Not the End
Scripture: The
Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary
33), A.D. 2015 B
Sermon:
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from
our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let’s talk Apocalypse.
As most folks know, apocalypse means “revelation,”
and apocalyptic literature is a method of storytelling that reveals our fears,
reveals what’s really going on in the world. Whenever times get tough, people
write apocalypses. We see this all throughout the Bible, and we still see it in
popular culture today, from Gilgamesh to the Hunger Games.
The most famous apocalypse of the Old
Testament is the book of the prophet Daniel. Daniel lived in an age when empire
after empire kept rolling over God’s people Israel. The Israelites were always
under somebody’s thumb, always being beaten up and abused by world powers that
periodically attempted to exterminate them. So Daniel wrote prophesies that
compared these conquering empires to great monsters and ravenous beasts. He
compared them to gigantic statues, false idols with feet of clay. And he did so
both to reveal to God’s people what they were really up against, but also to
give them comfort. The beasts would be defeated. The statues would crumble. And
God’s people would prevail, for God was with them still.
The book of Daniel wasn’t about the
end of the world. It was a promise that what was happening to God’s people at
the time wasn’t the end. It might seem like they were losing everything, like
they were on the brink of extinction, but in reality God had great plans for
Israel, and greater promises than ever to give to them: promises of a New
Covenant, of a coming Messiah, of the conversion of the nations to true faith—even
of a resurrection of the dead. To those hearing or reading Daniel’s prophecy,
the present was a bloody mess, but the future was full of promise and hope and
vindication. The Christ was coming. And Israel would be there to see Him.
The most famous apocalypse of the New
Testament, meanwhile, has to be the Revelation of St. John. John’s Revelation
was written hundreds of years after the book of Daniel, but it shares many of
the same images, warnings, and promises. Centuries after Daniel, a new empire
has come along to persecute the New Israel, which is the Church of Christ. Once
again, times are hard and the people are frightened. John reveals what’s really
at stake.
Utilizing symbols taken from various
prophets of the Old Testament, Revelation portrays a vision of terrible trials
and sufferings, of armies coming to destroy Jerusalem and make war on God’s
people. But all along, John promises that the faithful will endure, that God’s
mercy will win out in the end. Times are tough, John acknowledges, and they’re going
to get tougher. But God’s people will survive, for Jesus Christ is with us, and
He has conquered death and hell.
Revelation isn’t a map to the distant
future. It doesn’t predict the Holocaust or the Cold War or anything like that.
Revelation is about the great war waged between Rome and Jerusalem less than 40
years after Jesus’ Crucifixion—the very war that Jesus Himself predicts in this
morning’s Gospel reading—and it’s about how no matter how bad things seemed at
the time, the love of God would endure and prevail. That’s what apocalyptic
literature really is at heart: it is a word of comfort, a promise of assurance,
given unto suffering people by the God who has suffered on the Cross.
See, we’re always looking for the end
of the world. We witness this in the Left Behind fad of the previous decade,
and in the zombie apocalypse craze of today. It’s like we’re all frightened of
this great coming cataclysm, yet at the same time part of us wants it to
happen. The only thing scarier than the end of the world might be a world that
never ends but just keeps stumbling on aimlessly forever.
We know that won’t happen. Eventually
the earth, the sun, the universe, everything ends. But the end of the world
never appears as we expect. When the great Flood came in the time of Noah, it
seemed that the whole world would end. But it didn’t. Instead, evil was washed
away and life was given a second chance, a new birth. When fire and brimstone
consumed the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the survivors thought that
they were the last people on the planet, that the whole world had died. But it
hadn’t. Only the wickedness of those violent cities was burned away, much to
the relief of all their neighbors.
When the Temple of God was destroyed
by the Babylonians, and the family of Abraham scattered to the four corners of
the earth, the Israelites thought that such was the end, the loss of
everything. Yet even in the midst of their Exile, God appeared to His people, speaking
astonishing new promises through new prophets like Daniel.
And when Rome rolled in centuries
later, flattening Jerusalem, insuring that not one stone would be left upon
another—when Jew and Gentile alike seemed to turn against the fledgling
Christian community so that all would surely be lost—people thought that this
was the end of the world. But it wasn’t. It was only the beginning. Amazing new
things were coming, new peoples, new empires, brought to faith in Christ Jesus.
Impossible hopes came true.
Every time that we thought the world
was ending, we were wrong. Dead wrong. Every time that all seemed lost, every
time that lies claimed triumph and truth despaired, God brought about a new and
brighter birth, for His chosen people and for all the nations of the world. It
never looked the way that we’d expected; the promises were never fulfilled in
quite the way that we’d assumed; but every time it seemed as though God would
disappoint us, He revealed His faithfulness and mercy in heretofore undreamt of
glories. We never lost the world. We gained whole new ones.
It is said that Dionysius the Areopagite
was in Egypt on the day of Jesus’ Crucifixion. And when he witnessed the
blotting out of the sun, he cried aloud for all to hear, “Either the God of
Nature is suffering, or the world is ending.” We all know he was right about that
first part. What if he were right about the second bit as well? Could it be, as
many have argued, that the end of the world happened long ago?
Keep in mind that most of the Bible’s
prophecies regarding the end times have already occurred. The return from
Exile, the coming of the Messiah, the conquest of sin and death and hell—that’s
all come true. The old world, the old order, ended at the Cross, perished on
that tree. And the new world, the Kingdom of God, has been growing up to
fruition ever since. Someday all will be fulfilled. Someday Christ will come
again and the dead will rise from their graves and every injustice will be set
right, every tear wiped away, every wound healed. Someday the Light will dispel
all shadow and the insatiable mystery of existence shall be made clear in
totality. Then shall God be all in all.
So when you hear of wars and rumors
of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is still to come.
For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be
earthquakes in various places. There will be famines. Do not be afraid. This is
but the beginning of the birth pangs. Even now, God is at work resurrecting and
healing and forgiving this world. Even now, new life is being born.
Here is the world. Wonderful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.
Here is the world. Wonderful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.
In the Name of the Father and of the
+Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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