Text: Luke 21:5-28
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Have you ever woken up on a given day and actually been mistaken about which day of the week it was? It’s happened to me a few times, and I bet it’s happened to some of you as well. This past week, I had a similar experience while driving in to church—all of a sudden Christmas music started playing on the radio. I had to stop for a moment and ask myself if it was still November. And sure enough it was.
While the world may want to rush in the Christmas season with all of its expensive marketing and sales driven schemes, the church still seems to resist making Advent 8 weeks instead of 4. And while the desire to start the celebration of Christ’s first coming is good, the church needs some closure in order to begin her journey with Christ again. In fact, what we need is an end to the church year—one that is marked not by Christ’s first coming, but rather by his second coming. And rest assured Christ tells us in our text this morning that he is going to return.
Jesus was strolling along in the temple talking with and teaching his disciples, when perchance he overheard some people talking about the majesty of the temple in Jerusalem. It was an amazing sight; the temple stood nearly 15 stories high and was made of pure shinning white stone. For anyone in the 1st century it truly would have been a wonder to behold. But for all of its outward glory, Christ has nothing good to say about it. Indeed the only thing Christ has to say about this wonderful temple is that it has been forsaken by God and will only end up as a heap of ruins. With the first coming of Christ, the presence of God was moved from the inner room of the temple into the person of Christ, and with his death on the cross, it then moves into the church through word and sacrament. No longer would God’s presence be found in the temple or even Jerusalem—this movement marks a new age, indeed the last age, the time of the church.
And the impending destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem of which Christ speaks is a sign of the things to come in this new age. God withdrew himself from that city because the children of Israel had rejected his presence in the person of Christ. They had in essence rejected the Lord by putting their hopes in physical stones, and this rejection would not take place without consequences. And just as God once removed himself from Jerusalem because of their rejection of him, so too will the Lord one day remove himself from all creation because of man’s rejection of God and their depravity toward one another.
Now, the day of the Lord seems to be almost a myth in our culture. We prefer to think of judgment day through the eyes of movies, and for some reason humanity always seem to come out on top. Instead of taking to heart God’s message that this world is destined to pass away, each day we are tempted to occupy ourselves with consumerism. We spend more time thinking about sports, technology, and fashion than we do about the Lord and his threats and promises. While the Jews of the first century forsook God by reveling and taking security in the walls of Jerusalem and were consumed with the physical magnificence and impressiveness of the temple, as if it were indicative of God’s spiritual blessing, we have forsaken God by finding security and comfort in the stock market or the might of our military, and we see these as signs of spiritual blessing. We have regularly traded the good news of Jesus Christ for HDTV, iPhones, or any other number of material distractions. This does not mean that these things are intrinsically bad—we need a good military for our protection and the stock market helps our economy (and I happen to like HDTV). But when we put our trust in these things, when we see these as signs of God’s spiritual blessing, when our minds are consumed with the material world, we become no different from the Jews of the first century—we just have a different object in which we find our security and put our trust. Wealth, technology, and power, become our God.
In light of all this, when we stop to think about Christ’s second coming, the depravity of man which provokes God to withdraw from his creation, and the signs of the end, some days the end doesn’t seem so far away. The world looks like it’s consumed by war. The age of terrorism is upon us and for us it appears as if no one is really safe. We hear daily about the threats of mass murder and physical destruction. Both famine and pestilence affect hundreds of millions of people each year. And we can’t seem to get away from the idea that something is just not right with the earth, whether it be global warming or not. And then there is the church which never seems to find a moments rest. Christ’s words that Christians “will be hated by all for my name’s sake” rings true in our ears. While we may not suffer the persecution like our brothers and sisters in places like China or Nigeria, we certainly know a good dose of persecution in the form of intellectual and emotional attacks by atheists or secular Hollywood. Any parent attempting to raise God-fearing children in this day will certainly tell you of the many threats that face Christ’s people.
And so in the end, the chaos we find in our world and even in our own daily lives is a reminder that we cannot escape the end of creation and the final judgment—whether we believe it or not. Christ tells us that for humanity, the very last days are coming and will be a dreaded thing. No one will be able to make sense out of the madness which seems to consume the world—and I suspect some days it seems difficult for us to make sense out of the chaos which at times in our lives appears to consume us.
And yet in the midst of this dreadful news that world will come to an end, that the possessions we covet so dearly will pass away, and that as Christians we will suffer persecution of many kinds, Christ does give us a glimpse of hope. When he returns again, for those outside of Jesus, his glory and power, which will radiate from the heavens at his second coming, will only inspire fear.
But for us, the glory and power of Christ will not be a thing to be feared. Instead it is the sign of our final redemption from this evil life, just as Christ tells us, “when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” While others will shrink from his glory in fear because of their sinfulness, we will stand with our heads gazing into the skies, beholding his glory. And to be sure we are sinners just like the rest of mankind, but our sins of covetousness and idolatry will not cause us to have fear before Christ. Because on that last day, when the dead are raised and the last generation of mankind sees the glory of Christ, we Christians will not stand before a wrathful judge, but a Redeemer. While we will stand before the world with our sins exposed, and while the accusation that we are sinners will ring out from the condemned world, our response will be “I am a sinner, but what of it, for Christ is my Redeemer!” And redeem us he will, for on that last day, the blood of the lamb which was given for the sins of the world will make us white as snow. The righteousness which God demands of us will be ours not by our works but by faith in Jesus. His righteousness, the righteousness that he earned by his life, works, and death, has been given to us in his gifts.
So when you are struggling with the sin in your life, when you seem overrun by the chaos and troubles that from to time to consume you, and when you hear of great disasters and wars, do not be afraid, for these are all signs that your redemption has drawn near. Lift up your head and take comfort in your redeemer because he is coming soon. And the promise of forgiveness, the promise that everything is going to be okay for those in Christ, is upon you because God has called you as his own by placing his name upon you. And today and tomorrow and the next day, until that last and final day, you are not without hope because Christ is not your judge, he is instead your eternal Redeemer.
In Jesus Name.
Amen.
Vicar Mark Taylor