In the “Interim Period”

Matthew 24:12-14 (cf. 1-14)

“And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 2)

Between the present moment and the time when all will be revealed, and Jerusalem will be destroyed, the good news of the kingdom of God which Jesus came to bring will have to spread not just around Israel, as has been the case up to now (10.5-6; 15.24), but to the whole world. There is a task for them to do in the interim period.

We too are called to be faithful, to hold on and not be alarmed. We too may be called to live through troubled times and to last out to the end. We too may see the destruction of cherished and beautiful symbol. Our calling then is to hold on to Jesus himself, to continue to trust him, to believe that the one who was vindicated by God in the first century will one day be vindicated before the whole world. We too are called to live with the birth pangs of God’s new age, and to trust that in his good time the new world will be born (115).