The End Is Near!

In Nomine Iesu
St. Luke 21:5-28
November 13, 2016
Proper 28C

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~

The end is near! Or at least, the end of the church year is near. One week from today we will wrap up another year of grace in the church of Jesus Christ. But the end of the church year also brings to mind the end of time—the end of the world as we know it—Judgment Day.

But something tells me that when you got up this morning you probably weren’t thinking about those things, were you? It’s more likely you were thinking about plans for Thanksgiving, or getting the last of your leaves raked, or wondering whether the Packers can turn their season around today. Most people with good mental health don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the end of the world. (Although, as the election results came in last week, I know a few people who probably began to wonder!)

But this is exactly why we have a church year, and a church calendar, and a lectionary—because it forces us think about

things we might not normally consider. For, as we just sang, the day is surely drawing near when Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead. That day will inevitably come—burning like a blazing oven—a day of fire and wrath—a day when the faithless and arrogant evildoers will be reduced to stubble. The heavens will be shaken. The seas will roar. The perfectly predictable sun and moon and stars will fail. The earthquakes and hurricanes that make headlines today will seem like nothing by comparison. We simply can’t begin to imagine it. Cosmic destruction is really beyond our grasp. But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

The people of Jesus’ day couldn’t begin to imagine that Jerusalem would be destroyed. They thought Jerusalem was indestructible. After all, it was God’s city, the City of David, the place of His holy temple, Mount Zion, God’s dwelling place on earth. Yet Jesus predicted that it would all be destroyed within the time of His own generation. And by 70 AD invading gentile armies had leveled it all. And yet, because of what we heard from Jesus today, His followers were prepared. His followers—those who remembered His words—they knew to flee to the mountains when the armies of Rome appeared. They knew to flee instead of fight. Jesus was preparing His disciples for a coming destruction that no one would have conceived as even remotely possible.

As Jesus spoke the words of today’s Holy Gospel, the temple in Jerusalem was being rebuilt by Herod. It was a massive public works project which spared no expense. Enormous stones had to be quarried and moved. All sorts of craftsmen and laborers were employed to make the temple into something grand and glorious that would last forever. So, it sounded like total nonsense when Jesus looked at the construction site and said, “there will not remain here one stone upon another.” That was crazy-talk—like someone saying today that the United States won’t exist as a nation forty years from now, or that Chicago will be burned to the ground in a nuclear explosion. The FBI might show up at your doorstep for talking like that; but no one will take you seriously.

If talk about the end of the world makes you apprehensive or uneasy, it should! Jesus warned His disciples that they wouldn’t escape from the coming chaos. He told them that they would be persecuted, betrayed, arrested, imprisoned, and put on trial. Jesus didn’t tell them that they would be spared from persecution; only that He would see them through it—that He would even supply them with words and wisdom so that they could bear witness to Him. There is no notion in the Scriptures of believers being spared the tribulations of the end. And there’s no concept whatsoever of a “rapture” in which all true believers get whisked away before the distress of the end times descends. Christians don’t get a free pass. We already see Christians being targeted for their beliefs—being hated for the truth they confess. Don’t be surprised. Jesus said it would be this way. In fact, looking back at the history of Christianity, it’s when the church is most powerful and most popular that things go terribly wrong.

The Christian faith has a cross at its center—Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Gathered around the cross of Christ, you can expect suffering, hardship, loss, and persecution. As the world hated Jesus, so it will hate His followers. Jesus even told them, “Some of you they will put to death.” And yet, notice the very next sentence, “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 the followers of Jesus be put to death, or will not a hair on their heads perish? The answer is “yes.” Yes, death will come to those who follow Jesus—maybe even martyrdom; and “yes” again, you will live. Not a hair on your head will perish.

It’s not a contradiction; it’s not double-talk; it’s the way of the gospel—death giving way to life. That’s the hidden comfort on these last Sundays of the church year, as we ponder the end of the world. The end is also the beginning. The destruction of the old brings the revelation of the new. “We are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.” Imagine the scaffolding that surrounds new construction. That scaffolding hides the work going on inside. But when the work’s done and the building’s complete, the scaffolding comes down to reveal something entirely new.

Jerusalem was like that scaffolding. It served an important purpose in God’s plan of salvation. The temple there was God’s dwelling place . . . until the coming of the Christ—until the Son of God took on human flesh and dwelt among us. And then the temple was no longer needed. The scaffolding could come down. The temple was destroyed because God now dwells among us in Jesus the Christ. It’s true for the things of our world today. It’s all just a temporary scaffolding—nations, institutions, stadiums and skyscrapers—they are all just temporary. They will all eventually give way to reveal the permanent, eternal kingdom of God—the New Jerusalem.

And so it is for you—for each of us. Hidden behind this sinful scaffolding there is a new person—a new creation—a saint who will be unveiled on the day of resurrection. The sinner must die in order for the saint to be revealed. As in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive. The flesh of the old Adam must be torn down so that the new creation in Christ can be revealed. God tears down what is temporary in order to reveal what is eternal. New heavens. New earth. New you.

Jesus is telling you now, ahead of time, so that you won’t be caught off guard when things begin to unravel. You are precious to Him. Even the hairs of your head are numbered. In His death your sin has been answered for. And by His resurrection He shows us that death is a defeated enemy.

On the Last Day your faith will be vindicated. Every promise made by Jesus will be fulfilled. Then you will see with your own two eyes what today you can only hear about and believe. The end is near; but Jesus is nearer. Already today Jesus is near—in His Word preached and proclaimed, in His Baptism, and in His Holy Supper. And sooner than you might think, you will see Him face to face. Amen.