Why won’t God just tell us when the world will end? As a culture of planners, we would like to know a precise date and time so that we can set our affairs in order. That said, in our Gospel today, Christ offers something much more enigmatic. After promising that heaven and earth will pass away and yet he and his words will remain, as will his elect, he then says that no one but the Father knows the day or the hour, and that we should look for the coming of that day like one looks to the fig tree for signs of summer.