Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
It’s almost to the point where you do not want to know what is going on anymore. Turn on the television, open your favorite news website, flip open the paper, or even scan the magazine rack while you’re standing in line at the grocery store and, unless you’re a Houston Astros fan, the news does not seem to be good. You name it - politically, economically, socially, geologically, meteorologically it seems there is nothing but bad news. There is government unrest all across the globe from the not-so-cleverly-disguised worldly war in Eastern Europe to the threats made by China and North Korea. In our own country, different groups try to shout down their opponent while spewing their own vile words and vitriolic rhetoric. I have rights, yes I do, you can’t tell me what to do! Politicians, historically the voices of calm and civility, add their own threats, with the donkeys and elephants lobbing verbal manure at each other. One part of the country suffers from crippling drought while another battles to recover from floods. Barely starting to turn the corner in recovering from one hurricane, another hits, tearing apart what was only recently set right. Whether local, state-wide, across the state, the nation, or the world, the news is such that it makes you want to find an ostrich with its head in the sand and ask it to scoot over and make room for you.
A person told me a few months ago that this all was really weighing on him. Watching or reading these kinds of stories was starting to cause him physical problems. He was growing anxious. His stomach hurt. He was losing sleep. I told him while he cannot control what goes on outside of his home, he can control what happens inside it. Turn the TV off. Change the station on the radio. He said, but he needs to know what is all going on. Then, limit the news content. Do it in small bites. There is no rule that says you have to watch the entire news hour, or read the entire paper. It’s not just adults. Kids are anxious about exams, friendships, social media standing, and things happening in the world. This spring, when Russia invaded the Ukraine, every evening a young man gave his parents regular reports of the progress, some times several times in a night, citing cities lost and casualties. Finally, the parents insisted he stop watching and reading the stories. “But I need to know,” he said. Fine, his parents said, then do it in the living room with us so we can help you digest this.
This young man’s story is one we understand. It’s easy to look at these things and get wrapped up in the moment, the event, the news, and develop a sense of lost-ness, listlessness, and even hopelessness. Spiritually, it’s the direct result of placing our hopes and trust in these monuments of men - governments, society, the economy, and even the local weather prognostications. It’s the additive inverse of hope in Christ. If hope in Christ is the exclamation point that declares “this is most certainly true,” when these things become our gods - lower case g – and they fail, like houses built on shifting sand, then hope quickly crumbles as well. And when things fail us, and they always do, it is easy to sound like Chicken Little and proclaim the sky is falling.
Jesus gives us, and the disciples, a powerful example when he points us to the walls of the Temple. They were massive stones, making up the massive walls of the massive temple. It was one of the wonders of the ancient world, almost on par with the architecture of Greece and Rome. While not as beautiful as Solomon’s Old Testament Temple, the Temple at the time of Jesus was still very impressive. White stone, gold, beautifully polished hardwoods, and jewels all made it a place of wonder. In fact, it was easy to forget it was supposed to be a place of worship, it was so opulent. King Herod the Great had rebuilt it as both a way to appease the Jews which also appeased the Roman Emperor and as a way to show the world of his own socio-political skill, a way of saying “Look what I accomplished.”
So, when the disciples passed through and gawked in awe and amazement at the sights of the magnificent temple, they were stunned when Jesus said the day is coming when those massive, quarried stones - as big as a school bus - would no longer be standing on top of one another. It stopped them in their tracks to think of the improbability - the impossibility - and the size, scope and magnitude of what it would take to make that massive and beautiful structure crumble. It just couldn’t happen. Their question was both sincere and laced with fear: tell us, when will this be? We need to prepare for such a tragedy and travesty as this. But Jesus wasn’t done. He adds layer to layer of coming loss and tragedy. I can imagine the disciples reeling as He added to the list of coming terror: wars, pestilence – we would call it a plague, earthquake, famine. Even the heavens join in, He continues, with there even being signs from the heavens. Jerusalem, this beautiful city of David, this city of God, it will be surrounded, cut off, and it will fall. Then some of you faithful, I imagine He looks one-by-one to Peter, James, John, and the rest of His friends, you faithful will be hauled before the authorities and put to death and the rest hated because of me.
This is a Gospel reading where “This is the GOspel of the Lord” makes us want to add a question mark behind “Thanks be to God,” and where instead of departing in peace and serving the Lord, it feels like a better idea to hunker down firmly and safely in the pew. At first glance, this Gospel lesson is overwhelming, leaving us with anything but peace and comfort. In fact, it is very easy to draw parallels to our own time as we face war to our east and west, as we continue to struggle with Covid and now flu, as droughts rage, economists argue the depth of the recession, and as food supplies face uncertainty. But these are the very reasons these words of Jesus are so necessary today.
As the world around us sees all of these things without any hope, without any great reason, Jesus gives us a small glimpse of a promise. It’s interesting in the way He does it. There isn’t a long grocery list of terrors all countered by a list of contra-terror. Instead, Jesus offers a word of promise, a word of sure, certain hope, a bright beacon of light against the darkness that rages around us.
Jesus offers the faithful, glimpses of His remarkable protection even in the midst of this vision of what is to come. So, when He speaks of their persecution, Jesus takes away their trusting in their own clever words and repartee. He says don’t worry about what you will say, the Spirit will fill your mouths with words of wisdom so you might bear testimony of God’s powerful grace. When He speaks of their betrayal and martyrdom, He takes away their strength and ability to bear up under it. Instead, He promises that not a hair of your heads will perish and by your endurance you will gain your lives. And, when He strips away trust in creation’s order, depicting the heavens being rent asunder, or trust in massive buildings that will fail the test of time, Jesus says look to the Creator: straighten up and raise your head, because your redemption is drawing near.
This takes place during Holy Week. He has ridden into Jerusalem, welcomed as the Son of David by the crowds. But, behind the scenes, the Jewish leaders are working to have Him arrested and put to death, turning the crowds against the One whom they welcomed. It’s probably Tuesday or Wednesday. His arrest is hours away and the cross looms large on the horizon. Jesus knows He must suffer and die. He will do so for your salvation. He will stand under the curse of death and die the sinner’s death, taking your place, paying the life-price you owe. He will die, and He will rise to reveal that He has overcome sin, death, and the grave for you. There is nothing, then, in this life – not wars, rumors of wars, pestilence, famine, earthquakes – that can tear you from His strong and saving hand.
This is how faith works. It sees what our eyes cannot see. It grasps hope in the promises of Jesus where all around us we see failing and falling things of this world. This is how the life of faith works. Notice this: Jesus doesn’t tell the disciples, now y’all don’t worry…I’m going to zap you right out of here so you don’t have to experience this. Instead, He promises that in the midst of these things, His Word, His promises will endure and that through faith in Him, they will endure into eternity. Christ does not move us from a world of destruction – snap – to a land of milk and honey. Instead, we are tested and tried with times of suffering so that we grow spiritually wiser and stronger in faith. When everything else is stripped away, we are left with Jesus and His Word. So, we cling all the more tightly to God’s work for us in Christ – even when it comes to us in the midst of trials and tribulations and even in the loss of those things that we hold so dear in this world.
It's easy to fall into the temptation of the disciples, to look to the wrong places and talk about the wrong things. It’s tempting for our mouths to be filled with admiration for all of the things around us and, then, to place our trust and hope in these failing things. Jesus turns our attention to something more beautiful: the work of God in the midst of suffering, and the promises of God that sustain us now and into eternity. And, it’s easy to get caught up in the news cycles. What, with wars and rumors of wars, fires and floods and drought, mass shootings and civil unrest, and paychecks that just don’t last like they did a few months ago, it sometimes feels like the end is near. Luther thought that was true, 500 years ago, that Jesus had to return soon to spare the Church from greater suffering, and he preached as if Jesus was returning by the following Sunday. We don’t know the day or the hour. So, Jesus turns us to what is certain. This may or may not be the end. I know we are closer than ever before. But what we do know for certain is the One who holds us in His nail-pierced hands is forevermore near.
When you see folks around you wringing their hands, acting like Henny Penny, lamenting that the sky is falling, that they have lost all hope, speak of Jesus. Tell them where your hope rests. Then, straighten up, stand firm, raise your heads, and have faith in Jesus because your redemption, won for you at the cross, is drawing nigh.
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