John Gordon was a bear of a man. He was a school principal who had the respect of the students and the admiration of the staff. One fine April evening, I was at John's house. John's wife, Dee, was telling me how it happened. How John was carrying the trash to the curb and about halfway down the driveway he collapsed. Dee was at his side in seconds but John was gone. Dead, as they say, before he hit the ground. Forty-eight years old with, who knows, maybe twenty-five good years left; thirty? At least so they both figured. But John died suddenly and for Dee ... well, her world came to an end just as suddenly. She said, "If only John had seen the doctor last week when he had the chest pains...." And she did not finish the thought. She did not have to. Maybe these are the saddest words in the English language, "If only...."

Your life is an open book and each tomorrow is a blank page but there will came a time when the page which is turned will not be blank. Two words - The End." I don't tell the story of John and Dee as some sort of cautionary tale: "you better get right with God and your neighbor. I've heard such sermons on so-called "Christian" radio ... and I've not been impressed. I've always been of the school that says it's better to try to plant heaven in the hearts of people rather than try to scare hell out of them. But such preaching has its place, I suppose. A lot of folks go day-by-day and plan for the future as if they will live forever. Perhaps they possess a hazy spirituality, that one day they would like to explore ... but, there is always mañana. As if each page of every mañana will always be blank. But one day, two words: The End.

There are times when Jesus seems to have gone to the same school: share heaven with people rather than scare hell out of them. His classic story of God's good grace is the prodigal son. The story of a son who badgers his father for his share of the inheritance and quickly heads to a distant country. Eventually and finally, after he squanders everything ... he ends up feeding the hogs, and sneaks a bit off their plates when they are not looking. "Hey, pig, over there!" as he takes some pods for himself. And then, one day, the light clicks on for this homeless boy. "Hey, wait a minute; I have a home!" What a beautiful, if not obvious, insight. Not only does the boy have a home, the boy has a father. A father who has not had a good night's sleep since his son left home. A father who would do anything, give anything, to have his son home once more. You who have children understand. Whether they be your own children, or your students, or your nephews or your nieces, you who have children understand. Ask Christine LaRegina how wonderful and rosy life is now that Bobby is home once more. A loving parent might want to throttle that child at times ... but instead of throttling, it's throwing ... throwing arms around that child with a warm welcome home. This, truly, is the way it ought to be between parent and child.

The thrust of the story of Jesus: it is never too late to come home. Never. Share heaven with people, don't scare hell out of them. But, what if, what if, before the boy had decided to return home ... he was taking out the pig trash late one evening and slumped to the ground ... then - surely it is too late. If only...." And the father never knows what happened to his son in the far country. And the father is consigned to a living hell - always watching the horizon, waiting, waiting. This, too, is the thrust of the story. Our heavenly father ... yearns for the return of we who stray. Some sons, daughters too, never find their way home. They think mañana, as if each page of every mañana will always be blank.

One could argue easily that since Jesus is God in the flesh, there is never a page in his future which is blank. From that first day in Bethlehem to his resurrection in Jerusalem, Jesus knew how the events would unfold. But many Biblical scholars would take the opposite view. That when God came into this world in the person of Jesus, he had the same human limitations that bedevil us all. Wrong word: bedevil. For Jesus was the perfect human. Tempted by Satan ... but never giving in. So Jesus cannot predict his future ... except he understands human nature so well that he just knew how this whole mission was going to end up: with him up - on a Roman cross. Perhaps he did not know how near his own death was going to be; perhaps he did know. At the time of our text, he had four days. He'll be taken to a nearby garbage heap called Golgotha, the place of the skull ... and there, like a common criminal, he will be nailed to a piece of wood.

In our text this morning, he talks about what his followers will face without him in their midst. The magnificent temple built by Herod the Great would be utterly destroyed ... so much so there would be no longer, stone upon stone. There will be wars and rumors of war. Nations rising against nation. In my brief lifetime there have been at least seven wars in which my nation has been involved. Maybe more. I started crying when I got to seven. Jesus tells us and how true the words, there will be earthquakes, famines, plagues. Oh, the anguish this week in Bangladesh ... sodden cyclone and sudden death. There will be betrayals and persecutions ... even in the midst of the family setting. This must be the worst sort of an end of the world: "You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends...." We heard a few moments ago the classic story of God's good grace, the Prodigal Son. Jesus trying to plant the seeds of heaven in the hearts of his listeners. So what are we to make of these words of Jesus this morning? Jesus trying to scare hell out of his followers?

I don't think so. Jesus did not say it to scare his followers. He said it to comfort them. They needed to know that even something as frightening as the end of the world was in God's good hands. His followers were to remember what he had told them. That when the world seemed darkest and the final light was about to go out, "not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls."

By the time Matthew wrote these words down, some forty years after Jesus spoke them, it seemed that the end was very near. The headlines were as bad then as they are now. Jerusalem lay in ruins. When Jerusalem fell and the temple was destroyed and Nero swooped down on the young church like a mad vulture, they believed that their world had ended. Perhaps, in a way, it had. In a manner of speaking, the world can end any day in the week, for any one of us: with the sudden death of a loved one or a grim diagnosis. When such things happen, as they most likely shall, it is the time, especially the time, to return to the words of Scripture. Words reminding us that one day we shall go home ... precisely because there is a home. That those closest to us whom we have loved and lost ... are not really lost. They are home.

And so, we approach the final week of our Church Year. And we preach about endings. Yet, in two weeks, Advent. It is a time of beginning again. The story of how the Jewish prophets spoke of a new thing that God was about to do: a child would be born of a virgin and would be called Immanuel, God with us. A story of how God did not wash his hands of pitiful humanity ... but chose to come into the world as the weakest and most vulnerable of all critters: a tiny baby.

Of course, we are approaching also the final pages of the current year. Not with fear and trembling that the world is about to end. God is not impressed with our calendars. We approach a new year with anticipation. Order more bread and wine ... for God's people will continue to receive God's gift of a Savior. Pay the water bill, because we are going to be baptizing babies as if this old world will never end. Baptizing babies - because we know, that one day it will. But don't be mournful and overly sad. In fact, this is a day to rejoice. A day to recognize that we have time! How much? Who knows? But still - time to make a difference. A time to realize that beyond life's final mañana, through Jesus Christ ... there is a new tomorrow.