Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 28B)

November 18, 2018

Text: Mark 13:1-13

            The End is near.  Christ is coming soon.  He is coming visibly, with the holy angels, at the sound of the trumpet, to judge the living and the dead.  He will raise up all the dead bodily.  The believers, the sheep of Christ, He will set on His right and bid them enter the joy of His Father, eternal life with Him in the new heavens and the new earth.  The unbelievers, the goats who have rejected Jesus and His gracious forgiveness and salvation, He will bind and cast into the Lake of Fire prepared for the devil and his minions.  And the great tragedy of that is that the Lake of Fire, hell, was not prepared for people.  Jesus died for all people.  His forgiveness, His justification (which is to say, His righteousness), is for all people, accomplished on the holy cross and by His resurrection.  But it is received by faith.  And so, those who do not have faith do not have Jesus and His salvation.  That is the Judgment.  Faith has Jesus, and so receives what belongs to Jesus.  Unbelief does not have Jesus, and so receives what it has coming to it for all its works: eternal condemnation. 

            The End is near.  So let’s act accordingly.  Let’s start acting like we actually believe this.  We do believe it, somewhere deep down inside.  But we live for all practical purposes as if this is not the case.  We live as if this earthly life is the goal, our happiness here, now; our fulfillment here, now; in the stuff of this life.  Think about it.  Think how much energy you put into planning for your retirement… or despairing of the impossibility of it.  And for what?  A few years of supposed ease, which, in reality, you’ll spend in waiting rooms at doctors’ offices, and then you’ll die.  Now, I’m not against retirement.  I probably shouldn’t be preaching this right before a Voters Assembly when we’re discussing my benefits.  Look, I pray you’re able to retire and enjoy doing some nicer things than what I just described.  But you will die.  Unless Christ returns first, which He very well may.  And here’s my point: Yes, go ahead and plan for your retirement, but that is an infinitesimally small part of your reality.  Don’t spend your energy there.  Spend it on eternity.  Spend it receiving the gifts of Christ Jesus here in His Church.  Immerse yourself in the gifts!

            It’s a matter of priorities.  Jesus is coming soon, so live like it.  Think about how many things get in the way of attending Church services, hearing the Word, receiving the Lord’s body and blood.  Sports events.  Vacations.  (You can go to Church when you’re on vacation… you do know that, right?  I can help you find one wherever you’re going.)  I’ve had more than one person in my ministry tell me that Sunday morning is the only day they have to relax and get things done around the house.  Well, enjoy that rest.  Is eternity worth it?  Is getting the laundry done worth eternal salvation?  “(W)hat does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36; ESV).  Beloved, repent.  Repent of all that keeps you from the Lord’s House.  You are not saved by coming to Church, as if that is a good work that earns something before God.  But Church is where the living Lord Jesus, who is coming soon, prepares you for His coming and the Judgment by giving you living faith in Him by His means of grace, the Word and Sacraments.  Here He speaks to you.  He speaks His Spirit into you, faith into you, Himself into you, and He forgives your sins.  Here He gives you new birth by water and the Word.  Here He marks you for the bodily resurrection into eternal life by feeding you with His own crucified and risen body and blood.  He is the vine.  You are the branches.  You only live by virtue of your continual connection with Him.  Get rid of anything that severs that connection.  Be obsessed with Jesus and His gifts to you.  Be always repenting, always confessing your sins, always hearing and believing the Gospel that your sins are forgiven and you have eternal life in Christ.  THAT is how you live as though you really believe Jesus is coming soon.

            And the signs are all around you.  The signs in our text are not some ambiguous future events that will happen someday, nearer to the End.  No, they’ve happened, and they are happening.  This is why Jesus bids you stay awake.  Watch.  “(B)e on your guard” (Mark 13:9).  The first sign Jesus prophesies in our text is the sack of Jerusalem and the utter destruction of the Temple.  That happened about forty years after He said it when future Roman emperor Titus came through with his legions and ripped it all down.  That, by the way, is the penalty for the Jews’ rejection of Jesus as their Messiah.  He longed for them, begged them, pleaded with them to believe in Him and receive His salvation, but they would not.  There are, of course, Jewish believers, and we thank God for that, but as a religion, Judaism has utterly rejected Jesus.  Which means they have utterly rejected God.  The old Law, the old system, is at an end.  There is no more need for the Temple building.  The new and greater Temple has arrived: Jesus.  The flesh of Jesus of Nazareth is the dwelling place of God with His people, His Israel, His Church.  So that is one sign of the End: The destruction of the Temple and the sack of Jerusalem. 

            But the other signs have been around since Adam and Eve fell into sin.  False christs?  They’re all over the place.  They are, of course, in the false religions that set up other ways of salvation than the death and resurrection of Jesus.  And there are the cults built around personalities that often end in mass suicides, like Jim Jones or David Koresh.  You may think you’re safe from those because you took Catechism class and you know better than to fall for their tricks.  That’s true, thanks be to God, but it’s the other false christs you have to watch out for; like politicians, for example.  Or celebrities.  Or jobs.  Or money.  Or doctors.  Or diets.  Or whoever or whatever you believe will save you.

            Wars and rumors of wars?  That is the story of the evening news.  Earthquakes in various places?  Yes.  All of these are signs of the end.   And that is not a complete list.  Fires in California, or right here in our own back yard?  Destructive hurricanes?  School shootings?  Terrorism?  Abortion?  Your own tragedies?  Your own sin?  These are signs of the End.  They tell you in no uncertain terms that this can’t go on forever.  God will bring this to an end.  He will do it when the heavens are rolled up like a scroll and we all see Jesus Christ.

            And what are we Christians to expect in this time as we wait?  The picture Jesus paints is not a pleasant one.  You’ll be delivered up to councils.  You’ll be beaten.  You’ll stand before governors and kings.  We’re all shocked when the government picks on florists and bakers for their religious convictions, and frankly, we’re in denial.  We act like this is an anomaly, an exception to the rule.  No, we should expect this.  It’s going to happen more and more.  And no, Republican administrations aren’t going to save us from that.  Yes, vote, of course, and make the best decisions you can between candidates and proposals because that is what love for your neighbor demands.  But don’t be a fool and think that your candidate, Republican or Democrat, is going to save you from anything.  Jesus is the Savior.  And that may just be why He allows us to suffer for the faith at the hands of earthly government.  So that we despair of all earthly help and cling to Him alone as Savior.  We Americans have had it pretty good.  We still do.  While we worry about how comfortable our retirement can be, our brothers and sisters throughout the world are actually suffering the very things Jesus prophesies.  They are being beaten.  They are being imprisoned.  They are being shot, beheaded, crucified, burned alive.  They know what Jesus means in this text, and they love not their lives even unto death (Rev. 12:11).  Blessed are they.

            And blessed are you whenever you have to endure.  Blessed are you when you endure the mockery of the world.  Blessed are you when you lose Facebook friends or when your family members turn their backs on you because of your confession of Jesus and His Word.  Blessed are the bakers and florists who lose their businesses and livelihoods for Christ.  When these things happen… if you are drug before councils or governors or kings (it could happen!  Stop living in denial!)… “do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit” (Mark 13:11).  That is the Promise.  The Lord will not forsake you in the hour of trial.  You will suffer, yes.  Brother will deliver brother over to death, fathers their children, children their parents… This is precisely what happened in the Communist block in the days of the Soviet Union.  Family members had to report on one another.  This happens in Islamic tyrannies still today.  It will happen here.  Just wait.  You’ll be hated by all.  Jesus promises it.  But don’t worry.  The Lord will give you the words to say.  He will be with you.  His Spirit will be in you.  And here is the sure Promise of the Lord: “the one who endures to the end will be saved” (v. 13).

            The one who endures to the end.  It sounds daunting, doesn’t it?  With you, it is impossible.  But not with God.  God is the one who gives you endurance.  He keeps you safe to the end.  He does it here in His Church, in His Word, in your Baptism, in His Supper, by giving you Jesus.  Jesus endured to the end.  He endured the bitterness of the world’s hatred, the beating, the stripes, the nails, the wood.  He endured the worst Satan and sinners could hurl at Him.  He endured it unto death…  And Jesus Christ is risen from the dead…  He will keep you.  He will keep you even in death.  And He will raise you from the dead.  You have eternal life in Him.  Nothing the world can do can possibly rob you from His pierced hands.  Enjoy retirement if you can.  God bless you in it.  But for God’s sake stop living as if that’s all that matters.  Jesus is all that matters.  And you are all that matters to Him.  He’s coming to get you soon.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.