Sunday Readings : Luke 21. 5-19; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 3. 6-13
Sermon preached on: – Second Sunday before Advent 17.11.19
Prayer :-
All three readings of this morning talk about the end of time.
Everyone wants to know about the end of time. Books have been written about biblical prophecy. Many have stated days for the Lord’s return which have long passed. But Jesus Himself warns us not to get preoccupied with times and seasons which are in the Father’s authority. Only God knows the time. Yet we get few glimpses from Jesus of the end of time.
In Luke 21, Jesus is alerting his followers to hardships ahead, beyond the time of his journey.
The scene of Jesus’ prophetic discourse which is also called eschatological discourse (which means “end of the world” or “end times”) (21:5-36). The scene is Herod’s magnificent temple. This is the third temple. Solomon built the first temple, which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. When the Jews returned from their captivity in Babylonia, they built the second temple—a remarkable work of faith but inferior to the original temple. Herod tore down that temple in 20 B.C. to make room for his temple—the one that the disciples admire in our Gospel reading. Josephus a first-century Romano-Jewish historian gives the finest description of the Temple in his book, “The Wars of the Jews”. At one point he writes, “The outward face of the Temple in its front wanted nothing that was likely to surprise either men’s minds or their eyes, for it was covered all over with plates of gold of great weight, and, at the first rising of the sun, reflected back a very fiery splendour, and made those who forced themselves to look upon it to turn their eyes away, just as they would have done at the sun’s own rays”. It was a comment on the splendour of the Temple that moved Jesus to prophesy. To the Jews it was unthinkable that the glory of the Temple could be shattered to dust.
(v. 6 says ).“As for these things that you see” The disciples see the external adornment, but fail to see the spiritual bankruptcy behind the exterior—the hypocrisy (11:37-54)—the oppression (18:7; 20:47)—the rejection of the Messiah and the Gospel (13:33-34; 20:13-18; Acts 13:46-48; 18:5-6; 28:25-28)—and the impending death of God’s Son at the hands of the religious authorities (9:22; 18:31-33; 19:47; 20:14-19; 22:1-2, 52; 23:1-25).
second part of (v. 6 says). “the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”Six centuries earlier, God called Jeremiah to warn the people of Jerusalem to change their ways so that God would continue to dwell with them. Jeremiah was to proclaim, “Don’t trust in lying words, saying, The temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, are these” (Jeremiah 7:4). God asked, “Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?” (Jeremiah 7:11)—a verse to which Jesus mentioned in his own cleansing of the temple (Luke 19:46). The people failed to heed Jeremiah’s warning, and the city and temple were destroyed and the people were taken into captivity.
In 19:41-44, Jesus predicted the fall of Jerusalem. Now he predicts the destruction of the temple. Once, again the problem is the faithlessness of the people. Jesus’ prophecy was fulfilled a few decades later, in 70 A.D. in when the Jews rebelled against the Romans and was punished by a siege. The city, initially was a refuge for its citizens, became a trap as the siege tightened. Most of them died; the rest were taken into captivity; and the temple was utterly destroyed.
What lessons might we draw from these verses?…… Consider the following, and then compile your own list:
First- God reserves especially harsh judgement for those who hide behind a face of empty religious practice.
Second- Even the finest religious buildings have no value unless people faithfully do God’s will. I have been to couple countries here in Europe and everywhere you go you see cities are cluttered with once magnificent but now nearly empty church buildings whose congregations failed in their Great Commission—failed to reach out with the Gospel—failed to love their neighbours and to serve their community.
Third- Even our most magnificent works—even those that seem most enduring—are but for a moment.
Today’s epistle reading is concerned with the life of local Christian communities, and in a thoroughly down-to-earth way: we live by faith, but we live the life of faith with our feet firmly planted on planet earth. This text from the epistle assumes the freedom and dignity of the children of God. The point is not to abuse this freedom. The freedom of the children of God implies living with others in equality and mutual accountability, and it is this that undergirds the admonition to work. Believers are summoned to a life of mutual effort for mutual service, based on equal regard of each other.
A key phrase occurs in verse 12: “… we command and exhort you in the Lord Jesus.” Everything about our life is qualified by the reality that our lives have been redeemed and redirected “in the Lord Jesus.” Christians work, or seek to work, not for work’s sake, or for profit’s sake, but for the reign of God–and, again, in the freedom of the children of God.
The hope to which Jesus testifies in our Gospel passage, therefore, is no trivial denial of the struggles, the pain and agony of human life, or the catastrophic forces of nature. But Jesus says, “This will be an opportunity to testify” and “By your endurance you will gain your souls!”
The “opportunity to testify” doesn’t require Jesus’ followers to know everything about “why bad things happen to good people.”
Jesus is promising that he will give the “words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.” Jesus’ earlier promise of the Holy Spirit’s wisdom in times of testimony (Luke 12:11-12) now becomes Jesus’ own promise. When he commissions them as “my witnesses” (Acts 1:8), he assures them of the power and presence of his Holy Spirit, and the stories in Acts will display the fulfillment of this promise of God’s “mouth and wisdom” ( Acts 4:13-14; 16:6-7). Thus even the harsh prophecies of Luke 21 are filled with the confidence of Jesus’ enduring presence.
The early Christians knew all about the “endurance”. Paul even picked up the theme in Romans 5:3-5, then transformed this endurance from reliance on human strength to trusting in God’s love: “We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
Saving endurance is itself a gift of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Christians who have been admired for their persistence.. regularly discount their own strength with such words as, “It was only by God’s grace that I held on.”
David Livingstone, the legendary missionary to Africa, prayed, “Lord, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me.” And he testified, “What has sustained me is the promise, ‘Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”
This is the promise Jesus conveys in the midst of his prophetic warnings of what will yet come. People who walk with Christ may lose their physical bodies but they can never lose their souls.
In the name of God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen