospel, the thing that provoked Jesus to deliver his collection of teachings about the last days was the disciples being impressed by the structures of the temple that had been built by the old tyrant Herod the Great. Jesus said, "These buildings are just temporary. They will all eventually be torn down." And about seventy years later, during the Roman war, they were.

The students who heard Dr. Outler's attention-getting announcement found that the thoughts they had following the experience put many things into perspective. They were forced to reckon with the fact that some things they were accustomed to taking for granted were not really substantial. Fortunately, they came to learn about God, the eternal reality who gives being to all of the little temporary realities that crowd around us. The promise of God was shown to be much more substantial than the promise of a military-industrial complex. It began to make sense to organize their understanding of things around the promise of God and to let it shape their lives.

There are other ways in which life can help us get things into perspective. When a divorce, a business failure, or a major disillusionment makes life seem to fall apart, we may be pushed to take another look at the way in which we have put things together. That can be a judgment day. Ironically, a success may do the same thing. When you finally achieve all of the goals you set for yourself and have gotten all of the things you thought would make life good and discover that those goals didn't deliver what they promised, that too can be a judgment day. That can send us looking for something more substantially significant to hang our hopes on.

It is significant that Jesus talked about judgment day so that we will look for another source of hope and take hold of the promise of God. When we talk about the new age that Jesus called the kingdom of heaven, we are talking about something God has promised. That adds a new dimension to our thinking. It would be easy for us to think of it as something God requires of us. And that might seem like an overwhelming requirement. But Jesus is talking about the saving work God is doing in our lives and in our world and urging us to hang our hopes on that promise and to live toward its fulfillment.

When we talk about the saving work of God, some people may begin to visualize a promise of conspicuous miracles that will give every story a happy ending. It doesn't work like that. God is at work among all of the varied good and bad things that are going on in our lives and in history. God is at work moving things toward the fulfillment of God's good purpose for us. We are called to believe that God is at work and to look for the evidence of God's work and to try to become participants in what God is doing.

Now, what are we talking about? What does the saving work of God look like when it happens? Let's go back to our first example. More than half a century after Dr. Outler made his dire but realistic prediction, there has still not been a nuclear holocaust. The prevention of nuclear war didn't happen because God tore open the heavens and descended to destroy the nuclear arsenals. It happened through the complex interactions of the currents of history. Somehow, sanity and humanity finally prevailed. If we read the Hebrew Scriptures, we will find that is the way God worked to save the people of Israel time after time. It is interesting that one of the Old Testament prophecies of the coming day of the Lord ends with the promise "...they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" (Isaiah 2:4). What would it mean for us to believe that promise and hang our hopes upon it? The prophet invites us to come and walk in the light of the Lord.

It is a significant coincidence that the Christian season of Advent, the season of hope, comes right after the American celebration of Thanksgiving. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the hope that God will be at work in our lives and in our world to save us is rooted in the recollection of the saving works God has done in the past. Thanksgiving makes possible expectancy. How many saving works can you remember that God has done in your life? Think hard. Don't just try to remember something spectacular. Start with the recollection that God gives you life day by day. Add to that the memory that at some time in your life, someone has loved you. Go on from there. How many things can you remember that God has done to save our nation and our world? Shake off your cultivated cynicism and look at all of the good things in our world. Remember, be thankful, and take hold of the promise that God is indeed working to bring into being a new era organized around the reality of the love of God -- an era in which it will make sense to live according to the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount.

The Apostle Paul also taught us to live in the light of God's new possibility. He wrote: "...you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.... put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires" (Romans 13:11-14).