Calm Endurance
(Mal.3:19-20a; 2Thess.3:7-12; Lk.21:5-19)
Our world seems to be falling apart.
We hear so much today about political and economic turmoil, violence and war. And many of the global systems we’ve long trusted seem to be unravelling. How should we respond?
Jesus talks about this in today’s Gospel. He’s with his disciples, looking at the great Temple of Jerusalem – an immense building at the very heart of Jewish life. It looks indestructible, and yet Jesus warns them: ‘The time will come when not a single stone will be left on another – everything will be destroyed.’
He’s right, of course. The Romans do destroy the mighty Temple in 70AD.
Then Jesus adds: there will be wars, earthquakes, famine, persecution and betrayal – all the signs of collapse.
His disciples must have looked shocked, for then he says, ‘Don’t be frightened. Your endurance will win you your lives.’
There’s a similar sense of desperation in Ridley Scott’s film The Martian (2015). Astronaut Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) is abandoned on Mars after an accident. His crew think he’s dead and they return to Earth without him.
On the red planet, the air is poisonous, there’s no food and no-one to help. You’d expect this man to panic and despair, and yet he doesn’t. With a cool head he says, ‘If you solve enough problems, you get to come home.’
Using his great technical skills and lots of duct tape, he starts planting potatoes, rationing his supplies and fixing his equipment.
He becomes an icon of calm endurance in the face of catastrophe.[i]
In his book A Non-Anxious Presence, the author Mark Sayers says this kind of calm presence is essential for our time. Why? Because our world is becoming increasingly complex, chaotic and even overwhelming.
We all live in a ‘grey zone,’ he says, ‘a world between two eras, where the old certainties of the past are crumbling but the new order has not yet arrived.’
In such times, anxiety spreads like wildfire. But Christians, he adds, are called to resist this contagion. Rooted in Christ, we can be calm, prayerful and resilient. A non-anxious presence in an anxious world.
The root of our anxiety, he says, is our disconnection from God. Without a deep-rooted faith and trust in God, we’ll never have the stability we need to navigate the storms of life. [ii]
His ideas aren’t new. The saints have long urged us to find peace in God in troubled times.
St Teresa of Ávila prayed: ‘Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you; all things are passing, God never changes.’
These words were born out of her own struggles and reforms in a time of great upheaval. She teaches us that when we anchor our hearts in God, no disaster can rob us of peace.
St Francis de Sales, known for his gentle wisdom, said something similar: ‘Don’t lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, not even if your whole world seems upset.’ He reminds us that calm trust in God is itself a form of witness – people notice when a Christian stays serene while others panic.
All these voices echo Jesus’ words: Don’t be scared. Endure, hold steady, trust God.
If you look closely at the history of God’s people, you can see that God consistently brings good out of disastrous situations. Joseph, for example, is betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery, but God raises him up to become the governor of Egypt (Gen.37-50).
St Paul is locked up in Rome. But while there, God inspires him to write letters that are still guiding the Church today.
And of course, Jesus suffers the ultimate evil in his crucifixion. And yet God transforms it into the greatest good – the salvation of us all.
In the world of faith, crisis always precedes renewal.
At the end of The Martian, Mark Watney is back at home and says, ‘I guarantee you that at some point, everything is going to go south on you. And you’re going to say this is it – this is how I end. Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work.’
Today, Jesus is telling us to stay calm, prayerful and resilient. For our stability comes not from human powers or global institutions, but from our unshakable faith in God’s love.
Trust Jesus. The world may shake and stones may fall, but Jesus is our firm foundation.
[i] Ridley Scott, The Martian, 20th Century Fox, 2015. https://www.imdb.com/video/vi4112625689/?ref_=tt_vids_vi_2
[ii] Mark Sayers, A Non-Anxious Presence: How a Changing and Complex World Will Create a Remnant of Renewed Christian Leaders, Moody Publishers, Chicago, 2022.