The End is Near

Sermon - The Rev. Leah D. Schade
Reformation Lutheran Church, Media, PA
Dec. 3, 2006, Advent 1
Text:  Luke 21:25-38

So what does Jesus mean by saying these things?  “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.  People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”   It’s like a scary version of that Christmas song:  “You better watch out, you better not cry.  You better not pout, I’m telling you why . . .” - no,  this isn’t about Santa, it’s about the Second coming!   And why now, when we’re trying to get ourselves into the holiday spirit of shopping and good cheer are we being confronted with such a downer text? 

This is heavy stuff!  And if we look around us, it seems that this kind of distress is already happening in our world.  It raises the inevitable question:  are we nearing the end times?

When I was about 8 or 9, a friend of mine and her family took me to their church to see a movie.  I was very excited at the time because I loved going to movies, and I thought it was cool that a church was actually going to show a real movie with popcorn and candy!  But when we got to the church and descended the steps to the church basement, I realized I was going to be disappointed.  There was no popcorn, no candy.  Only rows of hard metal chairs facing a screen. 

And my disappointment soon turned to fear as I watched the film itself.  It was a movie about the end of days, and what was going to happen when Jesus came back to earth.  It was terrifying!  It showed images of the moon turning the color of blood, the sun going dark, and stars falling from the sky.  It painted a picture of mass confusion on earth, with people running around in sheer terror as Jesus comes to earth in a great cloud of doom.  And it followed the story of one family’s trials and tribulations, including watching their young son being tortured by agents of the anti-christ.

After it was over, my friend’s parents were driving me home, and they asked me what I thought of the movie.  I said that I thought it was really scary, and that I was worried that maybe the end of the world would happen while I was alive.  They made a point to remind me that everything I’d seen in the movie was in the bible, and is exactly the way things are going to happen when Jesus comes back and the end of the earth is near.  “You should be worried,” they said.  “Everyone should be worried about Jesus coming again.”

When I think back on the negative impression that that movie and the whole experience at that church made on my young mind, it’s a wonder I ever kept going to church, let alone become a pastor.  With such fear and dread of Jesus planted in my little head, I should have run screaming from the church and the bible.  I guess I can credit my Lutheran upbringing for helping to counteract some of that Fundamentalist terror.

And, maybe that is one of the reasons I pursued the study of the bible and theology.  Something in my head and heart told me that what they were showing me in that cold, dark church basement was not the Jesus and the God I really knew.  I had to find my own answers and wrestle with these biblical passages in other contexts in order to get a fuller understanding of what they mean for our lives.

This question of the end times is something we all have to wrestle with on some level.  In the last few years we’ve been bombarded by news about the sun melting the polar ice caps because of the depleted ozone layer; hurricanes and climate changes wreaking havoc on the earth.  People are indeed scared, and with good reason.  Always the next terrorist attack looms on the grey horizon.  Always the random act of violence or the planned nuclear attack of so-called enemy nations threatens our peaceful existence. 

So does that mean that the time is now?  Are we approaching the end of days?  It would be easy to make that argument, as every generation has done before us.  Remember when the calendar turned to the year 2000, how people thought that meant the end of the earth as we know it?  Remember the stories of the different cults over the years who have committed mass suicide, believing that the end was coming?

It was no different for folks living in Jesus’ day.  There was an apocalyptic movement among the faithful that predicted that the earth would erupt, the Messiah would come, and the whole cosmos would be rent asunder as God’s Chosen One ascended to the throne.  And Jesus himself speaks about such an occurrence in this passage. 

This comes up as he and the disciples are in the temple, and they are admiring the grandiosity of the structures.   But Jesus warns them not to be too impressed, as the temple will one day crumble around them.  They naturally want to know when this will happen, and Jesus breaks into a whole discourse about the end of times.  But, curiously, he does not give them a date or time.  Jesus does not play Nostradamus here, predicting the exact date of doomsday.  Instead he tells them that they must always be alert, always pay attention, always have their hearts and minds prepared.

But there is a fine line between being prepared and being worried to the point of distraction.  It’s very easy to tip from having a healthy concern about the future, to reacting with fear about what might happen.  And our culture and the consumer machine around us feeds on this fear, reaping an incredible amount of wealth from our intangible feelings of worry and dread.  Politicians rise and fall on the perceived ability to protect us from these things that cause us so much fear.  There are many television shows, books and movies that depict what might happen if a national or worldwide catastrophe strikes.  And we spend an incredible amount of our money either trying to protect ourselves, or at least distract ourselves from the knowledge that evil and terror could strike at anytime.

But no matter how much we try to distract or protect ourselves from it  -- bad things are going to happen.  Catching the bad guys won’t prevent it.  Electing the right officials won’t prevent it.  Putting the most expensive security system in place won’t prevent it.  In one form or another, the end is near.   

Because it’s not always on a global or national level.  Sometimes the end can happen at a very personal level.  The loss of a job; the break-up of a relationship.  The voracious wolf of disease and death always seems to be lurking at our door.  When this happens to you - the whole earth does indeed shake for you.   Your tragedy is part of the larger cosmic tragedy.  There are, without a doubt, cosmic forces beyond us that are affecting us.

So what are we going to do with this?  How do we live with the reality of the terror experience?  Well, we can take a lesson from the ones who originally heard these words from the Gospel of Luke.  Remember that Luke is recounting his Gospel to a people who have gone through their own end times  - the fall of Jerusalem.  Their Temple was destroyed and their people were scattered to the wind.  The center of their universe was decimated.  When that happened in the year 70 AD, it must have seemed like the world had come to an end. 

And yet - here they still were.  The end times had come and gone - and they were still around to tell about it.  Just like us, they are a community living with the shadow . . . behind them, before them and all around them.

But as those early Christians knew -- there is another truth as well.  We learned last week that God is the Mind of the Universe.  Jesus is the Cosmic Christ.  And God’s forces of abundance and abiding love are affecting us as well.  There is a story that is bigger than us.  And this story is not one that is meant to scare 8-year-old children into fearing the God of the Universe and worrying whether this God will care for him or her.  It’s a story meant to convey the never-failing love of this God.

Remember, this is the beginning of Advent.  It’s the first Sunday of the new church year.  And, ironically, we’re starting near the end of the Gospel of Luke, thinking about the ends of things -- just when we’re at the beginning.  The end points us to the beginning, and the beginning points us toward the end.  One cannot be separated from the other.  So what do we do with this time in-between? 

The weeks leading up to Christmas were never intended to be times of mass consumerism.  They were to be a time of reflection and meditation in the gathering darkness.  In the same way that the somber journey of Lent leads us to the cross and then to Easter, the solemn season of Advent is meant to quiet our minds and prepare our hearts for the birth of the Christ child.

And how does Jesus respond to his own words about the end times? What does Jesus do after finishing this apocalyptic discourse?  Look at verses 37 and 38.  He teaches and meditates.  Maybe we would do well to follow his example.  Maybe we’re being called to a time of learning, paying attention, being alert, being aware, being in prayer.

Next week we will be having a service we like to call “Lightening the Load.”  It’s going to be a different kind of service than we normally have.  There will be lots of candles, songs of contemplation, and times for silence.  We will have the opportunity to settle ourselves into a different kind of preparation than the frenzied world around us pushes us to do.  It’s a preparation not spurred on by fear and dread, but borne out of hope and expectation.  It’s counter-cultural, but we will have a chance to meditate on the end of things - the losses we have endured, and the suffering going on around us.  We will do this prayerfully, as a community, to allow the Spirit to work in and through us, transforming us into a transformed, sanctified people.

So during this Advent season, hear the words of the Lord, Holy Church.  It’s understandable to be afraid.  But it is imperative to bring this fear to the One who waits with us in the darkness, and to trust ourselves to the God of Endings and New Beginnings.  Amen.