Words to Live By

Wesley United Methodist Church November 15, 1998 Luke 21:5-19 "Words to Live By" Recently, I watched a tv commercial which talked about the coming of the year 2000. It said that people would be panicking, many would be storing up food, preparing themselves for living in the wilderness, there would be chaos and confusion, why? because they were afraid of the end of hte world, well no, becuase of YK2. I thought that it was interesting, especially becuase I have a friend who has told me that she does plan on preparing herself for the worse. But more interestingly because I think that the lord works in mysterious ways. I grew up in a tradition which takes the coming of the lord very seriously. As a religion major, I remember writing a paper on religious groups who actually believe that the world is about to end and wondering since it was the nineties, why other people were not taking the end so seriously. And he laughed at me and told me because it would never happen. Of course it was the eternal optomism in me, that has always held the belief, how does he know that? Whatever happens, the year 2000 will be very interesting. It will be very intersting to see how many groups react to their faith in a time that they feel that it is about to self destruct. I say all of that to say that we don't like to talk about the second coming. We dont' talk about the end of life as we know it. Yet you really cannot escape it in the bible, because it is so prevalent. Jesus constantly says that the time is at hand. the time is now for the chirstian community to make a difference. Because tommorow is not promised to us. The confusion comes as to what that exaclty means. In the luke passage for today, there are actually five points behind what Jesus is telling us. and behind the confusion as why it is so important for us to know that the time is at hand. First, there is the day of the Lord. Which is actually a very old concept in the old testament. the jews believed that there were two ages in history. the present age, in whihc they were not in control of thwir destiny, evil was in charge and there was no way that the evils of the world would be cured by man made solution, so God would have to come and destroy the structures at hand. And there was what was called the day of the lord. As the birthing of a new age, there would be much desturction. Everyone in Jesus time would have been familiar with the term. Then there are the prophesies that the jewish government of the time would fall because it was corupted. Jerusalem was destroyed by the roman empire 40 years afteer Jesus' life. Yet this passage fortells of that destruction. There is the second coming of Christ, which Christ was also able to fortell. Jesus was sure that he was to come again and thw early church eagerly waited for that time. It will help to understand the mindset of our scriptures if we are to know that much of the old testament language of the day of the lord was atteached to the new testament understanding of hte second coming. Finally , we have to remember that the early church for which the gospels were written, were a persucuted people. Jesus lived at a time when there was many people who felt that they were persucuted by the government, especially chirsitans. These are all five different yet similar concepts that get confused. As christians we live in constant tension as to how to react to the confusion. Jesus tells us t live in constant preparedness, yet 2000 years later nothing has happened. In this scripture, there is also a tension between the fact that Jesus actually speaks of the destruction of jerlasuem, yet he tell his disciples to stand firm. The Jewish temple, was considered to be one of the ancient wonders of the world. From afar, it was described as a moutain filled with snow because it was totally white. Many important people had donated the furnishing for it. For the jews it represented its strength. It was the thing that held them together in the midst of struggles. It was the place that they could go when they felt persucuted in order to be a fortress, And as long as it was in place, they all knew that the presence of God was in their midst. No wonder, whenever someone wanted to keep the jewish people in line, they knew that all that they had to do was to destroy it. the temple was destoyed a number of times because of the sins of the people. People had lost sight of the point of God being in their midst. When jesus fortells of the temple being destoyed for the last time, he is reminding us that no matter how secure things may appear to be, ages come and ages go, Eventually even those things which are our fortress and hold us together will be taken away from us. yet we are to stand fast. Jesus also speaks of conflict on a human level. He says that they will be false messiahs who will deceive many, There will be many wars such as the ones in bosnia, africa, the middle east, and possibly even in irag. Not only will the conflict be between nations, but also between families and churches. And finally while there is upheaval in the human family, there will also be comic upheavals such as el nino, and many hurricanes and natural events of destruction. All of the things that Jesus said would happen in his time are happenining in our time. It can make you wonder what it all means. Will the world actually be destoyed by Yk2. Everyone is expecting Gods punishment to come in the form of to be big and massive. Could God just be coming to us in the form of a computer glitch that the world has no control over? I guess that remains to be seen? Its interesting that the people were so interested on the day of the lord, they haad come up with so many images of how he would come and what he would do as he came, that when he actually came, things were so different then they expected that they didn't recognize him. As a matter of fact, for them the day of the lord was blaphemy. Christ was an abomiation. I wonder what will happen to us? What is it that we are holding onto, that will be taken away from us and we will be put in a position to find our strength within, not without. When God comes to us in our lives, will we too care more about our expectations of how things are supposed to be that we will not be able to see God in a new way? I think that this is important for us, not because the signs of this time are any different from any other time. There are always wars and rumors of wars. there are always weather disasters, there are always conflicts that threaten to breack the family in two. There are always false prophets, and anything that at one time stands firm will one day come to pass. there is always corruption in government that threatens to unravel the nation. what makes our time so special. The point is that we really don't know. You don't know what it means, yet we are told to always be prepared. the good news of this scipture is to stand firm. when everything else is falling apart, it is our faith that will hold us together. When our expectations are frustated, we have been given the strength to define life in a new way. When the things in life that we hold as an unmovable fortress, we will learn that we can apapt. After such a depressing scripture, I will leave you with my favorite stand firm story. My fifth grade class was a very intersteing class. It was sort of like being in a military camp with a general. the class bully, Dina Johnson ran the class with an iron hand. She would pick people at random to intimidate. she would make then do humiliating things like lick her shoe, and make them say dumb things. I am telling you, we were truly persucuted. Her way of making friends was to pick people that she knew that she could beat up, threaten then a couple of times and they would be so scared of her that they would do anything that she told them to, including enforce her rules onto the rest of the class. And the teacher was never any help, becuase she was never in the room. Whenever a new person came into the class, it was an understoode ritual that dina would have to beat them up in order to size them up and determine where they belonged in the social strata of the class. Even though she only picked on people who actually responded to her threats, we were all bound by here rule. One day a new girl came to class, and of course she had to go through the ritual. This time is was truly depressing, because unlike all of the rest of the people, angela would actually fight back, and always lose. I remember the day that angela declared her freedom like it was yesterday. It was the day after christmas vacation and the teacher had given us a social studies assignment and walked out of the room. angela stood up, and announced to the class that she was not going to be beat up anymore. That her family had moved from place to place every since she was in kindergarten because every where they went, people wanted to beat them up. and her mother announced to her that they were not moving anymore. Angela was going to learn to stand firm, she was going to learn to fight and she was going to defend herself and she was going to win. Angela stood at the front of the class, and no one said a word, but we all knew that our freedom depended on angela winning hers. the day of the lord had truly come for our class. The world was finally free from all of the evil forces, We could have a democratic class, and not a dicttorship. For that one flleting momemt, the heavens and the earth had truly come together in a cosmic way. And then dina got up, and announced that she had heard enough. and it was time to settle this all. The fight began, right there in class and everyone wanted angela to win. As the teacher came into the room to breack up the fight, and take them out into the hall, we could hear dina's fist against angela's face. as she started to cry and blood ran onto the floor. Oh well ew knew it was too good to be true. Life would return back to normal. the tyranny continued. But the point of the story is that angela was able to stand firm. She had been given the faith to overcome her circunstance. It didnt do her any good, I don't think the butler family even made it through the next year without moving. But in the midst of her standing firm, in the midst of her hope she had been tranformed and she transformed the whole class. the gift that Christ had given us is to understnd that standing firm is not about outside forces. It is aobut what is inside of us. We don't know what will happen in the future, or how it will affect us. and sometimes, the things that we depend on will be detroyed. Yet jesus tells us that he will never forsake us. that is all that we really need to know. Is this the end of life as we know it, or is it the beginning of the new age. will the year 2000 bring chaos, will YK2 destoy us. We don't know. But what we do know is that God will help us to stand firm through it all. 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