Happy New Year! …Okay, well, it’s not New Year’s day as we typically understand it. But it is the beginning of the new lectionary year today. Advent marks the beginning. The start of our story. The season where we remember the miracle of Christ’s life by pointing to an incredible immaculate conception and virgin birth!

So why does our scripture today begin  by talking about the end times? This is one of the apocalyptic quote of Jesus where he tells his disciples to be on guard, look up, for the Kingdom of God is coming and the rest of the world is passing away! If this is the beginning of Advent–our season of Hope, the start of our new lectionary year–then why did the lectionary writers put this passage here? Because this is, in fact, a message of hope. It’s our reminder to live in anticipation of what is to come next. We can look past the
short-term troubles of this life and look at the big picture of justice and reconciliation that God is bringing about. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” If we zoom out and look at the big picture arc, we can start to see that God has a bigger plan. Jesus’ words to his disciples in today’s scripture remind us all of that larger victory that is looming on the horizon.

He uses the parable of the fig tree to make it easier for us to understand. When you see the leaves returning to the trees, you know that Spring is on the way.

I love when Jesus uses agrarian parables. As somebody who has always appreciated gardening and nature, they speak to me deeply. As an avid organizer serial over-planner, my gardens begin with seed packets laid out in neat piles on my table, calendars of when to plant, and nice neat rows tilled in the soil. By the end of the season, the chaos of life always catches up as weeds and grass take back over my nice neat rows, as the crop that I thought would surely do well comes in too early because of a late frost, or the seeds that I never intended to plant (from the compost pile or the chicken scratch) takes over an area of the yard and creates the most beautiful unintended abundance of produce. I find that I am often reminded that I am not in control, no matter how much I may try to be.

I came across a new gardening philosophy a few years ago when speaking with some tried and true farmers who had been doing this gardening thing for a lot more decades than I had. They told me they planted their first corn when the leaves on their oak trees were as big as a squirrel’s ear or when they heard the first calls of the whippoorwill. Plant according to the phases of the moon, not the dates on your calendar. Slow down. Listen to Mother Nature. She will tell you when it is time for Spring to finally come.

Once I started gardening by this philosophy and let go of my overly-organized garden, I began to not only get a better yield in my garden, but I was more at peace. Trusting God to care for the outcome instead of forcing myself into a frenzy worrying about the end result not only cared for my garden better, but cared for myself and my soul better as well.

My dad used to make the joke that if you flipped to the back of the Bible and read the end, “don’t worry. We win!”  That’s the beauty of knowing a part of the end before the beginning. No matter what part of
the story we are in, we know that God is in control. We can look at this apocalyptic warning from Jesus and know that God’s plan prevails. And while we know that there will be suffering on this Earth (in fact, we are assured of it), we also know that we are in God’s capable hands.