Text: Luke 21:5–19
Date: November 13, 2022
Event: Proper 28, Year C
Luke 21:5–19 (EHV)
As some were talking about the temple, how it was decorated with beautiful stones and offerings, Jesus said, 6“These things that you see here—the days will come when there will not be one stone left on another—every one will be thrown down.”
7They asked him, “Teacher, when will these things happen? And what is the sign that these things are about to happen?”
8He said, “Watch out so that you are not deceived! For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. 9Whenever you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be terrified, for these things must happen first, but the end will not be right then.”
10Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11There will be great earthquakes, famines, and plagues in various places. There will be horrifying sights and great signs from heaven. 12But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, handing you over to synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name’s sake. 13It will turn out to be your opportunity to testify. 14So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand how to defend yourselves, 15for I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. 16You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. They will put some of you to death. 17You will be hated by all people for my name’s sake. 18But not a hair of your head will perish. 19By patient endurance you will gain your lives.”
See the Glory through the Haze
Call me crazy, but I really like gloomy, foggy days. When it’s a touch damp and cold and you’re wondering if the sun is even out. Good days to drink something warm and put on your favorite sweatshirt and maybe get some work done or just curl up with something fun you’d like to do. And given the number of days we have marine layer coming in here in Belmont, this seems like a pretty good place to be.
But there are times when the fog isn’t so great. Like taking the carpool of kids to school in the morning and the fog is thick on the freeway, making it at best slow and at worst kind of dangerous because of poor visibility. When you have to go through the haze and make progress in it, that’s when it becomes a real problem.
Last week we celebrated the festival of All Saints’ Day, the certain triumph that we have in Jesus. Today’s focus is still looking ahead, but it’s more focused on our life here leading to the Last Day. Jesus says that in many ways this life will be like trying to travel through the fog. It’s going to be uncomfortable and even dangerous. But by his grace, we will get beyond the haze of this sinful world and be with him in eternal life.
During holy week, Jesus and his disciples were walking through the temple courts in Jerusalem and those around Jesus were marveling at what was around them. The beauty of everything was overwhelming. The temple had been recently refurbished, and the disciples were amazed. But Jesus didn’t do much marveling. He’s very stark: “These things that you see here—the days will come when there will not be one stone left on another—every one will be thrown down.” Jesus’ statement was proven true just a few decades later when Rome would march on Jerusalem and destroy much of the city, including the temple. It has never been rebuilt.
What is Jesus’ point in this harsh statement? Don’t get too attached to the world around you. It will not last. It will not endure. The things of this life are temporary—even the good and God-pleasing things like the temple was. Everything has an expiration date.
That’s a challenge in this life, right? The danger of driving in the fog is that you can’t see far in front of you. So while you’re nervous about what may be looming ahead of you, you’re spending all of your time focused on where you can see, limited as it may be. It’s easy to adopt that approach in our life, to ignore or put off the coming glory of eternity. We can be deluded by our fogged-in vision and think that what’s around us is the be-all, end-all of existence. But Jesus reminds us that it’s all temporary, it will all pass away. Nothing endures, and we need to stay focused on what is eternally coming, not only on what is right in front of us.
But what about between now and then? While we’re living in this end time fog, we still have responsibilities. We still have family to care for, a congregation to support, people to share the gospel with. We still have tasks to complete and promises to keep. We still need to do our best in whatever vocations we are serving in. We still have love to show and empathy to be poured out. So we will tend to those tasks. But what will it be like to do those things in the haze of this life?
It would be tempting for us to think that, as Christians, life should be pretty smooth sailing. Sure, it’s foggy, but out footings will be safe, right? We should be able to have the confidence that because God loves us, everything should be great. Life should be good, and then the end will come, right? Well, what does Jesus say? “Watch out so that you are not deceived! For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. Whenever you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be terrified, for these things must happen first, but the end will not be right then… Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines, and plagues in various places. There will be horrifying sights and great signs from heaven. But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, handing you over to synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name’s sake… You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. They will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all people for my name’s sake.
This does not sound good. There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s break it down.
First, Jesus says that there will be spiritual, religious leaders that will come teaching messages that are off-kilter and contrary to Scripture. False teachers have come and will come preaching messages that we should just focus on what is here in this life because, they say, God just wants us to be happy. Others teach different messages than we’ve been given, like we heard the Judaizers teach to the Galatians a couple of weeks ago. These false teachers may distort Jesus’ words or lead us to put trust in our own work and convictions rather than in what God has done for us. “Watch out so that you are not deceived! For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them.”
But it’s not just false teachers that we have to deal with in this hazy life. Whenever you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be terrified, for these things must happen first, but the end will not be right then… Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines, and plagues in various places. There will be horrifying sights and great signs from heaven. Kind of sounds like the last couple of years, doesn’t it? It also kind of sounds like the time of World War II, or World War I, or the bubonic plague, or almost every moment in every era from the time Jesus spoke these words until now.
What’s the take away? Things are not going to get better. We can’t make the fog go away. No election or politician can change the track this world is on. No viewpoint or conviction can stop this life from being clouded from God’s truths because of sin. Again, we do well to serve in our roles that we’ve been given faithfully and honestly. But whether we are nurturing our children or voting in an election, we have to recognize that we cannot change the impact sin has on the world around us, on the people we love, and on our own hearts. We cannot lift this haze.
Only Jesus can do that. And even then, the forgiveness is ours, the inheritance of heaven is assured, but we don’t have it in full right now. There is no doubt that it is coming, but we are looking ahead. There will be no paradise on earth. We can see the glory in part, but it’s only like looking for the bright spot on the other side of the fog. Even the sun may be clouded out, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone missing. So too, the promises of God of forgiveness and eternal life stand unmoved, but they’re are not our full experience yet. And being stuck in the pea soup of this like can be deeply, deeply unpleasant.
We’re looking ahead to the glory that is coming. But, Jesus says, that looking ahead to the future glory brings its own problems. Being a Christian in this world will cause its own issues: But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, handing you over to synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name’s sake. It will turn out to be your opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand how to defend yourselves, for I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. They will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all people for my name’s sake.
Did you notice what Jesus did say and what he didn’t say here? You will face persecution and trouble because of your faith in Jesus. Being a Christian in this world will naturally bring these hardships. But did Jesus say, “Take a stand! Fight for yourself! Defend your rights to your faith!”? No. Did he say we should be loudmouthed, arrogant, and obnoxious, hoping to draw some of these hardships on ourselves, to seek after persecution and suffering? No.
He said you will suffer these things, you may even die. But this suffering will not be the chance to fight, it will not be the chance to cry foul and play the victim, it will be the opportunity to testify. Persecution is not an opportunity to show how tough and strong we are. Persecution is an opportunity to share the love of Jesus with people who clearly don’t know it or understand it. So when you are mocked—or much worse—for your faith, that’s an evangelism opportunity. There’s an opportunity to put into practice what Jesus commanded, to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. And you do not need to worry about what to say in that moment. Your time in God’s Word prepares you; Jesus himself promises to give you the words and wisdom you need to witness to the truth lovingly, with gentleness and respect. Because it’s never about defending yourself—it’s about sharing the love of God with others. It’s about bringing the light of the coming glory to others who are lost in this haze.
And that’s where we need to return, because we could leave a section of Scripture like this feeling really, really down. Jesus is being real with us. He’s being honest about what’s going to happen. But none of this, not one nasty comment, not one natural disaster, not one financial difficulty will ever change what God has done for you. We’ve said a couple of times that all of this has happened, is happening, and will happen because of sin. But that sin is, of course, what Jesus came to solve.
And solve it he did. The reason we look through the haze to glory that is approaching is because of Jesus’ work on our behalf. Without Jesus, all the bad things that he describes here would be the best part of our lives; hell will be so much worse than anything bad we can endure here. But with Jesus, because he took all sin on himself at the cross, that means that we’re not stumbling our way through this haze and falling into a pit. It means we walk this life hand-in-hand with our Savior. He leads us through this life, through good days and difficult days, through joy and sorrow, all the way through this hazy, perishing world to the eternal life he has prepared for us.
Don’t lose track of how he ended our reading: You will be hated by all people for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By patient endurance you will gain your lives.” Focus in on that word perish, because this is not the same as die. Death may speak of physical separation, the end of one’s life. Our hair, just like the rest of us, will surely die unless Jesus returns before then. But not a hair on your head will perish. “Perish” here means eternal death. So great is the love and victory of your Savior that not even the most fragile part of your body will be lost; not a part of you will see hell even for a moment. For as bad as things are here in the haze, by God’s grace you will reach the coming glory unscathed because Jesus has forgiven every one of your sins.
And so, my brothers and sisters, lift up your heads. In joy and thanksgiving to God for his forgiveness, we will continue to do our best in every aspect of life. But don’t let the haze bring you down. Don’t let it distract from the glory that is coming. And don’t forget that every step we take through this fog, Jesus is guiding and leading us with his forgiving love. Come quickly, Lord Jesus! Amen.
