God’s grace, peace
and mercy be with you. My sermon today is entitled Eschatology, Excerpt and
Expectation and my focus is our Gospel (Luke 21:5-28). Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us
go to the house of the Lord.’” Now that we are within your gates, we rejoice to
hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our
hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity.
Amen.
Some days, I like
to introduce my sermons with a movie, song or book that has something in common
with my theme, but since there are so many that deal with the last things, and
since we are near the last Sunday of the year, I’ll cut to the chase.[*]
First point, eschatology. Eschatology is the
study of the last things, that is, death, judgment, heaven and hell. It is from
the Greek word eskhatos, meaning last, furthest or most remote in
time, space or degree.
We speak of
eschatology today because as the church year closes, we hear Malachi, the last
prophet in the Old Testament, speak of the Day of the Lord. Paul offers
encouragement as his readers await the return of Christ. Luke recounts Jesus’
last days. Hence, eschatology is suited for the end of our liturgical year.
Yet, we cannot merely mention eschatology. We need to understand it.
Although we speak of
the aforementioned last things, eschatology refers to a theology of history,
with a specific reference to for the ultimate fulfillment of God’s covenant
promise. In other words, eschatology is about hope based upon God’s
promise, God’s word, and what our Trinitarian God has done for us as Father,
Son and Spirit.
Eschatology involves
the future based upon past promises, but it is also about the present.
Eschatology is both individual and universal. It is about my personal choices
and our universal fulfillment. In a strange sense, eschatology is bi-polar and
all-encompassing.
Envision Abraham, an
individual who trusted God’s promises, and envision his posterity, a great
nation. We know God fulfilled that promise under David’s rule, and
although the monarchy collapsed, this gave rise to hope for a restored monarchy
by a Savior figure from the royal line of David. Based upon God’s promise, the
prophets envisioned life in a world under God’s reign marked by peace, justice
and reconciliation, as well as the possibility of resurrection of the dead.
This, of course, set
the stage for Jesus and the early Christian community. He took up the hopes of
his people, and through their experience of his resurrection, his disciples
understood his preaching in a new light, rooted in God’s promise and the
prophets. In short, the destiny of Jesus with God anticipates the destiny of
humanity and creation.
Paul’s letters
describe his eschatology in detail, and yet, his is not a fixed thought. Paul
expected an imminent end. In Thessalonians, we read, “For you are
fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1
Thes. 5:2). His second letter reveals an indeterminate expectation. Ephesians
and Colossians present a cosmic vision of all powers, including demonic ones,
subject to Christ.
Eschatology – death,
judgment, heaven and hell – may unnerve us; but through the prism of the cross,
God’s promises calm our nerves. That leads me from eschatology to excerpt.
Most people today read
excerpts of the Bible. The way to read the Bible is one book per sitting. Read
Exodus or Jeremiah in one afternoon and you appreciate and understand it better
than if you read a chapter a day. Pore over Luke, Acts or Revelation, and its
message takes on new meaning. While I encourage you to read each book in one
sitting, most read excerpts of the Bible.
The word excerpt means
to select a passage from a book. We derive excerpt from the Latin word excerpere,
which means to pluck out, pick out or extract. The Romans merged it from two
smaller words, ex, meaning out and carpere, meaning
pluck or gather. Our liturgical tradition is to read excerpts from the Gospels
and New Testament along with Old Testament passages related to the Gospel.
Reading the Bible this way allows us to observe certain seasons and feasts,
such as Advent, Lent, Christmas and Easter. On Ash Wednesday, we hear readings
about prayer, fasting and almsgiving. On Pentecost, we proclaim the work of the
Holy Spirit. On Thanksgiving, Luke’s story of Jesus healing the ten lepers.
Excerpts allow pastors to preach an expository sermon and explain why we
observe Lent with solemnity or celebrate Easter with joy.
In our eschatological
excerpt today, Jesus is teaching in the temple as he warns his disciples that
the kingdom of God is near by teaching about the destruction of the temple,
Jerusalem and the world. Jesus’ teaching begins and ends with the temple. This
is no accident, as Jesus’ entire teaching, the infancy narrative and the entire
gospel begin and end in the temple.
When we hear temple
and Jerusalem, we need to keep in mind not only a physical building of stones
and a geographical locale of redemption, but more importantly, the location of
the presence of the Lord. That requires us to think eschatologically for these
beautiful stones will be pulled down.
Jesus spoke of stones
in other sayings about Jerusalem. Stones would shout acclamations if people
were kept silent during his entry into the city. Jerusalem’s enemies would not
leave one stone upon another because it did not know its time of visitation.
The rejected stone became the cornerstone. The stones that matter in the
temple are not the ones that form the building, but the Stone whose presence
has resided among the physical stones and who now prophesies the end of those
stones. And if the temple, the place where God dwelt, is destroyed, where
would people look for God? In Jesus, who came to dwell not in a stone building,
but in the Church through Word and Sacrament.
Continuing on our
excerpt, Jesus teaches his disciples not how to predict the future, but how to
see that “end times” begin with his death and resurrection. Preparing his
disciples for the end so that they are not misled, Jesus points not to a stone
temple and signs, but how to recognize false prophets coming in his name with a
different catechesis, a different teaching. This false teaching comes from
panic that people feel when calamity strikes. Wars will come. Disaster will
strike. When they occur, some will present false teaching. Jesus advises his
disciples: Do not panic.
Along with the
destruction of the temple, Jerusalem and the world, Jesus spoke of persecution,
and for the first time, he explicitly suggested that his trials are bound to
their trials.
When Jesus said, “They
will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the
synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for
my name’s sake,” he referred to his disciples and the entire
Church. Jesus meant this statement for men and women in his company and those
who would follow later. This persecution continued in Acts. When Saul fell to
the ground, “he heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you
persecuting me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus,
whom you are persecuting.’”
One author described
the persecution this way. “Christians will experience persecution for no other
reason than their connection with Jesus. The name of Jesus defines their
identity, for Christians bear in their bodies Jesus, the new temple. For that
reason, Christians are living stones and their bodies are temples. The
opponents will hate them because the presence of God has shifted from the
temple of Jerusalem to where Christ promised to be present: in those baptized
in his name, in the Gospel, in his Supper. How ironic that the temple of
Jerusalem is destroyed by God because the people refused to believe that a
shift in divine presence had taken place and that Christians will be killed
because they proclaim that this presence now dwells among them.” Folks,
that persecution persists today.
That persecution
continues today, and Christians willingly bear it because they believe his
promise. They believe Jesus’ words at the end of this excerpt. “When
these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because
your redemption is drawing near. … When you see these things taking place, you
know that the kingdom of God is near.”
Destruction and persecution
fill our excerpt, but for all Christians who believe, hope overshadows them.
That is why we gather here today. We believe that Jesus is among us in
Sacrament, Word and prayer. We gather here knowing that persecution awaits us
as it did Jesus, but we trust in his word. Yes, we trust in his word, but … now
what? Now, I turn to my third point, expectation.
What do we mean by
expectation? Expectation means belief that something will happen or is likely
to happen. When our daughter and daughter-in-law became pregnant, we expected
babies. When our team goes to training camp, we expect a championship. When
high school graduates leave for college, we expect they will earn a bachelor’s
degree … in four years. When the doctor diagnoses a loved one with a terminal
disease, we expect we should get our affairs in order. When the pastor appears
at the hospital or funeral home, we expect comfort. When we pray, we expect God
to answer.
So, what should we
expect as we await the end of days? What should we expect on the Day of the
Lord? What are we expected to do as we endure destruction and persecution?
We are expected to
hope and pray as individuals and community, but what else? To help answer that
question, we turn to Paul. He not only prayed for believers, but also exhorted
them to imitate him. You “know how you ought to imitate us, because
we were not idle when we were with you.”
When it comes to
imitation, fathers and mothers set the standard for their children. Each
section in Luther’s Small Catechism begins with “The head of the family …”
Section Two on Daily Prayers states, “How the head of the family should
teach his household to pray morning and evening. … In the morning when you get
up, make the sign of the holy cross and say: In the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The Catechism then instructs us to
kneel or stand and repeat the Creed and Lord’s Prayer before saying his little
prayer.
My point is this. We
imitate Paul by following Luther’s instruction on prayer because it recalls our
baptism as sinners redeemed in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If
you pray two or three times daily as a couple or a family, you increase your
odds of holding on to hope while being persecuted. Remember, Satan is defeated,
but not dead. He can tempt others to hate and harm you as he led men to hate
and harm Jesus and his followers. So, pray daily.
Pray daily for the end
is near. I do not know when it will come for you or me, but soon. Moreover, the
end of this sermon is near too, however, one last thing. I named this sermon
Three Es of Christianity, and when I began researching it, I came across an
article written by an Orthodox priest entitled “Ease of Life and Christianity
Do Not Go Together.” There are three Es of Christianity, but there is no ease
of Christianity.
Friends, following
Jesus to the Cross and Tomb on Good Friday or any day of the week is difficult.
Standing under the shadow of the Cross can be dark and daunting. Witnessing
destruction and enduring persecution may seem pointless. But having experienced
the Risen Christ and the Joy of the Holy Spirit in my heart makes all the
difference in my life. I pray it does in yours. As we wait for the Son of Man
to come in a cloud with great power and glory, remain faithful in prayer, and
as you do, may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your
hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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