The Day Is Coming

Jesu Juva

St. Luke 21:5-28                                                           

November 13, 2022

Proper 28C                             

Dear saints of our Savior~

          Last week, on All Saints’ Sunday, we set our sights on Paradise.  We took our place with that white-robed multitude around the throne of God.  We gave thanks for all the saints who from their labors rest.  We were comforted and consoled by the sure and certain promise of the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting—when death will be undone and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

          But today the comfort of last Sunday gives way to a vision of fiery judgment, cosmic chaos, and destruction.  We’d much rather just skip over the end of the world and center our thoughts on Paradise the blest.  But the Lord won’t let us.  The day—the Last Day—is coming.  Malachi tells us:  It will “burn like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble.”  As we just sang: Then fright shall banish idle mirth, And flames on flames shall ravage earth.  And Jesus tells us:  The heavens will be shaken.  And they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

          We can’t begin to imagine the end of the world.  We just can’t.  But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.  It will.  But I suspect you haven’t given this much thought for a while.  The end of the world is, for most of us, the last thing we’re concerned about.  We’ve got deadlines to meet.  Thanksgiving is just eleven days away.  For most people who enjoy good mental health, thoughts about the end of the world don’t regularly occur.  But that’s precisely why we have a church year—a church calendar—a lectionary—which always concludes with a reminder that the day is coming—and that it’s nearer than you might imagine.

          Jesus’ own disciples couldn’t even begin to imagine that Jerusalem would be destroyed.  Jerusalem was God’s city—the City of David—Mount Zion.  Jerusalem’s high and holy temple was God’s dwelling place on earth.  But Jesus predicted that the walls would come a’tumbling down:  The day will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.  This sounded crazy when Jesus said it.  Herod’s temple was one of the wonders of the world—a massive public works project.  Say something similar about one of our national monuments in Washington; and then see how long it takes before the FBI shows up on your doorstep.  But what Jesus said about Jerusalem all came true in the year 70 AD when Roman armies leveled it all, including the temple.  There was nothing left.

          Jesus used that catastrophic event to help prepare His people for the all-consuming catastrophe of the Last Day.  What happened in Jerusalem in 70 AD foreshadowed what will happen at the end of days.

          If talking about the end of the world makes you uneasy, that’s good.  It should.  Jesus warned that His faithful followers of every age would at least get a taste of the coming chaos.  He said they would be persecuted, arrested, imprisoned, and put on trial.  Never does Jesus tell His followers that they will be spared from all this—only that He would see them through it all—that He would supply them with words and wisdom so that they could bear witness to Him.

          When His followers feel the squeeze of persecution—when this world’s hatred of Christ and His people gets intense—Jesus says, “Don’t worry.”  In fact, Jesus calls such times an “opportunity to bear witness.”  Jesus promises to give His people words and wisdom when they need it most.  But don’t think of it as God magically putting words in your mouth.  No, those words and wisdom are already being implanted in you every time you gather here for the Divine Service—every time you hear God’s Word—every time you sing His praises from the hymnal.  The Holy Spirit is using all of that—every Scripture, every devotion, every sermon, every Creed confessed, every Psalm, hymn, and spiritual song—that will be your treasury of resources for when your time of trial will come.  The Lord’s words and the Lord’s wisdom will not fail you.  Nothing will prepare you better for persecution than receiving God’s gifts here and now.  Being prepared for the end . . . begins here.

          The Christian faith has a cross at its center—Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  That means you can expect suffering, hardship, loss, and persecution.  As the world hated Jesus, so it will hate His followers.  Jesus told His disciples that some of them would be put to death.  And yet, in the very next sentence He adds:  But not a hair of your head will perish.  By your endurance you will gain your lives.  It sounds like a contradiction.  Which is it?  Will your beautifully quaffed hairs remain numbered and intact?  Or will the head to which they are attached get lopped off for following Jesus?  The answer is “yes.”  Yes, death will come to those who follow Jesus—maybe even martyr’s death; and “yes” again, you will live.  In the resurrection all those beautiful hairs will be accounted for.  Though you die; yet shall you live.  And living and believing in Jesus, your death will be but the entrance into the Father’s house, where the Savior already has a place prepared for you.

          But as for the world around us, it has an expiration date.  It is passing away.  That Jerusalem temple eventually did topple at the hands of the Romans.  But the end of the temple would be signaled even more profoundly on Good Friday, when the curtain in the temple was torn in two at the moment Jesus died.  At that moment, the time of the temple was over.  Access to God is now found through the body of His Son, Jesus—no longer through a building—no longer through the blood of goats and bulls, but only through the shed blood of Jesus.  In that blood is your cleansing and forgiveness.

          In practically one breath Jesus covers the destruction of Jerusalem—and shows how that destruction will be a prelude to the end of all things—when the sun is darkened and the moon turns to blood and the stars fall from the sky, and the sea will roar with the intensity of ten thousand tsunamis.  Jesus is telling you now, so that you won’t be caught unaware just in case it all begins to unravel later today or perhaps tomorrow.  Global warming and climate change—don’t worry about it.  Rising oil prices—deal with it.  Divided government and a polarized electorate—you can survive it with the help of God.  Another pandemic—just take some vitamin D. 

          But be ever aware—be ever mindful of this truth:  The end of all things is

coming.  On that day your faith will be vindicated.  Every promise ever made by Jesus will be proven true.  Your patient endurance through times of tears and trouble will give way to the thrill of hope as the Savior returns.  Then you will see with your own two eyes what you can now only hear and believe.  Just when things are at their worst, lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing near.  Already now, Jesus is near—in His Word preached and proclaimed, in His baptism, in His holy Supper.  And sooner than you might think, you will see the Savior face to face.

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.