The Church Season of Advent
Advent 2 – Populus Sion
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI December 05, 2010
Advent 2 – Populus Sion
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI December 05, 2010
“What is Coming on the World”
Readings:
Malachi 4:1-6
Psalm 50:1-15
Romans 15:4-13
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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’s message is as recorded in the Gospel lesson from the 21st chapter of St. Luke, especially the following verses,
Luke 21:25-36 (NIV)
25 [Jesus said] “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. 26 Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. 27 At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” 29 He told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. 30 When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. 31 Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. 32 “I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. 34 “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. 35 For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. 36 Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said, “Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world.”(v. 26) Well maybe this week we didn’t faint but certainly more than a few of us became faint upon hearing that one of the members of this church, David Larson, had suddenly passed away. Hearing of a 51 year-old person suddenly dying does make one stop and think and might even strike terror into ones heart. But every form of terror in our lives whether it be personal or even from a natural disaster is a glimpse of the end times. The prophet Haggai writes “thus says the LORD of hosts: “Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land; and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory,” says the LORD of hosts. Isaiah also prophecies the earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall totter like a hut; its transgression shall be heavy upon it, and it will fall, and not rise again.” Natural disasters are scary thing. If an earthquake, fire, flood, ice storm, blizzard, tornado, or tsunami doesn’t prove the world is ending, nothing will. Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel, “when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.”(v. 28)
And waiting for redemption is perhaps the last thing on your mind when disaster strikes. You’re taught to be prepared. Some of you might recall back in the day a training video called, “duck and cover” in preparation for a nuclear bomb. Now and then, you might see a sign for a “fallout shelter”. Some of you may keep a stash of food and water just in case of a terrorist attack on our country or some other unforeseen calamity. While he Cold War may be over and the Iron Curtain may have fallen, the end times still looms large in the minds of Christians.
Why are we so scared of the end of the world? It is the great unknown. Our sin-sick brain cannot understand what it means to see “the powers of the heavens…shaken.”(v.26) We don’t understand what it will be like to have a new body and soul. We have not seen someone rise from the dead on command. Never before have we seen what life is like beyond what life is like for us right now. Living in the presence of Almighty God in the heavenly mansions is beyond even our imagination. Certainly your “heart fails…from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth.”(v. 34)
It has been written that, “Wretched are they who are of a double mind, and of a doubting heart; who say, ‘These things we have heard even in the times of our fathers; but behold, we have grown old and none of them has happened to us.’” Fools, compare yourselves to a tree: take the vine. First it sheds, then it buds, then leaves, then flowers, and after that the sour grape, then the ripened fruit.”(St. Clement)
That last bit about the tree sounds familiar, doesn’t it? In fact that writer used the words of Jesus Christ from today’s Holy Gospel. Jesus uses an illustration about a fig tree and all trees to explain the signs that precede His final advent. When a tree buds, you know summer is near. So it is with our Lord’s coming. When unexplainable things in nature happen, you know that this world will pass away and a new world is coming soon.
“Look up and lift up your heads.”(v. 28) Do not catch yourself saying Jesus is a liar when He bids you consider the fig tree and all trees. The great Elijah prophesied by Malachi has come and John the Baptist is his name. He prepares the way of the Lord in the preaching of repentance, not the preaching of complacency. The last words of the Old Testament lesson bid you “remember the Law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.”(Malachi 4:4) The fig tree is turning green even though winter is here with us for awhile.
So if you think about it we have a summer sort of Savior. For Jesus Christ takes those languishing in the winter of discontent and shakes them awake with the preaching of the Law. You either remain discontent and die for all eternity or you repent and are renewed through the forgiveness of sins. No tree surgeon takes a dead branch, bores a hole in a living tree, sticks the dead branch into the living tree, and makes the branch alive.
Yet Jesus Christ does this very thing. The living God sows His Word into your life. His living Word turns your heart of stone into a heart of flesh. The living Word draws you to the font of Holy Baptism, where your sin is washed away. The washing of repentance and renewal draws close once again in the words of Holy Absolution. Sin is forgiven and washed away. Your transgressions are as far from you as the east is from the west. He grafts you through baptism into His Vine of righteousness. Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”(John 15:5)
The living Word draws you to the Altar to receive nourishment of forgiveness and life in Christ’s True Body and True Blood. As often as you eat His Body and drink His Blood, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
What a day it will bring when Jesus calls us! All the worrying and fretting about the world crumbling around us will be forgotten. When the earth quakes, when stars fall from heaven, when nation rises against nation, when waves roar and foam out of control, and when all the world has no idea what’s happening, you will “look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.”(v. 28) This may not sound like a message of hope, but it is. What is here today is gone tomorrow. The old hymn rings out to us, “I am but a stranger here, heaven is my home.”(Hymnal LSB #748) Those words remind us that we are but wayfaring strangers passing through a pilgrim land. David Larson was reminded of that just last week and he went home to be with his savior. David was “counted worthy to escape all these thing that will come to pass.”(v. 36) And for all who are baptized and believe you too, have been counted worthy, by the worthy Lamb who was slain to set you free from the travails of this world. And to be freed by Christ from sin is to no longer feel “faint from terror” or to be, “apprehensive of what is coming on the world”(v. 26) For the birth pangs of the end of the world are the birth pangs of a new heaven and a new earth, it is the home of righteousness which God in Christ Jesus prepares for you. Amen.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
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