"An Opportune Time"
Luke 21:5-19
Decades ago the poet Robert Frost wrote a poem called Once By the Pacific. In this short poem, Frost describes standing on the ocean's shore on a stormy day. The restless waves crash against the shore. Dark, low-lying clouds rush past overhead. This scene evokes in Frost a sense of foreboding, and he concludes the poem:
It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age.
Someone had better be prepared for rage.
There would be more than ocean-water broken
Before God's last Put out the Light was spoken.
Well, the words we read this morning from Luke's Gospel carry a similar note of foreboding. Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the most magnificent and holy structure of that day. Then, using speech typically called apocalyptic he rattles off a whole series of unwanted events—wars and rumors of wars, insurrections, natural disasters, famines and plagues, dreadful signs in the heavens, persecutions, family betrayals, hatred directed toward Jesus' followers. When we hear scripture speak this way, we may tune it out, because it doesn't exactly fill us with cheer. Who needs so much gloom and doom? It's not what we want to hear on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. But what we want to hear and what we need to hear are often two different things. So while these ancient words sound foreign to our ears, let's not tune them out. They are written for people who find themselves living in what Frost called "an age of rage." They are written to encourage the disciples of Jesus in times of great upheaval and uncertainty.
Now, the first readers of Luke's gospel were in living in just such a time. Theirs was indeed an age of rage. When Luke wrote his Gospel late in the first century, many of the events predicted by Jesus were no longer mere predictions. They had already happened, or were currently happening. The Temple in Jerusalem that Jesus predicted would be destroyed had in fact been torn down in 70 A.D. Josephus, a Jewish historian of the period, gave a gruesome account of the destruction of the Temple and conquest of Jerusalem by the Romans:
The roar of the flames streaming far and wide mingled with the groans of the fallen victims, and, owing to the height of the hill and the mass of the burning pile, one would have thought that the whole city was ablaze…and now many who were emaciated and tongue-tied from starvation, when they beheld the sanctuary on fire, gathered strength once more for lamentations and wailing…
The Temple represented not only an architectural marvel, but the center of worship, the house of God. How, the people, wondered could this happen and what did it mean? Christians of that day must have felt they were bearing the brunt of a perfect storm of misfortune. In addition to the temple's destruction, Mt.Vesuvius had erupted in 79 A.D. spewing dreadful "signs" in the sky. Further, the persecutions, betrayals and hatred of which Jesus warned his disciples were actually taking place. As Luke chronicles in his second book, The Acts of the Apostles, some of the apostles had already been arrested, hauled before ruling authorities and forced to make a defense of their faith. And some—Stephen, for example—had been put to death.
Imagine, then, how frightened and confused these early Christians must have been. They had believed that Jesus was God's Messiah, the one who would bring God's promised reign of peace and justice to earth. But how could they keep on believing in an all-powerful, loving, gracious God in the midst of such rage and suffering? Now that these things Jesus predicted were happening, Luke's first readers were crying out: what do we do now?
And that question is as pressing today as it was in the first century. The age of rage Jesus describes has had a long life. Basically, there has never been a time without wars and rumors of wars, kingdom rising against kingdom, earthquakes, famine and plagues. Here at the beginning of the 21st century, our fears of what the future holds may be accelerated—what with the threat of nuclear winter, ecological disaster, thinning ozone, shrinking resources, exploding populations, melting ice-caps, terrorist threats.
On the front page of yesterday's Austin American Statesman are the words, "Climate change is destroying species, raising sea levels and threatening millions of people" And that's just the first sentence of the grim report. "Someone," wrote Frost, "had better be prepared for rage."
So what does Jesus say to his disciples? Amazingly, Jesus' word to his disciples is: "Do not be afraid." Do not be afraid! The ice caps are melting and Jesus says don't be afraid. The bomb is falling into more and more hands, and Jesus says do not be afraid. How is it possible to think of the future and not be terrified? You may have seen the bumper sticker that says, "If you're not appalled, you're probably not paying attention" Similarly we might say: "If you're not terrified of the future, you are probably not paying attention."
Yet disciples of Jesus from the first century to the present day have been able to live and face the future without being terrified. How is that possible? To face the future with open eyes--and still not be terrified--is possible only for those who are convinced that we have seen the future in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We don't worry about the end, because we believe that Jesus Christ is the end, the omega, of history. In his death, Jesus took upon himself the rage of the world, and in his resurrection, he demonstrated that the future is held in God's loving grasp. Apart from the faith that, in Jesus Christ, history has already come out right, how could Julian of Norwich, the 14th century mystic, have written in the midst of the Dark Ages, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."
Some will say that ours are frightening times, times of uncertainty and unprecedented threat. All that is true. But according to Jesus, these are also opportune times. This is a time to speak words of comfort, hope and assurance to a frightened public. After all, Jesus assured us that not a hair of our head will perish. I've been wondering about that expression, because it seems a number on the hairs on my head have already perished. Of course, this expression is a colorful way of saying that God knows us, loves us and will not desert us. Neither death nor the world's raging madness need terrify us.
Shortly before he was hanged in April of 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, used the brief time he had left to witness to his faith. From his prison cell, his life almost over, he penned this testimony:
O wondrous change! These hands, once so strong and active, have now been bound. Helpless and forlorn, you see the end of your deed. Yet with a sigh of relief you resign your cause to a stronger hand, and are content to do so. For one brief moment you enjoyed the bliss of freedom, only to give it back to God, that he might perfect it in glory."
Friends, you and I will not likely be called upon to make a heroic witness to our faith as did Bonhoeffer. But these are opportune times in which you and I can witness to our faith as God gives us the words and will to do so. Ours is an opportune time to share our Christian hope for a world in which evil continues to rage. Even so, do not be terrified. God's goodness will prevail.