First Lesson: Daniel 12: 1-3 Responsive Reading: Psalm 6 Second Lesson: Hebrews 10: 11-14, (15-18), 19-25 Gospel Lesson: Mark 13: 1-8 “And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” 2 And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”- Mark 13:1-2
Grace and Peace from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Disaster had struck! Giant stones laid everywhere! The disaster was their 9-11. The following was their Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The emotions that people felt were similar to the emotions felt by those in Paris in the last few days as they witnessed unbelievable terror. The reactions onlookers felt were the same as you would feel watching the only church that you had ever known burn to the ground. The temple was destroyed. The center of a nation’s worship life lies in ruin. The temple collapsing was the day from which there would be no recovery. The Romans had reoccupied holy ground. Christian persecution was going to run rampant once again. The temple collapsing was the worst possible of all outcomes. This event known as “The Siege of Jerusalem” took place in 70 AD about forty years after Jesus’ death. We might not know the history of Jerusalem’s siege, but we know its story. Think of the moment of your life that you dread again and again. The moment to think of is probably the time of total upheaval in one’s life. For people in this congregation, it might be the day of the plant closing. I remember Gary recalling one day to me how Courtney and he drove around the time of the plant closing just counting “for sale” signs hanging on the outside of houses. Reserve Mining closing would be the day of upheaval from which there was no easy recovery. My Grandma will always recall to me the moment that she found out her husband had died in a boat. Grandma’s life would never be the same from that day forward. Grandma has told me time and time again how many days she had spent wishing for a different outcome. The other Saturday, I’m driving to Bemidji for the State 9-Man. I’m between Cherry and Hibbing when I receive a call from Julie Koepp saying that her father Harold had been diagnosed with cancer. This cancer had no treatment as it had spread to the kidneys, lungs, and liver. These moments are the moments that we dread as human beings. There is something very noteworthy though about the “temple” falling to the ground. Jesus had predicted it happening about forty years before. You see Jesus knew what the future to his followers was going to bring: earthquakes, wars, rumors of wars, and famine[1]. Jesus knew that when he made this prediction, people were going to dismiss him as a nothing more than a doom and gloom preacher. Jesus knew he had to make this prediction. Jesus knew what the reaction to this event was going to be panic. People were going to shout out “The End is near!” Every generation has its Jerusalem burn to the ground. As long as there has been a Christian Church its members have been convinced that they are living in the final generation. Every group of people experiences the nastiness of violence. Every human being experiences pain that seems to be unbearable. Our natural reaction to such events is to become convinced that The End is upon us. I think we as Christian people often get Jesus’ statements about the End Times wrong. Our Gospel lesson serves as an example of this. Jesus isn’t so much seeking to give Christians a timetable for the end as even Jesus himself says, “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father[2].” Jesus is rather seeking to get Christian people to prepare for the end by speaking to God’s response to the forces of evil that threaten to overpower them such as sin, death, and destruction. Jesus is seeking in times of turmoil to encourage steadiness in the Christian faith. Why does the temple falling matter to your life? The answer is because we all have temples, our sources of stability and comfort that we have watched fall before our very eyes. Let me tell you a story told by Tim Zingale[3], There once was a little girl no more than eight years old. This little girl’s prized possession was a little rag doll. The doll wasn’t much to look at, but this girl had made it with her own hands. This girl cared for this doll no differently than a mother would for a child. One weekend, she and her family was taking a trip out of town. The little girl wanted to bring the rag doll everywhere that she went, but her mother told her that she couldn’t as the doll was fragile and could be damaged within their travels. The girl reluctantly leaves the doll at home. Over the weekend, disaster strikes the little girl’s home. An unexpected storm hit the river valley where the girl lived. Houses all throughout the little girl’s neighborhood were flooded. The little girl saw her house and feared the worst! She ran upstairs to her room. The girl was devastated to find that the flood had washed away her little rag doll. She sobbed and she sobbed over not finding her doll. After a few days, the girl was nearing the point of acceptance of never seeing her doll again when she wanders downtown. She looks into the window of a salvage store that had collected items from the flood debris. In this window lay the girl’s little rag doll. Twenty-five cents was on the price tag. She rushed home and scoured the house from every cent that she could find. The girl then ran back down the store as fast as she could. She put her twenty-five cents on the counter and began holding the doll like a mother reuniting with a son home from war. What Jesus is seeking to remind his followers of in our lesson for today is the point of the story of the little girl and the rag doll that no matter how bad things seem today that God is still working towards the day when everything shall be alright once again. Let me tell another story as told by Mickey Anders[4], A young woman volunteered to help tutor children in a large city hospital. This tutor was one day instructed to visit a nine-year-old boy. The tutor contacts the boy’s teacher to learn that she should work with him on nouns and adverbs. As the tutor tries to find the boy’s room, she quickly realizes that the boy is a patient in the hospital’s burn unit. The tutor’s eyes are jarred upon seeing such a young boy severely burned and in great pain. She would have left the room if she could, but she knew that boy needed her, so she gathered courage. The tutor introduces herself and proceeds to give the most awkward lesson that she could ever imagine on nouns and adverbs. The next morning one of the nurses from the burn unit calls the tutor up on the phone. “What did you do? The tutor is immediately distraught over all the ways that she failed the boy, she began sobbing over the phone. The nurse interpreted to say that she didn’t understand. The nurse said the boy’s attitude did a complete 180 since the tutor’s lesson. He decided to fight back on his treatment; the boy’s attitude had turned from one of hopelessness to hope. The boy said something very simple changed his attitude “Why would they send a tutor to work with a dying kid on nouns and adverbs.” Jesus in our lesson today is saying that even the most seemingly impenetrable things in our lives will one day fall to the ground just like stones in these great buildings. We as Christian people often misunderstand the End Times. We view the End Times with dread because too many people don’t get how God is working below the surface. Jesus does predict the temple to fall. The temple does fall. Christian persecution increases. About twenty years after the Destruction of the Temple, John of Patmos writes the Book of Revelation. Revelation is a book that acknowledges that things are bad; the future does contain a significant degree of uncertainty. Yet ultimately in the end, Our God will restore the whole of his creation. Our God will restore the Garden of Eden and bring back the Tree of Life[5]. The road to get there certainly will not be easy and Jesus is seeking to acknowledge this in his words to us today! People will scoff upon hearing this promise. Plenty of people have gone through life disappointed by God’s lack of imminent return before. There’s something worth saying to these people on this day. “Yet, you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”-James 4:14. We claim control all we want over how the world should work; yet our goodness, power, and grace pales in comparison to what our God promises to pour out upon us. God will come through for us and the evidence of this is the Cross to which we cling. So what do you say in the presence of the End Times, this brings me back to going to see Harold. So as I’m driving to Bemidji, I’m pondering what exactly do you say to Harold when you see him the next day. I then realize that all I can do is point him towards Christ’s promises given unto Harold in his holy body and blood. Remind him that his God will come through in the end. Harold had communion Sunday night. We had a good visit on Thursday evening. He was gone very early the following Monday morning. My sense of peace for moments such as these which are never easy is the belief of all that the Resurrection reminds us that the world needs to end to bring us back to the beginning. You can’t have Resurrection without Death. You can’t have Hope without Despair. You can’t have Grace without Sin. As we leave this place this morning, we remember that the world is fragile that this much is certainly true. The reason that we obsess about the End Times is we possess nothing beyond faith in God’s promises. Our faith will indeed shake in the presence of our temple falling moments. Jesus is telling us today that this is ok. Jesus’ promises shall still stand. We draw comfort on this day in the promises that we are about to receive this is Christ’s body and blood given and shed for you. We draw hope and comfort that just as times seemed darkest on the Good Friday of our lives, our God promises that this darkness shall not remain and we shall soon see the morning dawn. Amen [1] Mark 13:7-8 [2] Mark 13:33 [3] Zingale, Tim. “The High Priest”. Yahoo Group: Pastor Tim Zingale’s Sermons. 13. Nov.2006. Web. Nov.10.2015 [4] Anders, Mickey. “Everything Nailed Down is Coming Loose!”. Lectionary.org. 2000. Web. Nov.10.2015 [5] Revelation 22:2 Comments are closed.
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