A Sermon given at First Presbyterian Church, Soddy Daisy, TN, Nov. 17, 2013
(I also refer you to the Dec 1 sermon that is relevant to the discussion in this sermon.) All scripture is the New Revised Standard Version, and links are to the Oremus bible Browser. I often draw on resources found in the url for "The Text This Week: http://www.textweek.com. The author does a wonderful job of connection many resources and views on the lectionary test for the week. Ideas in the children's lesson come from the page for the text of this Sunday, Nov. 17, 2013.
Scripture:
OT: Isaiah 12
NT: Luke 21:5-19
When we read this prediction of crisis and persecution we
can overlook the underlying call for endurance to find God’s glory. We also tend to overlook an unstated message,
the only person we can control is our own self.
I remind you that we have followed Jesus from Galilee to
Jerusalem. He has told his disciples of his death and resurrection well before
they reached Jerusalem (18:31-34), he encourages constant prayer and endurance,
but they do not understand that the time of the cross draws very near. After cleaning the temple of sacrilege, He confronts
the religious leaders and forcefully establishes his identity. He told them that
they are blind to the reason for the terrible events surrounding them in the
coming days. They along with their children will be encircled and crushed by
their enemies because they failed to recognize the presence of God in their
midst (19:42-44).
When he hears some Jewish worshippers adoring the beauty
of the Temple, he confronts them with these caustic remarks on future trials,
tribulations and its
destruction. All three Gospels are unanimous, very hard times will come for
believers before the Son of Man returns. Everyone has a choice to follow Him to
glory or be lost. Jesus says the road to glory is difficult. It requires constant
prayer as we strive to enter the Kingdom through the narrow gate. The
unrepentant who turn away will gnash their teeth in darkness before the Son of
Man returns (13:24-30). (This passage is where I obtained the title to this blog.) Jesus will divide households in conflict, families and
nations, demanding much from everyone (12:49-13:5). We cannot stop the time. He
says, “the time will
come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”
He does not say when, only that we should beware of people
making false claims of the end and they are the Son of Man. He only tells us we
will experience the woes of wars, famine, and disease. We will be arrested and brought
to trial giving us the opportunity to testify. But…he
says, don’t prepare for that testimony, God will provide you with the words and
not a hair on your head will perish, you will gain salvation by your endurance
of these trials.
Every generation of people who have read this passage
since it was codified as Gospel point to current events to indicate the
beginning of these predictions. Someone was talking to me recently of his
mother who just turned 99. I thought, this person born in 1914, has lived
through WWI, the world wide pandemic of influenza, WWII and the holocaust, the
Korean War, Viet Nam, the collapse of the USSR, Iraq1 and Irag2, the conflict
in Afghanistan and the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York. She has witnessed the
irresistible drift of our western societies towards a secular view of the world
as they aged, a drift I might add that has continued for hundreds if not
thousands of years. It is certainly easy to think now is the time of
fulfillment of Jesus’ warning.
Many times in the past people wondered the same thing. The
crusades for the Holy Land, the growth of the Ottoman Islamic empire, the 100
years war in Europe, the black plague that swept Europe and killed millions,
the absence of a religious orientation in early America that led to the two
movements called The Great Awakenings when evangelism swept over the land in the
1700’s and 1800’s…Perhaps we are in the whole unfolding of time, It is natural
to wonder if such events warn of the imminent return of the Son of Man. Except
Jesus says beware of people who claim to know the time of the end.
If it is so, how do we square them with Isaiah’s uplifting promises of
the Day of the Lord in Isaiah 12 and Isaiah 65, the promise of God who will put
aside his anger and bring a blessing to his children on a day in which we shout
praise of God to the whole world and call on his name so that they will know who
He is.
Isaiah’s description of the day of the Lord is a welcome image:
“There will be a new heaven and a new earth, the former things will be
remembered no more. Never again shall an infant live only a few days, or an old
person ldie young, because a hundred years will be considered short. There
shall be no more weeping, we never shall build a house and Temple and have
another group of people take it from us. Our children shall be blessed. The
lamb and lion shall lie down together and the serpent (Satan?) shall eat dust.
(earth=body??) No one will bring danger or disturb the holy mount of the Lord.” This is
reminiscent of the description of resurrection that Jesus offered last week.
Perhaps Jesus was quoting Isaiah.
If you think about it carefully these descriptions of
future time by Luke and Isaiah are similar but presented differently. Both have
a warning and a promise.
To understand Isaiah, we really must appreciate this book
is one of the most complete and consistent texts we have of all the OT books.
There is very little argument over the historical texts we have discovered from
all the reputable sources. We have become more confident Isaiah was written
over about two and one-half centuries that span the Assyrian, Babylonian and
Persian conquests. With in a decade or two after Assyria conquered Judah,
Babylon arose and conquered Babylon. It is not a great leap to realize this
conquest of Judah and Israel persists today.
Although Luke and Isaiah’s promises and warnings are
similar, Isaiah separates the promises from the warning, putting the warning or
indictment for the fall of Israel and Judah in the very first chapter. The primary complaint of God against the
Hebrews is they desecrate the Temple and do not care for those among them who
are disadvantaged in some way as the commandments tell them. Isaiah 1:11- 17 is one of the most powerful
indictments of the religious establishment:
"What
to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD;
I
have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts;
I
do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.
When you
come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand?
Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure
(your) solemn assemblies (tainted) with iniquity.
(My
soul hates) Your new moons and your appointed festivals;
they
have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.
When
you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; (becausae) your
hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make
yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to
do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the
oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow."
This indictment justifies the divinely authorized assault
on Israel and Judah by Assyria, Babylon and Persia. Isaiah says these three nations are his
tools. The actual Isaiah died after
writing the first few chapters, but this scroll grew over the period of
captivity into the largest scroll of the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah tells the story an
exile on par with the Egyptian captivity, the reasons for it and the promise for
the remnant after the exile.
He says only a remnant of the people taken by Assyria into
captivity shall return as a “shoot (from) the stump of Jesse who will be
righteous and judge the righteous…and all nations shall inquire of them. God
will recover this remnant from the lands of captivity and they will find peace
and together at home…here it is, the promise of peace together at home. These promises
of home linger in the minds of the Jews standing next to Jesus as they look and
praise the beauty of the Temple. Jesus who has just cleansed the Temple can only
think about the indictment for desecration heard in Isaiah 1 to know the
indictment is valid today.
We overlook one thing about
the return from exile. Judah and Israel never regained independent status as a
country but remain even now a broken community in turmoil far worse than any in
the USA today. They remained under Persian rule that grew increasingly harsh
and oppressive. Jewish revolts were violently repressed. Some of the most
bloodthirsty tales come from the later Persian rulers of Judah. Mother and
children were killed if the sons were discovered circumcised. The woes of Is 65,
the weeping, the ravaged land, the early death of infants and adults and the
future blessings that they shall be no more, speak to the reality of that
desolation. The history of the Hebrews is lost to us after the Persians. Judah
went silent until after the time of Alexander the Great to Rome but we know the
remnant has not made it home to the fulfillment of God’s promise.
The cynic would say the scroll of Isaiah talks about
history after it had all already unfolded. The faithful hear a message of
resurrection in Isaiah; a future time of hope in the Son of Man when we shall
no longer know death. When we read Isaiah we ought to read it with history
pointing towards a future grace beyond the state of chaos that existed Assyria
and Rome, and of today.
So how do we explain the
warnings of Jesus? We
know Luke almost certainly wrote after the destruction of the Temple when Rome encircled
and violently crushed the Israelite rebellion killing 10’s or 1000’s of
thousands of Jews. We also know there was sporadic persecution of Christians even
though the practice was not institutionalized until well into the second
century. So again, the cynic will say Luke talks of a history that has already
unfolded.
The faithful should read Jesus’ words as a lament for a community
that has remained broken for 700 years since the Assyrian conquest and on to
today, 2,000 years later. In these last weeks of Jesus’ journey and his human life he tells us we live in the
human world where desire, pride, focus on the moment and desire to control our
destiny preoccupies most thought. Like Jacob who God named Israel, or “one who
struggles with God,” we too struggle with God for control of our life and
destiny. For whatever reason, it is our
nature and is a struggle that we are always going to loose.
This may be the crux of the warning. These events will precede the
return of the Son of Man. He surely is
talking about our resurrection and afterwards, in spite of everything that will
happen, the faithful will live. Is this the time in Jesus’ warning when the loyal remnant will
be called to testify to our faith?
The promise of Jesus is for the remnant that understands
the important thing about humility. The remnant people are those who understand
that pride is our nature, who understand we are the Pharisees that lack the
humility of service of a slave to one’s master, or to put it bluntly, to live
as Christ lived. Would you not describe
this task of wearing the clothes of Christ’s humility as extremely difficult
for a prideful person? This is why Jesus says we have to enter through the
narrow door. This is why he said, “I know you are going to stumble.” This may
be why Jesus never forced faith on a person but waits on the remnant. In fact this
may be why he wondered exactly how much faith the Son of Man will find when he
returns to us.
We can make sense of this passage as an encouragement of
the faithful remnant to endure living his Word. Here the words this way:
•
Everything in this world will pass away. (Verses 5-6: When some were speaking about the temple, how it was
adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when
not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”)
•
There will be false teachers but don't be led astray by them.
(Verses 7-8: They asked him, “Teacher, when will
this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many
will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Do not go
after them.)
•
There will be calamities but don't be afraid. (Verses 9-11: “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be
terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow
immediately.” Then he said to them, “Nation will rise
against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places
famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from
heaven.)
•
Following me will put you at odds with the folks that run this
world, and even your own family. Don't be surprised by - or run away from – that
conflict. (Verses 12, and 16-17)
•
There will come a time to account for why you are my disciple,
don't worry about it ahead of time, I'll be with you and give you all the
wisdom you'll need at the time you need it to testify of your faith. (Verses13-15)
•
Believe me, though many will perish, you won't perish no matter
what happens. By enduring, you will save your true self (in the resurrection.) (Verses 18-19)
Jesus doesn't promise the faithful an easy earthly life;
he calls for us to follow a faithful life in a world of chaos. These are the
promises of hope and truth to those who endure to live in faith according to
his Word. By enduring, we will save our true self and be set us free to find
that promised home in our resurrection. Amen.
Children's Lesson
Children's Lesson
Do you remember what we talked about last Sunday? We talked about what it was going to be like in Heaven and found out Jesus says we will be like we are now but different, sort of like caterpillar is the same animal as the butterfly. If we have confidence in Jesus and if something bad happens to us and we die,( for you I hope that is at
least a hundred years away) jesus is going to take care of us. Jesus tells us even when that happens he will take
care of us and bring us to Heaven as a new beautiful thing like the butterfly
from the caterpillar.
Our bible scripture for today though is about when things happen that
make us afraid. We don’t talk about
being afraid very much but…
Tell me, are there things that make you afraid, like snakes, or dark
rooms, what about thunderstorms?
I imagine everybody is afraid of something. Have you seen the movie the
pirates of the Caribbean? Johnny Depp was the actor who played the brave
pirate. Do you know he is afraid of clowns?
do you like flying on airplanes? There is a famous sports broadcaster,
John Madden, who is so afraid of flying he bought a bug bus for several
$100,000 just so he can drive to cities where he broadcasts. I know people
afraid of high places, my grandmother was scared to death of snakes.
Jesus knows there will be times when we are afraid, maybe someone picks
on us because we believe in Jesus, or refuse to go along with a trick we know
is bad.
Jesus promised to help us when we are afraid
because someone is being mean to us, and he said he would help us know what to
say. That is why he promised us we will live again like the butterfly.
Sometimes being afraid is a good thing because it can make us a little more
careful. But anyway, Jesus reminds us he has promised to help us when we are afraid. If
we believe in Jesus and trust and pray to him, he will be with us when we are
afraid.
Will you help me lead our congregation in the Lord's Prayer?
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