A sermon based upon Luke 21: 25- 36
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
1st Sunday of Advent, December 2, 2018 (1 of 5 Advent messages based on Luke's gospel)
I listened with great interest to the words the pardoned Tennessee woman Alice Johnson used to describe her time in prison. In a CBS interview last June, she said: ‘I didn’t want to just do time, and I didn’t want to let time do me, but I wanted to try to make use of my time, and the only good use of time is to serve others” (From CBS Broadcast, June 7th, 2018).
And the real good news is that you don’t have to ‘do time’ to learn how to be wise with your time. The Bible reflects this kind of wisdom when it says we should ‘redeem the time, because the days are evil’ (Eph. 5:6). The NIV translations says ‘make the most of every opportunity’. In life, not just at Christmastime, we must learn how to best use the time we have, rather than to allow time to use us.
Time is on most everyone’s mind as we start the countdown toward Christmas. In the reading for this first Sunday of Advent, we read how time was on Jesus mind too.
“…THERE WILL BE SIGNS… (25)
As Jesus and his disciples were walking through the center of Jerusalem, the disciples looked with great awe and wonder upon the shiny, massive, and imposing temple structure and complex. This second temple and complex, took King Herod 46 years to construct and was the most massive structure in Jerusalem. The rebuilding of the temple was started the Jewish governor Zerubbabel back in 515 BC, but in 20 BC, Herod the Great finished the project in a very costly, but magnificent way.
But while the disciples were ‘starstruck’ in amazement, Jesus reminded them that ‘time’ can do a number on just about everything. Jesus said to them: “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”(21:6). What Jesus was trying to teach his disciples then, and what Jesus can still teach those who follow him, is that there is simply no true wisdom of life, for life, or in life, until you reckon with time.
When we start to grapple with time, as it was with the disciples too, the natural beginning question to ask is ‘when’. ‘When will these things be?’ When will things change for the better? When will things get worst? When will the end come or as the poet asked, when the ‘bell toll’ for us? The disciples wanted to know ‘when’? How much time, or perhaps, how little time do they, and do we, have? We may try to avoid this question ourselves, because it so easy to be captivated by all the glitz and glamour of life. The limits in time can be hard ‘to get our minds around’ too, but we all wonder about when, or how, or what will be?
To gain wisdom for ‘the living of these days’ we need perspective too. I think that’s really what Jesus was trying to do for the disciples. I don’t think Jesus wanted to make his disciples depressed about the future by filling them with all kinds of negative expectations. Those times were negative and fearful already. Jesus was a realist, not an alarmist. Jesus gave them an honest, realistic assessment of their time, and where they world was headed, but Jesus was also surprisingly and unexpected positive in the perspective and outlook he gave.
When Jesus spoke openly about ‘endings’ he also pointed them toward ‘beginnings’—toward new opportunities for ‘testimony’ (13) and for new visions of ‘glory’ (27) and even for the nearness of ‘redemption’ (28), to use Luke’s word, which means to find especially in the hard times that were ahead. To be clear, even in negative times, Jesus wanted to give them an indestructible perspective of hope---hope for their time and hope for any and all time, including our own time of life.
A Lutheran Bishop tells about visiting a South Dakota rancher during the disastrous winter of 1997 with its many blizzards and ice storms, and its record losses of cattle. The older rancher was welcoming several helping professionals to his ranch, who were assessing the extent of his losses from these disasters. The rancher led them out to a hill in the pasture not far from his ranch and told them they were standing on the grave of his once, very large, herd of cattle. All but a small number had been frozen to death in an early April storm.
All the visitors were stunned by the enormity of his loss, and by his matter-of-fact manner in relating it. They questioned and probed a bit for some sense of his feelings about all of this, until he responded... as many South Dakotans did, in the face of such disaster: "Well, it could have been worse."
The visitors were even more sure that this man must be deep in denial to have such an attitude about losing his life's work in one weekend storm. They questioned and probed a bit more. How could it have possibly been worse? Having been pushed to explain himself, and probably having sized up the visitors as city folks, he finally responded by pointing down to the hill or grave they were standing on and said, "I could have been down there."
When you live close to the earth; close to other living and dying things by staying in touch with the reality constantly around each of us. And when we do this by staying close to God, no matter where we are on the ‘timeline’ of life, we gain an invaluable viewpoint. This is to ‘keep in view’ and to keep a realistic perspective of time—real time, your time, and the time we each have for life. This is what that South Dakotan farmer understood and it is same kind of perspective Jesus wanted to give to his disciples then, and the Spirit of Jesus can give us now. By grasping the limits of our time, in these times too, we gain an understanding of life that gives an invaluable perspective. But what kind of ‘perspective’?
”BE CAREFUL, OR…” (34)
As Jesus’ spoke to the ‘times’ in which he lived, he spoke to ‘things’ that would be ‘fulfilled’ (KJV) or would ‘happen’ (NIV) during his time, before ‘this generation’, that is, before his generation, ‘would pass away’ (32).
This means that everything Jesus refers to in his words, would come true, happen, or take place, in one way or another during their lifetimes.
In that time, his own disciples, were facing unmistakable and almost unbearable difficulties. Jesus warned how deceptions would come (8). Earth-shaking destruction and diseases would come (10-11). Defamation of their character and faith would come, meaning religious persecution (12-19), as well as, the full demolition of Jerusalem, their most holy place, would come.
You can hardly imagine anything worse than what Jesus foresees. Quoting the book of Daniel, Jesus named this cataclysmic event not only ‘desolation’ (20) as Luke does, but Jesus also named this ‘the desolation of desolations’ (KJV) or the ‘desolation that causes desolation’ (20-26, cp Dan. 9.27, Matt 24.14, Mark 13.14). Most everything that Jesus envisioned for their immediate future was not pretty picture, but was filled with depressing, frightful, and dreadful images of human trouble, pain, and suffering.
It’s easy, not just to lose your faith, but it’s also easy, Jesus points out, to lose heart, and to lose your head with such realistic perspectives of the times. This is why near the conclusion of his words, Jesus challenges his disciples to ‘take care’ (CEB), to ‘be careful’ (34) or ‘take heed’ (KJV). Jesus says if we are not ‘careful’ the times can make our hearts so heavy, we can turn to carousing, drunkenness, and worry, that we end up ‘trapped’ by the times rather than still being able to find a way to ‘escape’ (34-38).
What I find most uplifting about Jesus’ own perspective about the future, is that even in the worst of times, his disciples always have a ‘choice’. This is actually what Jesus’ perspective comes down to. All the ‘hell’ that was turned loose on the world then, because the Jewish people where unwilling to follow Jesus, and all the hell that can be still be turned loose on the world now, because people are still unwilling to follow Jesus, does not mean that there is no way left to escape. God always makes a way of escape in every situation and circumstance of life, but we still have to choose. The difference in living in despair, or having courage to face the times, is that we choose to ‘take care’ with our hearts (34) and that we stand firm in our hope to ‘win life’ (19).
This is choice for ‘life’ against all odds, is exactly what happened in the life of a British man named Robin Cavendish, who back in 1958, at the age of 28, was stricken with polio, so that he was paralyzed from the neck down and could not even breathe without the help of a respirator. He was told by doctors that he would not live more than 3 months and would not see his 29th birthday.
Robin’s story is told in the movie entitled “Breathe” which tells of how Robin, played by Andrew Garfield, at first was greatly depressed, feeling like his life was over. But with the love and help of his family, he was able to come home, though he was still restricted to having a respirator. Once, the respirator cable came loose, and he almost died, but he made clicking noises to get his wife’s attention.
But the great part about Robin’s story is that when he was only given a few months to live, he not only defied the odds, but that friends helped him to create a wheelchair with a respirator build-in, and he traveled to Spain, Germany, and elsewhere around the world with his family. When he was in Germany, Robin made a presentation to German doctors on how to make life better for their patients, for which Robin was given a standing ovation because his example gave inspiration for a greater quality of treatment for victims of polio and paralysis. But Robin’s life continues to inspire, because instead of dying before his 29th birthday, Robin lived to be 64 years of age.
“STAND UP AND LIFT UP…(28)
It’s certainly never easy to have the right perspective, nor make the best ‘choices’ in the difficult times we also face. We may or may not be facing the end of all times, but times are always ending in some way and for someone.
This is why the words of Jesus still capture our imagination, not because they predict all the specifics of our own time, but because they always predict the realities in every time. We may not be, invaded or surrounded by armies, and we aren’t yet strapped to a wheelchair or to a respirator, we are all ‘strapped’ to living in these times. These times, like their times, can also be a struggle, a challenge, and a threat. Even at Christmastime, and maybe especially at Christmas, it’s so easy fall prey to our own negativity or to get lost in the nostalgic about how life used to be, rather than to find the redemption and the perspective of hope God can give us right now in this time when we live, and right here in this place where we live.
Maybe the only true way to find hope, for us, is the same way Jesus said people in ‘his generation’ would find hope: ‘At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory’ (27). Only by ‘seeing’ Jesus in that situation, or in our own, can people gain the perspective of hope and make the choice to hope---even against the darkest night or in the most difficult times.
In another midwestern story, in town of Spencer South Dakota, a devastating tornado hit the area. The day after community and church leaders walked through the remaining rubble. It was an unbelievable sight. A grain elevator twisted and fallen, a water tower toppled, vehicles and other heavy items strewn around like toys. Whole buildings just gone from their foundations. Even those who knew the lay of the town well had to get their bearing when all the trees and buildings and landmarks are gone.
The town leaders finally made their way near the site of the church, St. Matthews Lutheran, and were looking for signs of where it had been. They might have been a half a block away when someone called out "there's the statue, there's Jesus!" And sure enough, the pastor in the group recognize it, there it was -- the traditional white statue of Jesus that often stands at the altar of many small churches in the Midwest, with his arms outstretched and loving demeanor.
There it, or He was, a beacon to what had been the site of a 100-year congregation's place of worship. The white paint on the statue was nearly gone, and someone later said that its arms were broken, but that wasn’t even noticed, because it was just so remarkable, so moving and so fitting to look up from the chaos around us and see Jesus, arms outstretched, welcoming, and loving his people.
The survey group initially thought that the statue of Jesus had somehow stood through it all, the wind, the hail, the rain, the total destruction of the building all around him, somehow he had stayed upright. They learned later, however, another story. Two young girls, helping clean up for a family member in a nearby home, had taken time to come over to where the church had been and set aside a few items of church property they found scattered in the area. They saw the statue lying in the rubble, and figured everyone in Spencer needed to see that Jesus was still there, so they stood him up for everyone to see. (See also: http://day1.org/759-sermon_for_1st_sunday_in_advent).
What those young girls showed the town leaders in Spencer South Dakota, is what we all must know to gain, have, and keep the perspective of hope, even when days get darker, or when life gets hard. But we, in this generation too, are the one who have to choose to ‘stand up’ and ‘lift up’ our own heads and hearts too. We too have to lift up Jesus with our own hands and hearts so that God’s redeeming presence can be felt and Christ’s sustaining hope can be seen.
Isn’t this what the Advent season is all about-- lifting up Christ again and again, so that no matter what situation are in, we can still find true and everlasting hope? Advent’s promise is that no matter what time it is, we never have to ‘do time’ nor must we ever let ‘time do a number on us’. Instead, we can always use time, and gain wisdom over time, because when we stay close to Christ, we can always choose to ‘stand up and lift our heads’ and our ‘hearts, because our redemption never leaves our side, but is always ‘near’. Amen.
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