THE END, END

“It’s all going to be over pretty soon,” Mark said.

He sat on his four-wheeler. The house he was building towered above him and the hard frozen lake loomed before him.

Mark is one of the hardest workers I know. Yet he complained about the futility of his labors, “I have lots of jobs. There’s always somebody to pay . . . I’ll never get rich.” Then his conversation slipped to “the end.” The end, end—the return of Jesus. Not a prophet, or a preacher, but a tired carpenter reflecting on a workingman’s hunch.

Is it all going to be over soon? Is he right?

When asked, Jesus listed many end-time signs in Matthew 24: wars, rumors of wars, people falsely claiming to be the Messiah, increased lawlessness, love growing cold, etc.

Yet Jesus said, “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only God.”

Instead of when is the end, shouldn’t we preferably ask: are you ready?

Mark rambled on as the cold wind off the lake chilled me. And my mind went back to a lunchtime conversation we had a few years prior. I asked him, “Where do you think you would end up if you died right now-- heaven or hell?”

With only a slight hesitation he said, “Hell.” He’s realistic enough to admit that he’s headed to the place of “outer darkness . . . weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

As my mind returned to the present, Mark revved the four wheeler a couple more times. “I’m going ice fishing.”

Jesus said, “So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man (Jesus) will come at an hour when you do not expect Him.”

Maybe even when you’re ice fishing. So be ready.