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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, pay attention. The day is coming. The prophet Malachi warns. It is burning like an oven. All the insolent and evil-doers shall be as stubble. The day shall set them ablaze.
Dearly beloved, as we approach the last Sundays of the church year, the Holy Scriptures speak of the last things as they speak of the day of the Lord—the great day of vengeance, and the great day of salvation. This is the Sunday to take heed and to take heart, to watch and to pray.
Our gospel begins with the disciples marveling at the magnificence of the temple in Jerusalem, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings. In Mark’s gospel, they say to Jesus, “Look, master, what great stones!” But our Lord responds, “The days will come when there will not be left one stone upon another.” Jesus is prophesying about the destruction of Jerusalem, which is a foretaste of the destruction of the world. The great burning day of the Lord’s wrath, of which the prophet Malachi speaks, has been foreshadowed in Jerusalem’s destruction, both before and after the crucifixion of Christ, as portents of his return to judge the world. It is but a preview of God’s profound vengeance against sin and the destruction and judgment of the world. Words only scratch the surface of the deepest sorrow and grief that has been and will be felt. But Scripture gives us a taste.
In the book of Lamentations, one witness to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar cries out to God: “The Lord has poured out his fierce anger. My eyes are spent with weeping. My insides churn. My liver is poured out on the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people. Because infants and babies faint in the streets. They cry out to their mothers, ‘Where is bread and wine?’ They faint like slain men. Their life is poured out into their mother’s bosom. Look, O Lord, should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care?”
This is not poetic hyperbole. Latter-in analysis of the Jewish quarters at this time shows immense quantities of intestinal parasites, tapeworms, whipworms, the stuff you get from eating raw meat and food contaminated with feces. This is a shadow of hell, eternal gloom, weeping and gnashing of teeth, where the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die.
The prophet Jeremiah, eyewitness to Jerusalem’s destruction, and the traditional author of Lamentations, weeps over Jerusalem: “O that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.” Christ our Lord weeps over Jerusalem, like a mother mourning over lost children: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those that are sent to her. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.”
The church hears this weeping of Christ on the tenth Sunday after Trinity, roughly the time of year around which Christ’s words about Jerusalem’s destruction were fulfilled. To remember this, how our Lord’s words were fulfilled, there was a unique tradition in the Missouri Synod to actually read sections from an eyewitness account of Jerusalem’s destruction on this Sunday.
In this account, Josephus writes such things as, “Many thousands of Jews were slain. The soldiers spared neither old nor young, not those with child nor infants in the cradle. The Jordan River could not be passed because of the heaps of dead bodies in it. Countless died from famine in the siege, such that the dearest friends fell to fighting and stabbing one another over food. Some fell to such hunger that they ate the dung of animals, the leather of their belts and shoes. A mother killed, roasted, and ate her son.” The wrath of God is a terrible thing. And this is the time of year that we especially hear these stories.
We should let the shocking images catch our attention so that we open our eyes. And these dreadful words should sink into our ears so that they perk up. And we should let the tears of Jeremiah and our Lord soften our hearts so that we may fear God, repent, and ready ourselves for the Lord’s return. The Apostle Paul writes to Timothy, “In these last days, hard times shall come.”
Beloved, the signs are around us. Grief and misery, storms, wars, rumors of wars, bloodshed, famine, hunger. Do not be deceived. Pay attention to these signs. And learn that this present world is no paradise. Do not settle yourselves too firmly nor get too comfortable. This is what Jesus means when he says, “Watch and stay awake.” The world seeks to distract you, weigh you down, weigh down your hearts with its cares and pleasures until you fall asleep. But the world will be caught unawares, our Lord says, and they will fear and tremble. This will be the beginning of eternal excruciating punishment.
But not for you, beloved. You are in the world, but not of the world. You are the children of God. Christ warns you so that you do not become despondent, but eagerly look forward to his coming. Great terror and wrath always accompany God’s greatest acts of salvation. Plagues, darkness, the angel of death terrorized Egypt before Israel’s greatest deliverance. When you see the signs and suffering all around you, you long to see the great day of the Lord, not as your judgment, but as your salvation.
The reason you can take comfort and longingly pray such things as, “Come Lord Jesus, thy kingdom come, deliver us from evil,” is that for those of you who are in Christ, there is no condemnation. The great day of the Lord’s wrath has already passed. Remember what Christ says, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again.” Jesus was speaking of the temple of his body, the place where the Godhead dwells bodily, and the place where sacrifice was made for your sins.
The body of Christ was besieged by Romans on the cross, surrounded on every side. The desolation of Jerusalem is nothing compared to the Son of God, being forsaken on the cross by his father, as he pays for your sins by the shedding of his blood. As mothers mourned their fainting children when Jerusalem fell, women wept over Christ, and the sword pierced Mary’s heart with grief as his holy flesh was mangled and suspended between heaven and earth. As children cried out for want of food and drink, the virgin Son cried out, “I thirst.”
As dark as the days were, where young and old lay slain together in the streets, it is on the cross that the sun withdrew its light in the middle of the day, as the eternal sun, the everlasting God, breathed his dying breath. Christ weeps over Jerusalem, over those who refuse to come under his tender wings. But come, heed his call; you stand safely here at the cross, under the shelter of the shadow of his outstretched arms and wings. You see the holy temple of God pierced, with vivifying blood and living waters flowing from its side.
So when these things begin to take place, straighten up. Raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near. This is the Son of righteousness of which Malachi speaks, with healing in his wings. If sun and moon should hold their light, if seas swell, should earthquake and thunders crash, do not fear. The Son of righteousness comes, and he will be our light, and he will make all things new. He will bring heaven to earth.
And rather than shouts of war and bloodshed, of tumult and confusion, he will unite our voices to the heavenly chorus at the marriage feast of the Lamb that roars like many waters, like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, which sings, “Hallelujah, for the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns.” Let us rejoice and exalt and give him glory. The marriage of the Lamb has come, and the bride has made herself ready.
As we sigh and long for that eternal day, let us unite our hearts with Christ our Savior, and keep them safe with him. Let us eagerly keep vigil and pray with the psalmist: “Unto thee I lift up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look upon the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden are upon the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God.”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.