Sermon on Luke 21:25-36
Jennifer Garcia
Focus: Just as Jesus reassured his disciples and Luke reassured the early Jesus followers that Jesus would come back in power one day to bring in the Reign of God, we wait with that same end in mind.
Function: This sermon will reassure hearers of what we are moving toward: the fulfillment of the Reign of God.
Today’s Gospel comes from Luke, chapter 21.
[Jesus said:] “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars,
and on the earth distress among nations
confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.
People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
“Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’
with power and great glory.
Now when these things begin to take place,
stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Then he told them a parable:
“Look at the fig tree and all the trees;
as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near.
So also, when you see these things taking place,
you know that the kingdom of God is near.
Truly I tell you,
this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down
with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life,
and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.
For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth.
Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength
to escape all these things that will take place,
and to stand before the Son of Man.”
Happy New Year!
It may seem a little early, calendar-wise, but today is the start of a new church year.
And the church year begins with the season of Advent. We begin the year by waiting.
We remember the wayour ancestors in faith waited for a Messiah.
We imagine the waiting Mary and Joseph did for the birth of baby Jesus.
We reenact the waiting of God’s people throughout history who have waited for the salvation God brings: salvation from oppressive governments like Rome and Egypt, salvation from suffering, salvation from sin and death.
We sing, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” which means “God with us,” asking God to come and be with us.
And even as we remember and reenact others’ waiting, we take time to realize that we are waiting, too: waiting for the fulfillment of God’s Reign in Jesus’ return at the end of time.
So, this reading, with all its talk of distress and roaring and fainting, might seem like a strange way to kick off a season where we wait for a sweet baby.
But, there’s also something fitting about looking at a teaching about Jesus’ return even as we await his arrival.
There’s something fitting about knowing where you’re going before you begin.
At least, Stephen Covey thinks so. His book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a self-help and business book published in 1989 that has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide. It’s been a hugely influential book in workplaces all over.
The second of Covey’s 7 habits is “begin with the end in mind.” It’s the idea that it doesn’t matter how fast you’re going if you’re going in the wrong direction. By focusing on your goal, you know you’re taking steps in the right direction, no matter how slowly.
That’s not so far off what Jesus is talking about here.
He’s preparing his disciples for what’s coming. This teaching comes at the end of a series of Jesus’ teachings about the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem itself and about the persecutions that are to come for his followers.
And Luke is writing these teachings of Jesus down years later—when the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem have already taken place and when Jesus followers were, indeed, being persecuted.
He’s reminding his readers that Jesus said these things would happen and to be faithful in the midst of what must have felt like the end of the world for them. The Temple was the center of Jewish life, so its destruction…I don’t think we can fully grasp how devastating that was for them.
And still, Jesus says, “be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down.” And he assures them that even though terrible things will happen, those terrible things point to the fulfillment of God’s Reign.
By beginning with the end in mind, Jesus is fortifying his followers for the trials to come. He’s fortifying his followers physically present with him that day, those Luke was writing to, and us today. There are still disasters and wars that can make us feel faint if we let ourselves think about them too long.
So, Jesus reminds us that there is an end to that suffering and fear.
But it’s hard. We’ve been waiting for 2,000 years, and not a generation has passed without its wars and natural disasters that make people faint with the enormity of the grief and fear.
Certainly, our hearts are weighed down by many things.
COVID, certainly.
The news is enough to make anyone throw their hands up in despair, no matter what their political leanings.
For some of us, Thanksgiving was hard—whether because of family dynamics or the inability to be with family or because of missing someone important. Perhaps for you, Christmas is not something you’re looking forward to, so Advent feels kind of empty.
The waiting for things to be put right is hard.
And Jesus knew that, which is why he forewarned his disciples of what was coming: both the hard and the joyous.
Jesus doesn’t just warn us about the bad things that are coming or leave us simply with a beautiful picture of the fulfillment of the Reign of God. He gives us both. Because we need both.
We need to see the ending, because it gives us hope that Jesus will come again to make everything right. And that gives us strength to endure the present when things aren’t as they should be.
And we need to see the signs of when that ending is coming, because otherwise we lose hope that it ever will come. We’ve been waiting a long time, so we need Jesus’ reminder to be watchful, so that we don’t fall into complacency or despair.
Jesus doesn’t give us an exact timeframe for these things happening. That’s frustrating for those of us who are bound by minutes, hours, and seconds.
We tend to think of time linearly: things unfolding one after another in an orderly fashion.
This sense of time is called chronos in biblical Greek—like “chronology.”
But biblical Greek has another word for time: kairos. This what we sometimes call “God time.” Do you ever have those moments that seem kind of outside of time? Maybe when you’re having a deep conversation with a friend or seeing the wonder in a child’s eyes or when you lose yourself in a piece of music? The flow of time seems different, then, doesn’t it? That’s kairos. That’s God time.
As frustrating as it can be not to know when Jesus will return, it kind of makes sense that the fulfillment of the Reign of God would happen in God time, not chronos time.
In the Monday night women’s Bible study the other day, we were looking at 2 Peter, and there was a lovely reminder of what God time is. This is found in chapter 3:
“But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you” (2 Peter 3:8-9)
It’s frustrating to wait for the Reign of God, but God’s time is not our time. God is waiting for the perfect moment to fulfill the Reign of God, out of God’s love for us and for the whole of creation.
So, God gives us signs that point to the fulfillment of the Reign of God, even as we wait.
I’m reminded of C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where an evil witch has made it so it is always winter in the magical land of Narnia—always winter and never Christmas. But, when the great Lion, Aslan, comes to Narnia, there are signs of spring: dripping icicles, blooming crocuses, and creeks rushing with melted snow. The people of Narnia know that when they see these signs of spring, the White Witch’s power is failing, and Aslan is coming to be with his people.
So it is with us: even as we see signs that are enough to make people faint, we know that the power of evil in this world is failing, and in the end God’s love is triumphant.
So, take heart when you see all that is wrong with the world: distress among nations, signs in the sky and roaring in the waves. We may not know when Jesus is coming again, but we know he will in the right God time, and he will set things right. And in the meantime, we can begin, this Advent, to prepare for his coming with the end in mind: that earth will become like heaven in the fulfillment of the Reign of God.