Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
This morning’s Gospel reading
leaves you a bit unsettled, doesn’t it? “This is the Word of the Lord,” yes, ergo:
“Thanks be to God!” But at the same time, listen again: “But in those days,
after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give
its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the
heavens will be shaken. And they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with
great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his
elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth, to the ends of heaven.”
We’re to respond with “thanks be to God”? I’ve spent the week with these words
and, truth be told, I’m a bit uncomfortable. Do you feel like that, too?
It doesn’t help much to go back
and pick up the context, the verses between last week’s Gospel and this
morning’s reading. “But when you see the abomination of desolation standing
where he ought not be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in
Judea flee to the mountains. Let the one who is on the housetop not go down,
nor enter his house, to take anything out, and let the one who is in the field
not turn back to take his cloak. And, alas for women who are pregnant and for
those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that it may not happen in the
winter. For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been seen
since the beginning of creation that God created until now, and never will be.
And if the Lord had not cut short the days, no human being would be saved. But
for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days.”
Oh, my… These are hard words,
difficult words that Jesus spoke to the disciples on the top of the Mount of
Olives. Last week, Jesus warned of the destruction of the temple’s magnificent
structure. Now, in this explanation, the temple seems to be small potatoes. The
entire city, the entire nation of people will experience terrible devastation
and loss – so much so that even people’s faith will be challenged.
And, if we are honest, it leaves us uncomfortable, left with uncertainty and with questions – questions like, what is Jesus talking about? Is He talking about an historical event, like the destruction of Jerusalem that will happen about 40 years later, or is he talking about something that hasn’t happened yet? Is he talking about the various temporal conflicts that have happened – like what’s happening now with Israel and Hamas or with the Ukraine and Russia now – or is he talking about something eternal, like His second coming? For that matter, why doesn’t Jesus seem to have better data, better intel? First, He said “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place,” but he kinda missed that one…didn’t he? How many generations has it been since His ascension, anyway? Was he talking about the age of the disciples or something else? And then He said, "no one knows...not even the Son." If even He doesn't know, how on earth - or under heaven, for that matter, what are we supposed to do?
These words of Jesus are tough. They are hard words to understand. Much ink has been spilled in PhD dissertations, commentaries, sermons and Bible classes across the world. Pastors, theologians, and Bible scholars – both professional and laymen – have tried to discern and dissect and determine the meaning of these words. They are visionary and apocalyptic – a microcosm of Daniel and Revelation, if you will, which are notoriously difficult in and of themselves to understand. It’s so much, so intense, that I could easily imagine the disciples sitting at Jesus’ feet, mouths open and agape, stunned into silence and inaction. Remember: what we read last week is continued this week, so this is a long culmination for them. The Temple destroyed? That’s bad, but if they were honest, it happened centuries earlier; it could happen again. Wars and rumors of wars, and all that. But this – the sun being darkened, the moon’s brilliance being dimmed, stars falling… What does this mean? I see them sitting there, with hearts beating heavily in their chest, looking at each other in wonder, uncertainty – and fear – at what Jesus is all describing.
If we are serious about our 21st century Bible study and Bible
reading, these words interrupt our world view with the cosmological changes and
challenges that they describe. After reading these words of Jesus, it almost
makes the reader want to murmur, “Yes, this is the Word of the Lord,” and then to
gently close his or her Bible and be silent in awe.
If you feel a little bit like
that, Jesus does not leave you in angst. Instead, He points you to a living
parable. He speaks of a fig tree. Now, given the way He had been speaking, you
might anticipate He would illustrate a fig tree losing its leaves and going
dormant as if dead. Instead, Jesus speaks of a tree that is blossoming with
life as the branches swell with the spring sap flow and leaves popping out in
radiant green. It’s something that you see every year, every spring, as the
weather warms, and your peach, pecan, and citrus trees come out of the dormancy
of winter. In the new growth of the tree, new life, new beginning, another
microcosm representing the fulness of the new creation to come.
It's a parable of the certainty
of Jesus’ return. In the middle of what we might perceive to be the chaos of
the end times – which, by the way, creation has been in since Jesus ascended
into heaven – in the middle of all these things that are going on around us
that leave us unsettled and uncertain, Jesus speaks a word of simple
encouragement: new life will begin out of the ending of what we know.
That’s what Jesus wants you to
know in this morning’s Gospel lesson. There is a certain tension, to be sure,
between the first picture of darkness and chaos ending, and the second picture
of springtime and order and light and life. It’s a bit of a mystery, really,
how the first picture plays over and against the second, but at the same time,
there’s a measure of certainty to it. While the first picture leaves us with
unknowns, the second lays out certainty. You can call it a certain mystery or a
mysterious certainty, but either way, you do not need to be afraid. Instead,
watch and be prepared for when the fig trees start to bloom; be prepared for
when Jesus does come.
The summer after I finished high
school, a friend of my dad’s, who was a small businessman in Walburg, hired me
to work in his car garage and gas station. It wasn’t your typical job, though.
He wanted me to quickly learn how to operate and manage the business so he, his
wife, and their son – who also worked in the shop as mechanic – could all go to
a family reunion out-of-state. Over the course of about six weeks, I soaked up
as much as I could until the day came that they left. For the first few days, when
I got off work, I kind of left things where they lay. About mid-week, I had a
sudden realization: what if they came home early and found things a mess? Every
evening before I closed, I cleaned and tidied things up. If there was slow time
during the day, I stocked the shelves and organized the cooler. I swept and
dusted, organized and cleaned. I think I even did the windows. I was prepared
just in case they came home early to demonstrate that I did my best to care for
their business and that I was worthy of their trust. They came home when
promised, not a day earlier, not a day later. But, had they come home sooner, I
was prepared for their arrival. Had they been delayed, I was prepared to keep
doing what I had been doing.
That’s the point of the second
brief parable. You do not know exactly when. Neither does the Son, according to
His human nature. Yes, that’s a mystery as well – how can Jesus both know and
not know at the same time. The answer is “yes.” In the mystery of Divine
attributes, His human nature was ignorant of when He would return again. At
that time, the return was not as important to Him as what was ahead. There
would soon be a time when the sun would be darkened at noon, when the powers of
heaven and earth would shake, and when the Son of Man hung in glory, absent all
power, at the cross. Absent both angels and His Father’s presence, Jesus would
die alone – another mystery, how God can die. Yet, the certainty is that Jesus
died for the sins of the world, the perfect payment price to redeem the
imperfect. Even creation paused in awe as the voice of the Creator breathed his
last.
Jesus had to be man so He could
live under the Law, be tempted as we are, suffer and die. Jesus had to be God
so He could be the perfect sacrifice, perfectly obeying the Law, perfectly
resisting temptation, and rising to new life. He died in human weakness and
shame, but that was His glory: to be the Savior of the world. In His
resurrection, He rose in power and glory, and then ascended where He remains,
sitting at the right hand of the Father, waiting for the day of His return.
We’re preparing to enter the season of Advent. As this church year closes and we stand on the threshold of the new, we live with advent expectation: standing firm in the faith today with one eye looking back to the promises of God fulfilled in Christ’s first Advent in Bethlehem and one eye looking forward to the day He returns. In the meantime, we wait. Jesus will return. This is the certainty. The when and the how (albeit to a lesser degree) is the mystery. The mystery leads us to be grounded in the certainty of the promise. The certainty of the promise lets us live with the mystery still unanswered.
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