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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text comes from the Gospel reading about the end times. You may be seated. The last book of the New Testament, the Revelation of St. John, was the last book written by God’s chosen Apostle John to finish out and complete the corpus of the New Testament. It was written around 98 AD.
And the next to last verse of the last chapter, of the last book of the New Testament, Jesus said, and the Apostle John responded, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” Now, knowing that the master of the house is going to return moves you and me, as those who have been entrusted with this house, to say, “Come, Lord Jesus, come.”
And such a conviction of His coming again with glory to release us from this world and the sin and the suffering and the sorrow brings a perspective to all of our past because it’s all been washed in the blood of the Lamb, given to you in your baptism.
And such a conviction of His imminent return puts perspective on the present: what else matters? And such a conviction of His coming again with glory puts perspective on the future, for the future is bright. Right? You know what your future is—plans that will prosper you in heaven. Tears that will be dried. Pains and sorrows lifted from your shoulders and from your heart. “Leaping out of the stall shall you go like a young calf.” And so we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus, come.”
Now, our flesh may be surprised when that moment happens. But it’s not. That’s going to be normal. We will be surprised according to our flesh, but our spirit will overwhelm our flesh and say, “Yes, my salvation has come. My deliverance is here.” Like prisoners being released, those who have been kept in darkness, seeing only a shaft of light, now come to the full light of God’s glorious eternity for you, His children.
Now ever since you were a little girl or a little boy, the prophets of this world have been preaching this: God does not see, nor does God care about what you do, for you are the height of all of God’s things. He is not. This is not God’s world; this is man’s world. Do as you wish. Fulfill your destiny, for you are all that matters because it’s all about you. That’s what the prophets of this world have been preaching.
And you know many people who have drank deep at that Kool-Aid, and that’s how they view life and their existence in this life. And there will be no leaping when Christ returns. They will not go out leaping.
We know He’s coming soon, but we know He is in charge. All things are in His hands. Now in the text, there are two destructions foretold. And it’s important to note that these two destructions are distinct one from the other.
One. The first destruction of which Jesus speaks happened within just 37 years after Jesus ascended into heaven. It was the destruction of Jerusalem. The other destruction of which Jesus speaks in that text is about the end of the world when He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead. And we shall be rescued and freed.
And we meet that day not with death, fear, and trembling, but we meet that day with confidence because our God is drawing near. Not a God, our God. Your God is drawing near.
Now the first destruction of which He speaks, you may know about historically and you may not. It happened around 70 AD. The Roman Empire had had their belly full up with the Jews in Jerusalem and the inner squabbles and the inner problems, and they wanted to take care of matters like Romans did at that time. They slaughtered nearly a million, as written by an historian named Josephus who lived during that time and wrote about what happened during that time.
The second thing that they did to Jerusalem was to completely level it—level it like what modern-day bulldozers can do, where not one stone is on top of the other. And so the greatest edifice in all of Jerusalem was the temple. The greatest edifice in Jerusalem, which was the temple, was dismantled stone by stone so that no longer did any one stone sit upon another.
And Jesus told them the signs that were to precede 70 AD. Jesus told them there would be false Christs or Messiahs coming and saying, “I am He, follow me.” He said that there would be wars, rumors of wars, that in some parts of the earth there would be earthquakes and famines. There would be signs in the heavens. And there would be persecution and hatred for Christians.
Now all of those things happened between 33 A.D. when Jesus ascended into heaven and 70 A.D. when the destruction of Jerusalem occurred. God had given them clear, concise signs. You would think, having seen these signs fulfilled so clearly, everybody would repent and believe. It didn’t happen.
And yet the signs were so clear. The Christians repented clearly, but the unbelievers looked at this and said, “Eh, that’s a form of pride.” A pride that says, “Oh, it’ll never happen to me. It won’t happen to my family. It won’t happen to us. It won’t happen here to this nation.”
That’s false pride. And of that we must repent. God is in control. And His Word will remain. Heaven and earth will not. But God’s Holy Word will. And He makes it very clear that in the midst of all of this destruction, not one hair of your head will be perishing. You will be spared and saved. Even if you die at that time, you shall live forever. That’s really what He is trying to say.
Now the second destruction, which has a lot more to do with you and me, however, the first destruction should be noted because everything that Jesus said came to pass. The second destruction of which He speaks, which is the end of the world, is accompanied by the very same signs: false Christs and false prophets appearing, claiming, “I am He, follow me.” Wars and rumors of wars. Earthquakes and famines. Signs in the heavens. Persecution and hatred.
Very similar signs and very similar treatment of God’s children, the church. When Jesus taught these things, He was not teaching His apostles and His people how to predict the future. But boy, there are a lot of unfortunate believers who think that now is the time or it’s going to occur at this date, and this is all a part of the… God never taught the people how to interpret the future.
What He did teach them was how to interpret these signs. That’s more important. So, if you’re having chest pain when you walk and exercise, God is giving you a sign: Hello, wake up, smell the coffee. Probably need to have your heart checked out.
Knowing how to interpret signs—that’s really what Jesus is saying. These things that you and I have seen in this world, wars and rumors of wars, Kingdom rising against kingdom, nation against nation, all of these signs are signs for you to say, “Wow, I need to repent. I need to remember what matters in this life. I need to know He’s going to rescue me from this that is plaguing me, that is causing me anguish, that is causing me sleepless nights.”
He will rescue me in His time and in His way, but He will rescue me for heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will never pass away. So, we do need to repent in this country. Not as a country, but at least as Christians, we need to repent.
Can’t get everybody else to repent. That’s God’s Word that does that. But God’s Word’s talking to you and me right now, telling us, “Look around us.” It says to us very clearly, the world is coming to an end.
Oh yeah, there was another sign in Chicago that happened earlier this year, didn’t it? The Cubs won the World Series? Yes. I thought something was going to freeze over before that ever happened. That’s not the sign of which Jesus speaks, but the sign of which Jesus speaks should cause us to say what Jesus said to us in this text.
Now, He says, “When these things begin to take place, straighten up, be confident. Don’t walk around like a sourpuss thinking that you’ve lost the war. You have the victory. Lift up your heads,” He says, “and He’s implying in confidence you are God’s child.”
I don’t know if your father ever told you to stand up straight and walk with your chin up. Mine did. “Stand up straight and walk. Be confident of who you are, God’s child.” When these things begin to take place, straighten up, raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. Your redemption, your victory, your release from captivity, your wilderness journeying is over.
But He also knows how we struggle. We look around us and try to figure out. We have no confidence. Jesus said, “Watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness, and the cares of this life.” That was one of the things about which Jesus spoke—the parable of the seed and the sower. The thorns that came up and choked it, the cares and concerns of this life overwhelmed them.
That’s Satan’s playground with your fears and my fears. Watch yourselves. That day will come upon you suddenly like a trap, and it’ll come upon all. Watch yourselves. Stay awake at all times, Jesus said, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place.
Now, when I ask you to kneel in prayer, and when I pray, listen. For the last 12 years, I have been praying this prayer every single Sunday, and you’ve been praying it with me—to keep us steadfast until He calls us home. For 12 years, 52 Sundays. That’s 600 and some odd Sundays.
Wait a minute, no, that’s not right. It’s a lot of Sundays. Do the math, middle schoolers. You have been prayed over, and you yourself have been praying to be steadfast. “Keep me, Lord, that I may greet that day with joy and not sorrow. Lift up my head. Straighten me up, Lord, that I may know with confidence You will take care of me and my babies and my grandbabies and my parents and my family and my loved ones. You will take care of them and keep them.”
At the end of the creed that we’re going to confess this morning, we’re going to do the apostles instead of the Nicene because at the end of the apostles’ creed is a great statement. It says, “I believe in the communion of saints.” That comforted me when I was away from you and my family in Iraq. Because I knew when I was communing there, though it was a different time zone and in a different place, I was communing with you here at this altar because there is only one communion of saints—all who believe in Jesus.
That is your comfort. When you gather here, you’re not only communing with those who are living; you are communing with all those who have preceded you in the faith and are joyfully leaping like calves in heaven.
The forgiveness of sins is why you stand and confess that with confidence. The resurrection of the body, which is why Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and I will do what with it in three days? Raise it up,” just like He will raise you up.
The temple is no longer in Jerusalem. A dome of the rock sits on it, a pagan temple for the religion of Islam. There is the temple. In that bread and in that wine is the temple. In that word read and preached is Christ the temple. In your baptism is Christ the temple. He is present with you now.
If you’ve never seen a calf frolic outside, YouTube it. Their faces, especially like the white-faced calves that are so bright white they’re not dirtied yet. And when the farmer comes out to let them out of the stall, they’re so excited because they’ve been cooped up like a little kid. And they go out like at recess, frolicking. They give praise to their Creator, though they have not a soul that was saved by Jesus.
They give praise to their Creator in their frolicking and leaping. You, on the other hand, have a soul that has been redeemed by the temple, Christ Himself, God in flesh. And He sends you out each day that you may go out leaping because your life is in His hands.
And the pierced hands of your Lord care for you. Straighten up. Lift your head. Your redemption is drawing nigh. Heaven and earth will pass away. But Jesus said, “My words, my power, my promises will never pass away.”
In the name of Jesus, amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
