We live in a time of war and rumours of war. Now, it may be that I know about this because of the internets, but this did make the paper today as well. As has the ongoing travail for our Christian Brothers in Egypt.

The Copts, like the Iraqi Christians, and the Anatolian Greeks or the Armenians, have had to run. To leave. To flee: to whoever will take them. Because their society has destroyed their churches, and in the case of the Anatolians and Armenians, deliberately killed them en masse.

So today’s passage has more than an end times application.

Mark 13:14-27

¹⁴“But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains; ¹⁵the one on the housetop must not go down or enter the house to take anything away; ¹⁶the one in the field must not turn back to get a coat. ¹⁷Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! ¹⁸Pray that it may not be in winter. ¹⁹For in those days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, no, and never will be. ²⁰And if the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would be saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he has cut short those days. ²¹And if anyone says to you at that time, ‘Look! Here is the Messiah!’ or ‘Look! There he is!’ — do not believe it. ²²False messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, the elect. ²³But be alert; I have already told you everything.

²⁴“But in those days, after that suffering,
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
²⁵  and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
²⁶Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. ²⁷Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.”

Now, I am Reformed, which is, if I use the word correctly, a universal or Catholic theology. It is not Anabaptist, retreating into a (armed or unarmed: the Anabaptists have done both) holy huddle or holy nation. Instead, the kirk tries to influence the community around it, to expose evil and preserve good. The Jargon is “salt and light”.

But when society rejects this witness and destroys, we have to make like the Jerusalem Christians in the Sack of Rome. Leave. Right. Now. Bug Out.

Weeping, because our elaborate plans (or not) to survive will be smashed by those fascists who will call any preparations hoarding, and, because the nation of our fathers is now circling the drain.

In persecution, if silenced, witness. If oppressed, witness. But when the mobs arrive with police backup, it’s time to get at least three borders away from the mob.