First Reading Malachi 4:1-6
1“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. 2But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. 3And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts. 4Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. 5Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
Psalm Psalm 98
1Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. 2With his right hand and his holy arm has he won for himself the victory. 3The Lord has made known his victory; his righteousness has he openly shown in the sight of the nations. 4He remembers his mercy and faithfulness to the house of Israel, and all the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God. 5Shout with joy to the Lord, all you lands; lift up your voice, rejoice, and sing. 6Sing to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the voice of song. 7With trumpets and the sound of the horn shout with joy before the king, the Lord. 8Let the sea make a noise and all that is in it, the lands and those who dwell therein. 9Let the rivers clap their hands, and let the hills ring out with joy before the Lord, when he comes to judge the earth. 10In righteousness shall he judge the world and the peoples with equity.
Second Reading 2 Thessalonians 3:1-13
1Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you, 2and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith. 3But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one. 4And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command. 5May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. 6Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. 7For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, 8nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. 9It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. 10For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. 11For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. 12Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. 13As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good.
Gospel Luke 21:5-28
5While some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, {Jesus} said, 6“As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” 7And {the disciples} asked him, “Teacher, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?” 8And he said, “See that you are not led astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is at hand!’ Do not go after them. 9And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once.” 10Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. 12But before all this 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. 13This will be your opportunity to bear witness. 14Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, 15for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. 16You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. 17You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. 18But not a hair of your head will perish. 19By your endurance you will gain your lives. 20But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. 21Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it, 22for these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written. 23Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people. 24They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. 25And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, 26people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
BAD NEWS GOOD NEWS
I know they’re corny, but I love those good news/bad news jokes. We laugh because of the element of surprise, but also because we can relate to the scenarios in them. These types of jokes appeal to the cynic in us, that expects the world to operate in that order–good news, then bad news. For example, A young man phones his dad at work for a chat. The father says, “I’m sorry, son, but I’m up to my neck in work today.” The son says, “But I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you, Dad.” The Dad says, “OK, but since I’ve got no time now, just give me the good news.” The son says, “Well, the air bag works . . .”
Or this one: a gallery owner says to an artist, “I have some good news and some bad news.” The artist asks, “What’s the good news?” Gallery owner says, “The good news is that a woman came in here today asking if the price of your paintings would go up after you die. When I told her they would, she bought every one of your paintings.”
The artist says, “That’s great! What’s the bad news?” Gallery owner says, “The bad news is that woman was your doctor!”
At the famous Lloyd’s of London insurance house, there’s an historic bell that’s sometimes referred to as the Bad News Bell. In 1799, a large frigate ship, the HMS Lutine set sail from London to Hamburg, Germany. Hamburg was facing a financial crisis, and the HMS Lutine was loaded with gold and silver intended to help stave off a crash of the German stock market. Unfortunately, a great storm caught the HMS Lutine, and she sank somewhere along the Dutch coastline. Of the 240 crew members on board, only one survived. All of the HMS Lutine’s cargo was lost at sea.
In 1858, divers found part of the wreckage of the Lutine, including the bell that had hung at the front of the ship. The bell was turned over to Lloyd’s of London, the insurance underwriters who had insured the HMS Lutine’s original trip. The folks at Lloyd’s of London hung the bell in the underwriter’s office and started a new tradition with it. For many years, whenever a ship was late in arriving at its destination, a Lloyd’s employee rung the bell once to let all the brokers know the bad news. If the missing ship arrived safely, the bell was rung twice. The good news followed the bad. In recent years, the keepers of the bell have rung it to commemorate solemn occasions, such as the death of Princess Diana or 9/11.
In our New Testament passage for this morning, Jesus had to deliver some terrible news to His disciples. But He didn’t deliver it in the good news/bad news formula we’re accustomed to hearing. Jesus told them the bad news first, then He told them the good news—that God had already planned to help them persevere when events in the future became painful and chaotic. Now before I continue, I think it would be helpful to set the stage for today’s reading.
Jesus, just a few days before this, had made His triumphal entrance into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey. The crowds, led by the disciples, cheered, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” (Luke 19:38). This had been Jesus’ final entry into Jerusalem before His passion and death. Following this entry, Jesus then drives out the sellers of animals and money changers, cleansing the temple. Now Jesus and His disciples are standing in the Temple courts, and His disciples couldn’t help but remark on the beauty of this marvelous structure.
The Temple courts sat on 36 acres of land. Herod the Great started renovations some 50 years prior, so one can only imagine how much work had been done in those 5 decades. The giant stones that made up the Temple were dazzling, blinding white marble, and some of the stones had been plated with gold that reflected the sunlight. From a distance, the whole complex must have looked like a glowing jewel. Up close, it probably seemed like the most impressive building in the Roman Empire. Jesus now had the sad task of telling His disciples that this magnificent center of Jewish life and faith was destined to be demolished.
The destruction of the Temple would be an event that would be more traumatic than the fire that engulfed Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris this past spring. The temple was originally built by Solomon, but it’s roots could be traced back to the Exodus from Egypt and the tent that housed the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies. For the Hebrew people, the Temple was the center of worship and of their faith. It was also a constant reminder of the presence of God among them. Add to all this, the emotions the Disciples must have been feeling when Jesus tells them that not only would the Temple once again be destroyed, but that soon, as His followers, they would experience persecution and violence because of their commitment to Him. Jesus, in essence, was saying, after three years of riding the tide, life, as they knew it, was about to fall apart.
To begin His announcement of the bad news, Jesus in verse 6, says, “As for what you see here. . .” Jesus begins with some very powerful and telling words. It’s so easy for us to put our faith . . . to anchor our hope . . . in the things we can touch and see in this world. It’s easy to be impressed by appearances . . . by possessions . . . by symbols of security . . . even though some of these symbols are superficial and, in some cases, not even real. For example, I was stunned to learn recently just how large the market is for counterfeit copies of brand-name goods.
I’m talking about—counterfeit purses, counterfeit watches, counterfeit shoes, etc. Experts tell us that the combined value of counterfeit goods purchased worldwide is about $462 billion per year; $462 billion. Here’s what’s stunning, though. Experts predict that the market for counterfeit goods will reach $2.3 trillion dollars by the year 2022. That’s a lot of fake merchandise!
Not surprising, the top brands counterfeited in the world are shoes and clothes like Nike and Levis, handbags and watches, brands like Cartier and Coach, and—this is the one that’s scary—medications like Tamiflu and Lipitor. Unless you purchase these brands from known, reputable dealers, you could be at risk of wearing something or ingesting medication that’s fake. Sometimes we can be putting our trust in the wrong things, trusting the things we can see and touch. And that trust can be driven by some sort of fear: fear of not being accepted, fear of ridicule or some other fear.
Jesus knew that fear can motivates us to put our trust in things we can touch, things we can see, things we can own. Wasn’t it Thomas who said, “unless I see and can touch, I will not believe” (John 20:25). More to the point, isn’t Thomas more typical of our attitudes than we’d like to admit? Fear oftentimes motivates us to put our trust in worldly power and physical possessions, on the things we can see, touch and verify. We find security and significance in our homes and our church buildings, our appearance and our possessions. And worry leads us into chasing after false prophets or gurus who promise us security and significance.
Every year, hundreds of runners from all over the world compete in the twenty-six-mile test of endurance and strength called the Boston Marathon. Blue lines are painted on the pavement throughout the course to show the runners where the appropriate turns are. One year, on the night before the race, a prankster painted some other blue lines, which would have led the runners into a dead end. Fortunately, the deception was discovered just before the race began, and the event was run on schedule.
Just like runners following the wrong path to the finish line, Jesus knew that some of His followers could stray away from their faith under the pressure of persecution and suffering. Jesus knew that people can be led off course, because fear and worry can lead to an increased desire to control our lives, and that increased desire for control can, in turn, cause us to focus inwardly and become even more fearful and anxious. However, there is an answer.
The solution to fear of the things we can’t control is to trust God’s plan, no matter what the future holds. Jesus said it beautifully in verse 14: “But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves.” What an interesting and reassuring statement. “Make up your mind not to worry beforehand . . .” In other words, you focus on the task given you and let me on taking care of the future. Vernon Jordan is a lawyer, civil rights activist and former national director of the Urban League. In May 1980, a man named Joseph Paul Franklin tried to assassinate Jordan.
Afterward, from his hospital bed, Jordan told his pastor, that he had a vision that he had died in the shooting, and all his life had passed before his eyes. And one message kept coming back to him as he looked over his whole life. It was the message that his mother put at the end of every letter she’d ever written to him: “Remember, son, if you trust God, He will take care of you.” As he lay there in the dark in a pool of his own blood, Jordan found great comfort in those words, “Remember, son, if you trust God, He will take care of you.” Bishop Fulton Sheen once said, “All worry is atheism, because it is a want of trust in God.”
Think about that for a moment. Worry is a form of idolatry because it stems from a focus on earthly things, on security, on self-protection. Worry is rooted in a focus on the self, not on God. From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, He painted the picture of a heavenly kingdom in which all people from all nations would find identity and security. The people of Jesus’ time took their identity and security from a magnificent Temple. Yet, Jesus took His teachings outside the Temple, into the streets and into the fields where the regular people were scraping to get by.
Jesus took His message to the lepers and the women, to the Samaritans and the tax collectors. In John, chapter 4, Jesus shared a secret with a despised Samaritan woman. He told her that worship would no longer be confined to the Temple. He told her “a time is coming, and has now come, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks” (23-24). In our gospel lesson for today, Jesus reminds us that all earthly things that we put our trust in will one day be destroyed.
The kingdom of God isn’t something we can touch or see; it’s the Spirit of God working in human hearts to bring about holiness and justice, righteousness and peace until the day when Jesus returns. And before the Spirit of God can come alive in our heart, we must die to ourselves. In the waters of Baptism, the old self is drowned, and we are raised anew in Christ. Hudson Taylor was a British missionary to China and founder of one of the most effective missionary organizations in the world.
On the matter of fear and worry for the future, Hudson Taylor once said, “Let us give up our work, our plans, ourselves, our lives, our loved ones, our influence, our all, right into God’s hand; and then, when we have given all over to Him, there will be nothing left for us to be troubled about.” We become deceived when we place our trust in earthly kingdoms and temples built by human hands, so these things must be destroyed in order for the kingdom of God to come.
Jesus told His disciples that the majestic Temple would be torn down and that their fellow Jews, their loved ones, all those people that they trusted, would turn against them and persecute them for their faith in Jesus. Every earthly kingdom, every tangible thing in which they put their trust had to be torn away in order for them to know that the kingdom of God is the only sure foundation for their life—for it is eternal and it will never fail.
It’s easy to say we place our trust in God in the good and average times. But what about the difficult times? What about those times when we’re ridiculed because of our Christian values? Those times when it seems that everything tangible in our lives is falling apart, how can we keep from giving in to fear and running down dead-end paths? Jesus tells us to see our suffering as an opportunity to witness to God’s truth.
How would it change your life if you looked at every setback, failure, loss or heartbreak as an opportunity to witness to God’s goodness and faithfulness? More importantly, how would it change the lives of everyone around you if they saw you turning your suffering into an opportunity to witness for God’s glory?
The story is told about a Christian man in India named Sagduna Ral. Sagduna was out preaching in a local village, sharing the message of Jesus Christ when some local men attacked him, beat him severely and left him on the side of the road. One man finally had mercy on him and helped him get home safely. The next week, and the week after that, and the week after that, Sagduna Ral returned to that same village and stood out in the road and preached the message of Jesus Christ. His wounds were still healing. His attackers were still close by. But he continued in his mission of preaching the good news of God’s kingdom. Because of his faithfulness, Sagduna Ral had the joy of seeing one of his attackers give his life to Jesus Christ a few weeks later.
Jesus promises in this Bible passage that God has already prepared to defend those who believe in Him. He will give them the words to share their faith with conviction. Not a hair of their heads will perish. And when we stand firm, we will win our lives. It’s a promise from an eternal and faithful God, and we can bet our whole lives on it without fear, without failure and without regret.
Diet Eman and her boyfriend, Hein, were Dutch Christians who hid Jewish citizens from the Nazis in World War II. They knew they were risking their lives in this work, but their faith in Jesus compelled them to protect innocent Jews from persecution. In 1944, Hein was arrested and sent to the Dachau concentration camp. Diet was arrested soon after and sent to a different camp. Although she suffered greatly in the camp, she continued to trust in God’s promises of protection. She even took a hair pin and scratched Jesus’ promise from Matthew 28 on the prison wall, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end” (Matt. 28: 20 KJV). Diet was eventually released, but Hein died in Dachau.
Fellow prisoners reported that Hein radiated the love of Christ in the concentration camp. Before his death, he wrote a final note to Diet. It read, “Darling, don’t count on our seeing each other again soon . . . Here we see again that we do not decide our own lives . . . Even if we won’t see each other again on earth, we will never be sorry for what we did, that we took this stand. And know, Diet, that of every last human being in this world, I loved you most.” Think about that. “Here we see again that we do not decide our own lives . . . Even if we won’t see each other again on earth, we will never be sorry for what we did, that we took this stand.” The truth is we can’t absolutely control what will happen in this life. At times that can be bad news . . . Jesus knew that this truth could cause His followers great fear and anxiety.
Fear and anxiety can lead one into following false gods and straying from the truth. Or, it could lead them to decide beforehand to trust God—to see any suffering that comes into their lives as an opportunity for sharing God’s faithfulness. This ultimately leads to the Good News—the greatest good news imaginable, that we really aren’t in control of our lives and our destinies, but a loving God is in control, and every good thing in our life that we have lost will be restored. And in His kingdom, we will live life more fully and more wondrously than we have ever imagined.
Amen
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