Redeemer Lutheran, HB
Series B, Proper 29: Isaiah 51:4-6; Jude 20-25; Mark 13:24-37
In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.
Today, Jesus sets His
church on end-times red alert: “Watch. Keep awake.” While the rest of the world
is spiritually asleep, Jesus would have His believers alert and ready, like a
little child waiting by the door for mom or dad to return home: da! da! da!.
She doesn’t know when, so she’s always alert, always ready, always watching.
But after 2000 years
of waiting, Jesus’ call to end-times alertness begins to sound like the boy who
cried wolf. It doesn’t mean anything to us anymore. The press of our work and
social calendars crowd out the significance of any end of the church year, end
of the age considerations. We may have constant lurking notion that the world
will end some day, but we also have false confidence that it isn’t likely to
end today, tomorrow, or the next day. We live foolishly like those bridesmaids
who thought that a little oil was enough; they never expected the groom to show
up at midnight. We’re either too complacent or too fearful.
No wonder, from the
mouths of sensationalistic pastors, or the media frenzy –Mayan calendars and
end-of-the-world predictions - you might get the impression that the only
reason people talk about the Last Day is to excite fear and fill their wallets.
Deception. Hysteria. Confusion. Chaos. Such are the devil’s tools in these Last
Days. And if Jesus’ end-times teaching has left you in a panic, hiding in a
bunker, like a Zombie apocalypse movie, well, you’ve missed the point.
To be sure, Jesus
warns us – as he did the disciples: “Keep
watch. Stay awake. Be on guard. You neither know the day nor the hour.” Our
natural reaction is dread, terror anticipating destruction. And while that’s
certainly true, it’s not the whole truth.
For when Jesus speaks
of the end, he uses the sign of the fig tree – not with its shedding leaves and
dormant, dead-of-winter hibernation - but with its sap rising and its leaves
budding: summer is near! Where our world sees nothing but destruction, Jesus
points us to the End with signs of life.
St. Paul calls these the
“birth pangs,” the labor contractions of the new creation that arrives with the
coming of Christ. Labor and childbirth is painful (or so I’m told). Yet the
outcome is so joyous and wonderful that the pain is soon forgotten, or the memory
is at least diminished, otherwise we’d all be only children.
But for the baptized
Christian, Christ’s return isn’t a Day for chaos and confusion, but comfort and
consolation. Search the Scriptures, Lutheran Confessions, Small Catechism, the
rich hymns in our hymnal and you’ll hear the same message. They too speak of
endings and beginnings: Of Adam’s death and Christ’s triumph over sin. Of your
sin and guilt and Jesus bearing it for you. Of your drowning and your
resurrection in the waters of Holy Baptism. Of the Paschal Lamb who gives his
life to feed you with his own. Of a two-edged sword that kills and makes a
live. Of those who die in Christ and yet are asleep awaiting his final word to
the faithful: Arise!
For the old creation,
dead in sin is passing away – indeed it has already begun in Jesus’ death and
resurrection. In these gray and latter days – days filled with overwhelming
sorrow and sickness, helplessness in the face of economic, family and personal
troubles, grief at the death of loved ones, not to mention our own burdens of
sin and guilt. That’s why in these Last Days we confess: I believe in the one holy, catholic and apostolic church;
the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
For we do not yet see the church or our lives or creation as it is should be.
But we cling to Jesus’ promise: “Never
will I leave yo,u nor forsake you. Behold, I am coming soon. I am making all
things new. It is finished. I am not dead, but living.”
Endings and beginnings.
So it was for our
sister in Christ, Pauline, called to the church triumphant this past Thursday.
Thanksgiving Day took on a different and better meaning for her. The same is
true of the Last Day for all the faithful departed who have fallen asleep in
Jesus, whether our end comes at Jesus’ return or our own death. Earthly life
ends but so does sin and death. Resurrection and a new creation awaits. The end
of all labors. The end all suffering. The end of sin and death once and for all.
And the beginning of Christ’s new life for you...in his kingdom which has no end.
Yes, the Day of Jesus’
coming is a day of judgment. But judgment cuts two ways: one can be judged guilty
and sentenced to punishment; or judged innocent and set free. But take heart,
you were already judged on Jesus’ judgment Day, the day He came not to judge
but to be judged. The day when He took your place on a cross, took your sin
into His sinless life, embraced your death in His death, was condemned with the
condemnation you deserve. That Good Friday when the Son of God died for the
sins of the world was a Day of the Lord. And we know where that Day led – to
resurrection, to life, to glory at the right hand of God.
And that same verdict is
pronounced over your head in your Baptism, where you were united with Jesus in
His death, His life, His glory. You were clothed with Christ. You were put
“into Christ,” made a new creation. “The old has gone, the new has come.” In
Christ you are already glorified, already in the new creation. What we wait for
is to take possession of this in our own bodies raised and glorified. And so
the end of all things old also means the beginning of all things new. “I am
making all things new,” Jesus says. A new heavens, a new earth, a new you.
But how do we live in
these Last Days?Jude exhorts us to “build ourselves up in our most holy faith.” Not by staring at our navels or our believing, rather, by being immersed in what we believe and why. Keep watch over your study of the Word. Not like a last minute cram session for an exam, but like your favorite book, cover-worn, pages highlighted and falling apart. Like a little child reading books: Again! Again! Read. Mark. Learn. And inwardly digest His holy Word. Catechesis is life-long; not just until confirmation. What greater word is there than Christ and His Word as we prepare to meet Him face to face?
“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”
In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.
