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Luke 21:31-32
Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
Jesus has been teaching his disciples about the end of time, and it has involved lots of cosmic signs, huge events, and things which are hard to comprehend. So Jesus makes it simple for them.
He talks about a common fig tree: something which all the people gathered would have been familiar with. In the same way that one knows summer is near when the leaves of the fig tree start budding, so too you know that the end of the world is near when some of the signs described begin to take place.
Imagine yourself in that crowd. You might say, “Alright Jesus, I understand the fig tree thing, but when will that actually happen?’ Who doesn’t want to know?
And so Jesus tells them and us. It will happen within one generation. A generation is a period of time of about 30 years. Thirty years after Jesus said that, the world was, and is, very definitely still spinning as we know it.
But ‘generation’ can also mean a period of time with no set years, but identifiable for a particular feel: a period or generation of waiting, a generation of hope, a generation of suffering.
We don’t know when the end will begin, but we do know it is in the future, and it will mark a change from the feeling that we are feeling now...every tear will be wiped away, there will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the old order of things will pass away. (Revelation 21:4).
So what of it, what do we do in the meantime?
Do we feel overwhelmed? Do we spend our time trying to work out when it will happen? Do we panic and look for signs in the sun, moon and stars, as well as keeping an eye on fig trees? Do we forget about it until it happens and live an ordinary life?
We let that future invade the present, and the hope that we have affect how we live today.
