You know that moment when something goes wrong and your mind immediately runs it all the way out?
One awkward conversation becomes: This relationship is over. One bad performance becomes: I’ve lost it. One setback becomes: This is how it all falls apart.
We don’t just feel the moment. We crown it. We let it become the last thing.
Jesus steps into that instinct.
“You will hear of wars and threats of wars … but don’t panic,” which is strange because Jesus doesn’t soften the picture for his listeners. He names it plainly: conflict, confusion, collapse. Things are going to shake personally, culturally, even religiously. The temple itself, the very symbol of stability in ancient Jewish culture, will fall.
In other words, the worst things really do happen.
But they’re not the last thing.
We often read Matthew 24, trying to figure out when everything will happen. Jesus seems far more interested in who we will be while it happens.
Think of a farmer in the middle of an Iowa spring. The ground is messy and unpredictable. Weather shifts. Nothing looks finished. But the farmer doesn’t stand there demanding clarity about harvest day. The farmer keeps sowing, knowing this moment—muddy, uncertain—is not the last thing.
Jesus is forming those kinds of people.
People who don’t panic when the world trembles. People who don’t treat every loss like the end of the story. People who stay awake, faithful, and rooted. Because beneath all the shaking, something deeper is true: “The Son of Man is coming … and he will gather his chosen ones …”
That’s the last thing. Not the war. Not the loss. Not the unraveling.
A person.
In Jesus, endings are never what they seem. The cross looked like the worst thing—it was—but it wasn’t the last thing.
Resurrection was.
So, when things shake—and they will—Jesus doesn’t give us a timeline to master. He gives us a truth to live inside: This moment is real. This moment may be painful. This moment may even feel like everything is coming undone.
But it is not the last thing.
Jesus is.
Crown him.
Reflection:
- What “worst thing” are you tempted to treat like the final word in your life right now?
- Where might Jesus be inviting you to stay faithful instead of trying to gain control?
- How would your outlook change if you could see that this moment is not the last thing, but Jesus is?