Gordon McPhee
Luke 21: 25-36
CHECK THE WEATHER!
Scripture: Luke 21:25-36 [NIV]
25 “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. 26 People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. 27 At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
29 He told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. 30 When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. 31 Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.
32 “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
34 “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. 35 For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. 36 Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”
WELCOME:
Welcome to the beginning again. From here, after 27 weeks of celebrating the Church of Christ after Pentecost, we finally come full circle to those wonderful weeks anticipating the birth of a baby in Bethlehem called Advent. This is the first Sunday in Advent when we begin again at page 268 in the Book of Alternative Services, so shake out the old rhetoric, clear your minds of old cobwebs and questions and let’s begin again to discover why we’re here. For now, as we wait for His coming, our Church calendar is a repeating cycle, but that is not the circle of hope God has promised us. The world began with Jesus at creation, the Word of God that spoke all things into existence, and it will end with Jesus returning in glory, but this isn’t a circle as so many world religions describe life. It’s not reincarnation, although we are born into eternal life. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, which implies a real beginning and ending, although Jesus is both the beginning and the end. And although our life with God begins and ends with Jesus Christ it is not a beginning again like our church calendar. Our end in Jesus is the same as our beginning; we are born into eternal life.
I apologize for my choice of scripture to preach from this morning. Two weeks ago, at our family service, we managed to pull hope out of an eschatological dialogue Jesus had with his disciples, beginning with the destruction of the Temple, and this week's passage from the Gospel of Luke is also all about the end times. However, as we begin this new year, reminding ourselves of God’s answer of hope for our future, we need to be conscious of why we have and need this hope and what to look for in our future. We need to know how to check the weather.
SERMON:
At home, I have my thermometer, barometer, and hygrometer meters hanging on the kitchen wall, where they can be seen and referenced instantly and often. It’s a comfort thing because I really don’t know what they’re telling me. The hygrometer will register 55% when it’s hot and muggy in the summer and 70% when it’s cold and dry in winter, so that doesn’t tell anything I find terribly helpful. The thermometer is indoors, so it only tells me if my electric baseboard thermostats are working, but nothing about the weather. Now, the barometer I find useful. When the pressure is high, conditions will be cold and sunny in winter and hot and dry in the summer. A low reading indicates rain or snow, precipitation of some kind. What is most valuable is noting how fast the barometer changes. If it rises or drops quickly, you know there will be wind and maybe a pretty nasty storm. It's time to ensure candles are available, at least in Chateauguay. Add to these instruments the adage “Red sky at night, sailors' delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning,” which is echoed in Matthew 16:2-3a, “ He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening’” and you may have a pleasing distraction that provides you some comfort, but you really won’t know very much more about the coming weather.
Herb takes it a step further at his home with a fully digital indoor-outdoor weather station with coloured pictures of clouds dropping rain and a glowing sun. Still, I’ve not been enlightened about the weather by this any more than a good peak out the window would have afforded. Most of us today consult our weather app, where we can discover the weather conditions for the next two weeks and the latest world disasters, strange and wonderful occurrences, and deals on anything you’ve happened to Google in the past month. But it is and has been a universal preoccupation, I would suggest since the days of Noah, to be able to read and interpret the signs of the times.
In this passage we read this morning from the Gospel of Luke, we are actually at the same pericope, story setting, as we were in Mark two weeks ago. Jesus predicted the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and then spoke of end times, eschatological signs that the end is near, much as he did in Mark. But the Gospel of Mark ends this episode, although with some encouragement and hope, with a somewhat more severe message of warning than we have here in Luke. The author of the Gospel of Luke reads into Jesus' words a more positive tone. “When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. (21:28)”
Now, personally, I find that a bit in the realm of ‘power of positive thinking’ on steroids, considering the description that immediately precedes this statement of, quite frankly, out of place, hopeful joy.
“… nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken” (21:25-26). We’re not even close to these descriptors of the situation in our world today, and yet, in our daily Christian lives, we almost despair of what the future will hold. What kind of a world have we made; are we creating for our children?
Yes, we can hope that science and technology will solve many of the challenges our world is facing, at least if the political and social will can be found to implement the needed changes. We are uncertain and, at times, despair that greed, war or anarchy will not send us down a path depicted in the doomsday fiction so popular today. Unfortunately, Jesus doesn’t speak to us with comforting words of hope that we will be spared any of this or that it won’t happen.
And whether you interpret this on a broad global and even cosmic scale or as a close, personal prophecy for your own family and your life itself, Jesus does not say you will be spared, that somehow, you will not witness what is inevitable. “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. (21:32)”
So what does Jesus tell His disciples, His listeners, and by extension, us, that should make them “stand up and lift up [their] heads (21:28)” rather than give up in despair and run and hide? Well, you’ll quote to me that Jesus said we would “see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory (21:27)”, and yes, that is the reality, the hope that will culminate these events, but it is when these things begin to occur that we are to stand up and look for His coming. This is now. The Temple was destroyed in 70 AD. We are the generation that will not pass away until all these things have happened. Be careful!
That’s what Jesus admonishes. Otherwise, “your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life. (21:34)” And please don’t miss this because you don’t apply carousing, drunkenness and anxiety to your life; it is just speaking of distractions from paying attention, from “being careful.” What is diverting your attention from paying attention to the signs of the times? How are you getting caught up in the reverie, concerns, and false hopes of this temporal world and losing focus on the things of Christ? On the need to simply be a loving neighbour. To be a person who walks the path of the Beatitudes of the Gospel of Matthew.
Like our church calendar, resetting year by year, we think we have time, but Jesus tells us to be careful, for “that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. (21:34)” And “it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. (21:35)” We won’t be somehow lifted up out of the earth before these things occur. For most of us, I think, although I don’t know, it will be a personal eschatology. Our end time will be that moment when we leave this world and see signs approaching in our personal sun, moon, and stars, as well as anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea of our life. How do you keep from fainting in terror, apprehensive of what is coming, and shaken in your bodies?
Well, you be careful not to let the distractions and concerns of this world weigh your heart down.
As Jesus showed in the parable of the fig tree, your hope is that you can read the signs of the times and so be certain of what is coming. Jesus isn’t just giving us a hope that is no more than wishful thinking, no better than my weather meters or even Herb’s. Jesus assures us that His words, all that is the Word, in Scripture and Revelation, are certain and will always be true and relevant, whatever happens in and to this world or our lives. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away (21:33).”
We need to check the weather. Jesus, I think, was well aware, having spent so much time with His fisherman disciples, of the vital importance of being able to predict the weather. At least twice is recorded incidence of these experienced fishermen getting caught in a storm at sea. They were probably distracted by their own concerns and perceived necessities rather than paying attention to navigating the Sea of Galilee. An error that was almost fatal. Jesus here reminds them and us, “Be always on the watch (21:36).”
“Pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen (21:36).” So praying is how we are always on the watch. You wake up in the morning and check the weather, “Right, Herb?” And you check the weather before you go to bed. And then, whenever you make plans for the day or choose to go outside, you check the weather. What do I wear, how do I adjust my plans, what’s my mode of transportation, or do I cancel and make other plans? We pray.
We seek the One who is creating the times so that we can be well aware of what’s coming. And here’s the wonderful promise, “be able to escape all that is about to happen (21:36).” Although what is about to happen is absolutely going to happen, Jesus doesn’t soften the reality in the least, in fact, all His eschatological dialogues are pretty hopeless and grim, we are able escape.
We need to be prepared, to be careful, to be always on the watch, to pray and then we will be able to escape all, not just some but all, that is about to happen. It will happen all around us, but it will not overtake us.
Now you say to me, “That’s fine for external world events, but what about that personal eschatology we’ll all face one day? We can’t escape that?” And I reply, you already have. In a very few weeks, we celebrate the birth of a little baby boy. A humble child in helpless need who is also God the Word through whom all creation was made. This creation, which He alone will end with His coming again; He is also the one who holds your life in His hands. He died on the cross for you and was raised so that through faith in Him, you would have eternal life.
There’s a spot in the 1985 movie Cocoon where Ben Luckett, played by Wilford Brimley, stands in the water fishing and tells his grandson, “We won't get any older, and we won't ever die,” an equally touching and disturbing sentiment.
We’re not going to allegorize that more than to introduce the truth that in Jesus Christ, we are born, not will be born, but have been born to eternal life. In a sense, we do not die if we have faith in Jesus' redemptive life and grace. However, this morning's reading from Hebrews 9 reminds us that “Everyone has to die once, then face the consequences. Christ’s death was also a one-time event, but it was a sacrifice that took care of sins forever. And so, when He next appears, the outcome for those eager to greet Him is, precisely, salvation. (Hebrews 9:27-28 [MSG])
Jesus is calling us to escape these inevitable things by being eager to greet Him, to stand up and lift up our heads because by being always watchful in prayer, we’ve checked the weather, and we know our redemption is drawing near.
May God the Holy Spirit fill our minds and hearts with understanding and hope.
Amen
