Lenten Musings - el trece

Ah, Monday. Sort of rhymes with mundane...

Mark 13

verses 32 to 37 - "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33Be on guard! Be alert[f]! You do not know when that time will come. 34It's like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.
35"Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. 36If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. 37What I say to you, I say to everyone: 'Watch!' "

There's a big billboard on my way home from work that's advertising a Bible Prophecy Conference. It seems that there's a lot of effort put into figuring out what will happen in the "end times" and when it will happen. But Jesus sort of sweeps all of that away with this section. He says that even He doesn't know. So what makes us think we should be able to figure it out? What we're left with is "you've been left with some intructions, just make sure you do what you're supposed until I come back." Do you think if the man who went away came back and found his servants discussing when they thought he'd be coming back, instead of doing what he'd asked them to do, that he'd be at least a little annoyed? I admit my bias, because it's a subject that's not of great interest to me in general. And I wouldn't say I'm necessarily doing everything I'm supposed to do either. But a lot of this bible prophecy stuff seems a little misguided in light of Jesus' statement on the subject.
I think part of this issue is that as people, we don't like not knowing things. We have lost the ability to be comfortable with the unknown. I could be mistaken, but I think much of the body of bible prophecy type stuff is fairly recent, within the modern era at least. I'm not an expert, but it seems that it has been in the modern era that we have lost our comfort with the unknown. It is good to know, and to seek answers. So much of the knowledge we have today has been gained by this desire to make known the unknown, and that's good. But does the desire to know the unknown necessarily mean we can't be comfortable with not knowing? I think as we move into post modernity, we are learning to balance with desire to know with the ability to be at least OK with not knowing for sure.