Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday November 17, 2019
Scripture:
Luke 21:5-19 and Isaiah 65:17-25
So… isn’t that a "fun"
reading that we get from Luke this morning?
It’s full of end-of-the-world imagery – the sort of images that get
paintings and movies and stories written about them; the sort of images that
scare people; the sort of images that popular culture has appropriated to say,
“this is what the bible has to say about the future.”
“Nation will rise up
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.” (Luke 21:10-11)
This makes me think of
the song written by REM, but possibly more famous here in Canada as sung by
Great Big Sea – “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” If you are a CBC radio listener like me, you
might have heard it yesterday at the very end of “Weekend Morning”! If you listen to the words, it’s got a lot of
the same imagery as our scripture reading this morning. “That’s great, it starts with an earthquake,
Birds and snakes, and aeroplane. Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane.
Listen to yourself churn. World serves its own needs, don’t mis-serve your own
needs…” and so on.
There have also been
books written that take passages like this as predicting the future – before
God’s kingdom can come; before God can fully be in charge of the world, all of
these things must come to pass. Nations
must rise up against nation; there will be a great earthquake; there will be
famines and plagues. And this in turn
has led to frequent predictions of the date of the end of the world. There were at least 13 preachers or cult
leaders predicting that the world was going to end some time in the year
2000. And does anyone remember the
Heaven’s Gate cult? Their date was March
26, 1997. Harold Camping, a US Christian
Radio broadcaster has successively predicted 6 different dates for the end of
the world, between 1994 and 2011.
Different events in history, like Haley’s Comet or the great San
Francisco earthquake of 1906 have been seen as signs that the end of the world
is coming; signs that these predictions are being fulfilled.
And yet the world is
still standing. And even though the
media might have you believe otherwise, we are living in what might possibly be
the most peaceful era in all of human history.[1]
So if this list of
calamities that Jesus gives us in today’s reading doesn’t seem to work as a
prediction of the future, how else might we see it?
What if, instead of
predicting the future, Jesus is just saying that these things happen. Stuff doesn’t necessarily happen for a
reason, stuff just happens. The stuff that
the original audience of Jesus was most concerned about – things like the Roman
Empire oppressing people, things like the Jewish rebellion or war against the
Roman army, things like the imminent destruction of the temple in Jerusalem –
these things aren’t necessarily the things that we are worried about, but we
have our own list of concerns. Climate
change. Destruction of natural
habitats. Viruses and bacteria that are
becoming resistant to the ways that we have to treat them.
And Jesus says, stuff
happens.
Let’s step backwards
in the text a little bit. Why is Jesus
talking about all of this stuff? He’s
standing in the temple in Jerusalem with his followers, and they are asking him
about the end-times. They are asking him
the same question that so many people have asked throughout history, “How will
we know when the end of the world is coming?!”
And Jesus replies, “You can’t know; and don’t be led astray by anyone
who would tell you otherwise. All of
these things – wars, insurrections, earthquakes, famines, plagues – all of
these things that some people will say predict the end of the world, that’s
nonsense. The end of the world won’t
follow immediately after these things.
These things just happen. So
don’t be afraid!”
So let’s step back a
bit further in the text – why are the followers of Jesus asking about the end
of the world?
They are standing with
Jesus in the temple in Jerusalem. In the
timeline of Jesus’ life, we are in the middle of Holy Week. Jesus has entered into Jerusalem in the parade
that we remember each year on Palm Sunday, and he is just days away from his
arrest and crucifixion.
Now the temple in
Jerusalem was the biggest building that anyone had seen, or could even
imagine. It was built of limestone, and
the stones that made up the foundation each weighed over 100 tons, while the
regular stones were a mere 28 tons, measuring 2.5 feet by 3.5 feet by 15 feet;
or 75 centimeters by 1 meter by 4.5 meters for those of us who think in
metric. The building itself was 9
stories high, with walls that were 16 feet (almost 5 meters) thick.
It was a huge
structure, so it’s no wonder that Jesus’ disciples, coming from rural Galilee,
were awestruck. They gazed up at this
structure that was more massive than anything they could have imagined, and
they commented on the beautiful stonework, and how this whole building was
dedicated to God. Then Jesus goes and
bursts their bubble, and tells them that a time will come when all of the
stones will be thrown down so that there isn’t a single one left on the other.
Which is a bit
harsh. But through the lens of history,
it is true – there isn’t a single building that lasts forever and ever. A couple of weeks ago when I was in England,
one of the places that I visited was the Glastonbury Abbey. It was founded in the 7th century,
enlarged in the 10th century, and rebuilt in the 12th century. And it was huge in its day. Standing next to the ruins – and spoiler
alert, it is now a ruin – I felt tiny and insignificant, and what is left is
only half the height of the original building.
But if you had told someone visiting this abbey in its heyday that some
day it would look like this, they would have laughed and said that these stones
would stand forever. But they
didn’t. And neither did the temple in
Jerusalem.
Part of the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey as they appear in 2019
But when Jesus was
looking at the magnificence of the temple, he is seeing it through the lens of
God. Yes, in human terms, it might be an
awe-inspiring building, but it doesn’t inspire the same awe that God does. And yes, the stones might give the impression
of permanence, but they aren’t as permanent as God. And Jesus is able to see that even though the
building won’t last forever, God will.
And so the eventual destruction of the building has nothing to do with
God’s timeline for the world.
Jesus is able to look
at the stone and the mortar, and he is able to look beyond them to God’s vision
for the world. And God’s vision for the
world is not built out of massive limestone blocks. God has promised a world instead like the one
that we heard about in the reading from Isaiah.
A new heavens and a new earth where there is no more weeping or
distress, where the key words are gladness and rejoicing and delight and joy
and blessing.
This is the vision for
the world that Jesus is able to see when he looks at the temple. He knows that stuff happens – that the temple
will some day fall, that wars and earthquakes happen – but he knows this vision
from the prophet Isaiah is the true ending.
He tells his followers that they don’t have to be afraid of anything
that happens in the world, because God is going to create this new heavens and
this new earth of peace and joy. Like
with the movies that we watch over and over again, we don’t need to be afraid,
because we already know the ending!
The word apocalypse
and the word revelation mean the same thing – they mean a peeling back of the
surface things to reveal what is hidden underneath. When Jesus looks at the temple, his eyes are
peeling back the things that he and his disciples can see, and he is revealing
God’s vision that is the true thing, the thing that we can trust, that is
hidden underneath.
This morning, we
baptised Temple into the family of God’s church, and choosing baptism is an act
of radical faith. By asking to have
Temple baptized, and before him, Avery and Isaiah, Gaby and Mike are saying
that they trust in this vision of God.
They trust in God’s vision for the world over the pain and suffering
that we see in the world around us. They
trust in this loving God, revealed to us in Jesus, who is building a world
where there are no more tears and sadness, but where everything is a joy and a
delight.
And so I see our two
readings this morning, when we take them together, as an invitation. An invitation to see the world that Jesus sees,
the world that God promises; and an invitation to live as if it is already
here. An invitation not to be
overwhelmed by the grief, not to be overwhelmed by the suffering, not to be
overwhelmed by the pain and injustice that we see around us, but instead to live
in the joy and love that God promises to us.
And may this world
that God is promising, this new heavens and new earth, come soon. Amen.
[1] www.scientificamerican.com/steven-pinker-this-is-historys-most-peaceful-time-new-study-not-so-fast/
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