Ending or Beginning?

 Luke 21:5-19

November 13, 2022

The Beginning Is Near
Imaginary Foundation

 

As a kid in the 70’s and 80’s

I used to love watching shows

on TV about Nostradamus.

They stick out in my mind because

I would watch them with both interest and dread.

 

Remember Nostradamus?

They have some current shows about him,

But he was all the rage in the 70’s and 80’s.

He was a  man who lived in the 16^th century

who wrote predictions that some people felt

had come true in history.

The predictions were kind of vague poetry,

but people interpreted them and said that

they predicted world events.

The shows said that he predicted

like the rise of Napoleon and Hitler.

And the assassination of JFK.

It was pretty convincing stuff.

 

And then my favorite part of the show

was when they would try and interpret

some of his poetry and apply it to future events.

Does the “Great war with the eagle and bear”

mean that there will be a war between Russia and the US?

Does “the celestial fire” mean that a meteor

will hit the earth.

 

I would watch these in dread and delight

wondering what the future would hold for our world.

I envisioned the end of everything.

Everything familiar and beloved.

 

Even if you don’t remember these Nostradamus

shows, you have seen preachers try and do this

on television. They talk about the future in horrifying terms.

And these kind of preachers tend to tell everyone:

desperate times call for desperate measures.

They want people to choose what they say is good,

and to hate and fight the evil they determine.

They usually encourage people, overtly or covertly,

to resort to violence.

 

We’ve seen this kind of take hold of people lately.

The message is: Win at all costs.

We’re right and chosen by God, and THEY are wrong.

Defeat whoever their leader defines as the enemy.

Do whatever is necessary, the time is now, the end is near.

 

Jesus might seem to be doing a little dooms-day

talking in today’s gospel.  

He’s talking about the future in frightening terms. 

Earthquakes, wars, famine, disease, and persecution. 

It’s a hard message to hear from Jesus,

one that has thrown many people into sleepless frenzies,

and many people have used Jesus words to manipulate others.

 

But I don’t think Jesus is saying these things to make people

frightened. I don’t think he’s telling people these things

for them to give up hope.  

I actually think he’s saying these things to try and comfort people

 

Jesus is saying: Terrible things will happen,

these things happen all the time.

You will see plenty of pain and destruction, violence,

and death, maybe even your own death.

But when you see and hear these things: don’t be afraid.

Because that is not the end.

God has not lost, hope has not lost, love has not lost.

Jesus wants us to put things like this in perspective.

Things may seem disastrous, unrecoverable, desperate.

But don’t believe what you see. It is not the end.

Do not give up hope, do not give up what you’ve learned.

Do not give up on God.

 

This temple that they were sitting by

when Jesus said this was amazing.

Many of the stones that were used to build it weighed 28 tons.

Some were bigger than that.

the outer court could hold 400,000 people

it was a marvel of architecture and ingenuity

It was beautiful and impressive,

It still would be today if it were still standing.

 

So when Jesus to talked about the destruction of this place

The disciples’ imagination must have been racing:

what kind of force would make that happen?

What kind of violence and destruction would our people see?

And this was God’s house, where God’s people came to worship.

If the temple was destroyed, would all our people be destroyed?

And what would become of God? 

Would the world lose trust in God if God’s house 

and God’s people were gone? 

But there’s more to people’s understanding of this temple 

than just its might and beauty and strength and the worship of God.

 

Even though it was God’s temple and 

where the people of God worshipped, the disciples and other Jewish people knew how

King Herod had built it: He levied brutal taxes on the people.

He worked in collusion with the Romans 

who oppressed Jewish citizens. 

He built it abusing thousands of slaves and low paid workers.

  

And they also knew why King Herod built it to be

so big and so impressive. 

He built it so he could out-do the pagan temples 

built by pagan rulers. 

It was a statement by Herod to show off his 

choice of gods and to show his own power and glory off before others.

 

In a world of many Gods, the ruler with the biggest temple wins.

Herod believed he had won.

The temple was proof of God’s greatness.

And Herod’s glory was solidified in those 28 ton stones.

Herod’s faith rested on his achievement,

it rested on the grandeur of the building,

it’s strength, it’s ability to stand, it’s beauty.

To many people the temple itself had become an idol.

 

But Jesus said it would come down.

So the end of the temple would also

mean the end of Jewish dominance in the area.

It would be the end of the Jewish place and rule in Jerusalem.

It would be an end to the life they knew.

But it would also mean it would mean the end of the hypocrisy.

and an end to Herod’s tyrannous rule.

What looked like an end, could actually be a beginning.

 

Jesus says, you will see many frightening things,

But the end of the temple is not the end of God.

Just like the cross was not the end of Christ,

it’s not the end of God’s relationship with God’s people.

 

Of course we know now, the temple 

would be destroyed less than 50 years after Jesus lived.

The people who read or heard the gospel of Luke for the first time

would have remembered it first-hand.

Many people died, many things were destroyed

and life would never be exactly the same for any of them.

 

 But like we have seen happen in so many other places,

the remnants stood up in the midst of the devastation

and doctored their wounds and helped one another and

bravely went on to the next day

adjusting their lives around the calamities,

with renewed faith and stronger dependence on God

because of what they’ve been through.

 

And of course, we have seen terrible events in our lifetime

There was AIDS, 9-11, there have been terrible earthquakes,

hurricanes, and tsunamis, the pandemic,

nuclear disasters, ongoing fires, rising tides and floods,

There have been world wars, nuclear bombs,

endless wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemin, now Ukraine.

the list goes on and on and changes in every era.

 

And through all these events, the world has changed.

and natural and human disasters are just one part of those changes. 

Technology, attitudes, the way we behave, sexuality, 

racial relations,  economic situations, things that Nostradamus

didn’t even touch on have changed the world.

The world is not same place that it was in the 80’s

 

And yet, when you think about it,

there is still so much that has remained the same.

The end of everything that I feared

still hasn’t really materialized.

 

The devil wants to tell us that all hope is lost.

That desperate times call us to give up.

The devil would like us to resort to our worst behavior,

to give up on our integrity, our moral compass,

and to give up on the power of love and God.

But Jesus tells us, don’t believe it.

Even if bad things happen all around you,

don’t believe that hope is lost.

Jesus is saying whenever you see the end,

it is also a hope for a new beginning.

 

There will be wars and rumors of wars,

Nation will rise against nation kingdom against kingdom,

there will be earthquakes, plagues, and dreadful signs everywhere. 

But do not lose hope.

 

God does not stand or fall with buildings or

governments, or economies, or cities, or churches, or leaders.

God does not depend on things remaining the same.

And God’s relationship with God’s people does not depend

on the outward signs of peace or prosperity or beauty

so we shouldn’t look to them for our security.

 

This world is flawed and fragile and volatile

but our trust is not in the world or what it holds.

Jesus is telling his friends and us:

Don’t anchor your faith in the strength of a temple,

Or in success, or in beauty, or your good fortune.

 

Rest your faith in God and God alone through all things.

Then you will be able to see strength

and beauty and joy in the midst of our struggles,

because you know that God is always there with us.