The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity - One Year Series, 11-09-08

The Church Season of Trinity
The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity, One Year Series
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (November 9, 2008)

“AHEAD OF TIME”

Readings:
Psalm 14
Job 14:1-6
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 24:15-28

Sermon Form Deductive

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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen

The text for today is as recorded in the Gospel Lesson from the 24th chapter of St. Matthew, especially the following verse:

Matthew 24:15-28

15 “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. 18 Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. 19 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 20 Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. 22 If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. [Jesus said] 23 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. 24 For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible. 25 See, I have told you ahead of time. 26 “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the desert,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. 27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28 Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

“AHEAD OF TIME”

When one hears a Gospel lesson which includes the words abomination, desolation, prophecy of Daniel, fleeing to the mountains, taking flight, shortened days, and false Christs, we are often inclined to begin to tune our ears out, and to let our minds begin to wander. Too many words, with too many meanings, too many thoughts, that meant something way back in Jesus’ time, but we don’t see how they relate to us. We can relate to the shortened days but we don’t think we’ve ever seen in Midland, Michigan any pregnant women fleeing for the mountains. As was often said after Jesus spoke to the apostle’s, or the crowds, or the unbelievers who surrounded Him, “This is a hard reading” Our minds don’t like to engage a text like this so early in the morning, it just seems to be so very complicated, what does it all mean? While it may appear to be a complicated text, Jesus speaks with a common and very understandable theme. He is warning those people who are around Him and He is warning those people who are to come of the events and consequence of this world...and this advance warning Jesus gives

AHEAD OF TIME
(I – Jesus gives warning in this time)

Like the prophets of old, Jesus was not only predicting and warning of what would happen in the near future, He was also predicting and warning what would happen to all of everyone’s future, meaning the future of all time. The near future which Jesus spoke of here would be the oncoming fall of Jerusalem. This event in time, would happen about 30 years after Jesus’ death during the time of the Passover in the year 70 A.D. when about 1,000,000 Jews gathered in Jerusalem. In about five months the entire city of Jerusalem was totally overcome and destroyed. And while these people were overwhelmed by outside forces, they also destroyed themselves. There were differing factions and parties in the city who hated each other and were jealous of each other and did not trust each other at all. So really the Jews were their own worst enemies. Jerusalem was attacked and with great effort and at great expense, the Romans conquered wall after wall. They burned the Temple to the ground. 900,000 Jews were killed, starved, or sold as slaves, only about 100,000 survived. They became so desperate to find food, they were so hungry they ate everything they could find, even the excrement of the animals, some were later found dead with hay in their mouths.

And so it was for that the most beautiful city of the east, it was destroyed just as our Lord Jesus Christ had repeatedly foretold it ahead of time. Jesus wept over the city because of its unbelief and the continued rejection of God, His Son and the Covenant. And later after Christ’s death the destruction of Jerusalem was to be one of the severest of judgments of God upon man.

In our time we are being subjected to the ongoing attacks by satan Himself. satan uses us against each other to increase deceit and to build hatred against those who are around us. Just like the Jews in Jesus’ time we build more and more gates, fences, and walls around not cities, but our beliefs and our ideals. The world is constantly under attack from the one who would slyly overcome and overwhelm us. We are under siege with the bad news of the disasters that could harm us like earthquakes and hurricanes, financial roller coasters, or even the distress of our sickness, aging, or our failing health. We may not be eating the excrement of animals but we certainly have be inundated with the excrement of the sinful sights and sounds which seem to be increasingly dominating our televisions and internet too. Wall by wall satan tears down our thoughts of Christ and builds our hunger for the things of this world. satan ultimately has always sought to destroy the temple of God and a short time after Christ the physical temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. After the beginning of human time Adam and Eve sinned against God, and so in our time we live and breath in Adams sin and our own sin. God warned Adam in His time, the prophets warned the Israelites in their time and Jesus' warned the people in His time and for all time to repent for there will be an end of human time.

(II – Jesus gives comfort beyond all time)

The world before this time has seen great calamities, as in the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the drowning of Pharaoh's men, even a former destruction of Jerusalem, but none of these can be compared with the terrific tribulation which Jerusalem underwent, it was a time which Jesus predicted would come. But even greater still is the ongoing prediction that our timeless God gave to all of mankind. For throughout the scriptures God predicts that there would be a time when sin and evil would be overcome. God gave that promise to Adam and Eve, and they and all the prophets looked forward to the time when the Messiah would come. And just as God said, He sent His Son Jesus Christ to us. Yet Jesus was ahead of and before all time, we know that He was, “with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.”(Jn 1:2-3) Jesus came into this world and warned His people of what would happen to those who would not believe. Then He proclaimed the salvation the He would win for us. He warned of the fall of Jerusalem and He warned us that when He came again there would be a separation of the wicked from the righteous. Jesus knew ahead of time how this separating would occur too. He knew that He would go to the Cross to win the forgiveness of sins for all the world. He knew ahead of time that there would be false prophets appearing, that there would be great signs and that the people of God would face great tribulations and temptations in this world. Yet He also knew and said that “whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.”(Mk 16:16) Jesus knew that whosoever would eat of His true body and drink of His true blood would receive the forgiveness of sins.

Jesus is timeless. And so it is comforting to know that ahead of all our recorded human time, Jesus knew you, as the scriptures states, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; “(Jer 1:5) And Jesus knows you, for in your baptism you have been incorporated into His body, the body of Christ. But just as comforting or maybe even more so, Jesus knows that He will comfort you for all time. Because Christ knows that He has won for you the battle over life and death and so Jesus knows and offers you the comfort of the knowledge that the eternal is ahead of you. And so, what is ahead of us in time is His timeless peace. Amen.

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