“THE END IS NEAR!” Who cares…

St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Lowry, MN

Pentecost 23 | 11.17.2019 | Luke 21:5-9; 25-28

Today, Jesus refers to the BIG ending, the end-of-times, the great apocalypse, the final judgment day…and he says this:

…they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. (Luke 21:27-28).

There’s a lot of talk these days, and seemingly always about the ‘end times.’ I’m talking about the end-of-times chatter like the people standing on street corners with signs that read ‘The End is Near!’, like the crazy Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye rapture books like The Late Great Planet Earth or Left Behind series, and their even more ridiculous movies meant to scare the heck out of us about ‘Judgment Day’; I’m also talking about the History Channel specials, and the TV preachers like Pat Robertson and Jack Van Impe who flood TV channels with their erroneous calculations and predictions for when the world is going to end.

All of these sources shouting about the end of the world have at least two things in common: a timetabled prediction for when it will happen and fear mongering. They supposedly decode parts of the bible, throw them into their buffoonery calculator, and then use their predictions to scare the hell out everybody. Literally. They make crazy predictions to scare you into believing and acting your way into heaven by staving off an apparent Rambo Jesus who’s ready to open fire on all the did-too-little sinners of earth.

But there’s a problem for all the end-of-time predictions and fear mongering preachers out there. Their problem…is Jesus.

Because, for instance, here’s what Jesus has to say about predicting timetable for the end of times:

• …about that day and hour no one knows… (Mt 24:36/Mk 13:32).
• And from our text today: Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come…and say…‘The time is near!’…do not [follow] them (Luke 21:8).

Hmm.

Apparently all these people decoding the Bible in order to determine the date and time of the end failed to get to the…part…of…the…Bible…where Jesus says no one will know the date and time of the end.

As one New Testament scholar says:

The force of Jesus’ warning in vv.7-11 is that the disciples should not be misled by the false prophets who will come claiming…that the time is near. Such claims are the words of charlatans who prey upon the gullible… (see v. 8).[1]

So, Jesus eviscerates any notion that this day can be predicted. Now, what about fearing this day as a violent and scary day?

Because the Left Behind series, the Late Great Planet Earth, and all these ‘rapture’ fear mongers on TV all describe this end-time event as something that will be destructive, terrifying, bloody, chaotic, and turbulent. BE AFRAID!

But, wait…does Jesus say. Well, in our text today he says this about the end of times:

• Do not be terrified…when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. (Luke 21:27-28).

So, Jesus does NOT say there will be some terrifying rapture with violence and destruction in its wake.

Now that I’ve said the word rapture a couple times, I better say a bit briefly about ‘rapture’. Those of you unfamiliar with rapture theology, GOOD. I hope it stays that way. And I am not going to dignify it by trying to explain it. But I will quote a biblical scholar who has this to say on the supposed scary and violent end-of-times rapture:

The Rapture is a racket…this theology distorts God’s vision for the world. In place of healing, the Rapture proclaims escape. In place of Jesus’ blessing of peacemakers, the Rapture…glorifies violence and war. In place of Revelation’s vision of the Lamb’s vulnerable self-giving love, the Rapture celebrates…lion-like wrath…Sadly, what gets ‘left behind’ by the Rapture plotline is the Bible itself.[2]

BURN.

I hammer all of this…because there’s enough fear in the world and in our lives—real or imagined—and what is Jesus’ message about the end times? His message is comfort, promise, and reassurance. “The gospel offers not a way of predicting the end of the world”; rather, it offers us “the spiritual resources to cope with adversity and hardship.”[3] According to Jesus, our ending, whenever that may be, is “not a time of fear and uncertainty, but one of encouragement and hope.”[4]

And it was because of those words of promise that Martin Luther reportedly said this to the apocalyptic fear mongers of his day: “[Even] If I knew the world were going to end tomorrow I would plant a tree.”[5]

 As if to say, Oh, God is bringing in the end-of-times? Who cares? I’m confident in the love of God. I’ll just carry on, thanks.

As I have said from this pulpit before and am more than happy to say again: put that in your apocalyptic pipe and smoke it.

Sisters and brothers, because of the love of God we should walk with such swagger, boldness, and confidence.

And such confidence in the grace of God makes me think of one of my favorite quotes on life by one of America’s greatest modern poets, Charles Bukowski:

We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

 I love that…because what I think he’s is saying is…Have some fun. Work for peace. Laugh at anxiety. Be courageous in the face of death. And these are those are the things to which we are empowered by the grace of God.

Because of who God is and God promises to be, we don’t tremble at the end of times. In fact, we live so confidently in God’s grace that the end of times and death ought to tremble at US!

When Jesus gives us this sermon about the end of things here in Luke, it “isn’t a [fear mongering] timetable — it’s a letter of comfort and courage and invitation” to seizing the life given to us with “faith and confidence in Christ.”[6]

Christ promises redemption, not destruction – that is a promise made physical in our baptisms. So as any fear threatens to grip you, remember your baptism. Remember your identity and hope in the Christ who claims you. And may such a promise lead you to witness to the God of life, to plant apple trees, to stand up…[and] raise your heads (v. 28), to laugh at the odds, and live life so well that Death will tremble to take YOU. Amen.

     [1] R. Alan Culpepper, The Gospel of Luke, The New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. Leander Keck (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), v. 9, 402.

     [2] Barbara R. Rossing, The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation (Boulder: Westeview Press, 2004), 1.

     [3] Culpepper, The Gospel of Luke, 402.

     [4] Walter Brueggemann, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year C (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 602.

     [5] Rossing, Rapture Exposed, 16.

     [6] David J. Lose, “A Public Works Project,” Dear Working Preacher, workingpreacher.org, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2869.

Resurrection: Mystery and Promise

St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Lowry, MN

Pentecost 22 | 11.10.2019 | Luke 20:27-38

In Jesus’ time there were two dominant groups of Jewish leaders—the Pharisees and the Sadducees with whom he often experienced resistance. Today we see a run-in between Jesus and the Sadducees. What is particular about this group is that they were known to have not believed in resurrection.

Because of Jesus’ growing popularity and his critiques of power and authority, people in power, like the Sadducees – were constantly trying to trap Jesus with complicated questions that might embarrass or discredit him.

Our story today is an example of this.

The Sadducees approached Jesus and virtually said: “‘Teacher’…so we’ve been hearing all your talk about resurrection, and we have a question. When a man marries a woman, and the man eventually dies, and the woman gets remarried…we’re wondering, ‘In the resurrection…whose wife will the woman be’ (Luke 20:33); which man will be her spouse in heaven?”

For the Sadducees absurdity of resurrection and afterlife.

But, to be honest, the Sadducees’ motives notwithstanding, I actually think they have a really good question! Yeah, wait, Jesus… so who IS going to be her husband? What’s afterlife going to look like?

 Jesus’ response is beautifully…puzzling. It is beautiful because his response is filled with wonder and hope. It is puzzling because he doesn’t answer the questions with specifics – he never says to whom the woman will be married, in other words.

Rather, Jesus says something to the effect that marriage as they know it won’t apply in afterlife, in resurrection. He says something to the effect of ‘In this age’ it might matter, but “in that age” (v. 34-35), marriage as you know it doesn’t apply. In so doing, Jesus makes a distinction between worldly reality and heavenly reality, implying that it is problematic to try and understand resurrection through worldly categories. God’s future cannot be understood as an extension” of this life and its parameters.[1]

Now, Jesus’ response that marriage doesn’t really apply in the afterlife might trouble us at first. But it ought to be noted that in Jesus’ time, marriage usually wasn’t the romantic matrimony that we understand it to be today. Rather, marriage was simply a vehicle of procreation: to have kids. And Jesus’ point here, I think, is that those needs are unnecessary in the new life. Jesus wasn’t the most hallmark card romantic person! His point was that procreation is unnecessary in resurrection because there is no death.

To be sure, I don’t think his point was to say that we won’t have relationships in heaven, but rather, the main thrust of what Jesus is saying is that resurrection is not going to be life as we know it, and the Sadducees’ question was one where they were trying to understand resurrection in terms of life as they knew it.

To put it another way, when your life is as caterpillar, it’s not real possible to understand life as a butterfly.

So, if it is hard to, if now even possible, why are we even talking about resurrection? Well, for one thing, I think this text reminds us to talk about resurrection and afterlife with a lot of modesty.[2] We only have our own reality with which to try and understand something that transcends our reality. So, again, we should have some humility when it comes to talking about the specifics of afterlife.

Even Scripture is vague about resurrection. According to one scholar, there is NO “dominant perspective [on resurrection] in the Old Testament,” for instance.[3] In the New Testament, we get some imagery to describe resurrection, like Paul’s claim in Thessalonians that we will meet our loved ones in the clouds (1 Thess 4:17), or the Revelation imagery of God’s risen children being dressed in white robes (Rev 7:9), but those are not much more than emotional ways to capture the hope and beauty of afterlife than they are literal depictions of life after death.

And here in Luke we get a direct question to Jesus about one of the specifics of afterlife and Jesus basically says you can’t possibly understand. If anything, Jesus’ response here gives us more uncertainty about the specifics of resurrection reality than not.

So, about afterlife and resurrection, Christians ought to speak with uncertainty. But…I think we can also, despite uncertainty, think and speak of resurrection and afterlife with hope and peace. Uncertainty about the specifics need not mean we be worried, because make no mistake, Jesus’ response here also gives us affirmation and hope.

 For one, according to Jesus, there is life after death. We don’t know how that takes shape, but Jesus says God is God of the living, not the dead. Jesus does promise that there is another age (v. 35), so therefore he’s also promising that what we see now is not all we get. And based on what Jesus is saying here, our new life will be one not restricted to the limitations of this state.

And yes, Jesus does say, “in resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage” (20:35b), but Jesus “does not say we will not know those who have been dear to us, only that resurrection life will not be marked by the same features as this one.”[4] Remember, Jesus says that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are living, so we can have hope that the presence of our loved ones will also be living in resurrection (cf. 20:38).

That is what we are told That is what we can believe. What will resurrection look and feel like exactly? I don’t know. Who will be there? I don’t know. What will our relationships look like? I do not know. But know this…it’s good. Our God is not the God of the dead, “but of the living; for him all of them are alive” (20:38). And perhaps with the comfort of that promise of life after death, we can more fully live with comfort, joy, and generosity in our life before death. Amen.

     [1] Walter Brueggemann, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year C (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 594.

     [2] David J. Lose, Questions About the Resurrection, workingpreacher.org. http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2859

     [3] Matt Skinner, Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Sermon Brainwave, Podcast #322, http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=454.

     [4] Lose, Questions.