Given by Sherry Black How many times and in how many ways do we look forward to “the day.” You know, that special day: a wedding day, the beginning of vacation, opening day of baseball season. What are the special days in your life, the ones that you look forward to with great anticipation and the promise of the future? For some that day might be Christmas, or the birth of a child—or grandchild. Or the first day of retirement. For me, it’s that elusive Ordination Day, a day I have dreamed of and worked towards for years. But sometimes “The day” is a day that strikes fear and dread in our hearts: the day we lose our job, the day a family member dies, the day a divorce is final, or the day someone goes off to fight a war. Or maybe it’s the day of the storm, Katrina, 9/11: days of tragedy. The Bible, and our lessons today in particular, speaks a lot of the Day of the Lord. And the day of the Lord includes both great anticipation—and the great tragedy of judgment. In the Old Testament, some of the synonyms for the day of the Lord include: the day of darkness The day of the Lord for the Jews was an anticipated day, a day of fulfillment. It was the day when all God’s promises would be fulfilled and come to completion. It was the restoration of the Garden of Eden before the fall. It’s is God’s victory battle. While it was also seen as a day of suffering, of final judgment poured out on all nations, it included the idea that a holy remnant would be saved from judgment and pass through to a new eschatological future in which God would give Israel special treatment. So, besides being a time of judgment, it will also be a time of salvation as God delivers the remnant of Israel and restores His people to the promised land. In our Old Testament lesson, the prophet Malachi tells of both aspects of The Day of the Lord: both the good and awesome, and the bad, the horrible. For the sinful, it will be a day of judgment and of burning. But for the faithful, for those who revere the Lord, he promises that the sun of righteousness will rise and bring healing. And then Malachi ends the Old Testament with a promise for the prophet Elijah to come—and 400 years later he did in the person of John the Baptist. But that’s another story. Im the New Testament the idea of Day of the Lord includes the final appearance of the Son of Man in his glory, and Christ speaks of his day as the day of the ultimate revelation of his glory. Paul writes of not of the day of the Lord, but of the Day of Jesus Christ, the day of the judgment of the world in which Jesus returns in glory and to judge the whole world. In many ways Jesus’ ministry marks the inauguration of the Day of the Lord, in tension with the idea that he will yet return and judge the world on the final Day. Again there are many phrases in the New Testament for that day: the day of judgment And finally it is simply referred to as “the day” or “that day.” Our Gospel speaks of the suffering that will take place in the Day of the Lord. During the time of waiting for the glorious appearance of Jesus, there will be persecution, trials and testing. This text, and others like it, are not meant to be blueprints of events that will take place, but Jesus’ words are meant to encourage us to persevere and be steadfast. He is trying to be reassuring, even though if we really took his word seriously they would strike terror in our hearts. Like Mark Twain says, the bible shouldn’t be read to small children—it’s too frightening. Imagine telling your children that a tornado is coming and that it will rip your house from it’s foundation and scatter your belongings all over the county and pretty much wipe out all that you have—this is the message that the disciples heard! But then Jesus tells them it’s going to be okay. Somehow it will all be okay. Tough words—would they even hear the promise, or dwell on the tragedy? Tough for the disciples, and tough for us. We don’t like to hear these parts of the Bible. Maybe that’s why people are putting their hopes on some kind of rapture where Christians are spared from the worst. “It’s far easier to hope for escape than to look for comfort in the middle of the storm.”1 They don’t want to be “Left Behind.” But even though we’d rather hear something else, Jesus doesn’t promise escape. We want to be delivered from trials and persecutions, and he promises persecution and trouble. We want guaranteed protection, and Jesus promises that the world will hate us on account of his name. The world can persecute and even kill his followers—like it did to Jesus—but no ultimate harm can come to those who are in Christ. If Jesus is our Lord and Savior, he has already triumphed over suffering and death and his triumph is our hope. Our faith claims that God can bring life out of death. So now what? We are to trust in the Lord, trust that he will bring us through. We aren’t to sit around waiting for the end to come, like some of those Thessalonians. In the Epistle, Paul criticized the thinking of some of the followers, that since the day of fulfilment had already come with the coming of Jesus, all they had to do was sit around and wait for His return. In his letter, Paul offered himself as an example, working hard and being a burden to no one. Just so, they should all work—and so should we. We must be responsible in this world as we await the return of Christ. So what do we do with all this? First of all, we need to take seriously the reality of Judgment. Jesus spoke of the distruction of the temple, that this huge monument to workmanship, to Herod and to Judaism, would be reduced to rubble. The temple was a quarter of a mile long, perched on a hill, and from a distance it looked like snow. It was made of marble, with Silver and Gold doors. “the temple seemed to be not only the symbol but also the embodiment of Israel’s relationship to God. . . . [When it was destroyed only about 40 years later] it was as though in the judgment of God the pride and ostentation which most men called religion had been weighed in the balances and found wanting, and therefore cast down into dust.”2 We need to be careful that we are not worshipping temples rather than God. Our church building, or Anglicanism, or even The Episcopal Church, are not to be our idols. The treasure of the Church is it’s people, the body of Christ, his arms and legs and hands and feet, at work in the world. Secondly, we need to make sure that we don’t underestimate the prophetic nature of Jesus—without getting too wrapped up in predicting the future. The present and the future are not all that there is to life. We need to work on our relationship with God here and now, but stay awake and alert to the future coming of Christ. We must not gloss over the graphic and horrifying nature of the end-time judgment. Perhaps reflecting on this will make you ponder your standing with God. What would life without God mean? What would it look like? The judgment will come, and we will be accountable, but in Jesus, God provides the means for our forgivness. We cannot save ourselves—but we can be saved. Our own self-righteosness leads to death, but sharing in Christ’s righteousness, the sun of rightousness, will lead to life and healing. Finally, we must keep watch, stand firm, and trust in God. God is in control, directing the affairs of the human race. He was in charge when the Jesus died, and when the temple was destroyed, and on 9/11, and when Katrina hit the gulf coast, and he’s in charge today. In the end Jesus is not interested in telling us precisely what the future holds but rather Who holds the future. And when you know Who holds the future, then you know Who holds your every moment in this present time as well. It is that confidence that allows us to rest easy when Jesus tells us that he will be with us and will even provide us with words to say if and when the world presses in on us and persecutes us for his sake.3 Even so, Come Lord Jesus. Amen. 1 http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/thisWeek/index.php 2 Bowie, Walter Russell. The Compassionate Christ: Reflections on the Gospel of Luke. New York: Abingdon Press, 1965, (271). 3 http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/thisWeek/index.php |