You are looking at the wrong signs. . .

Sermon for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (B) preached on Sunday, November 17, 2024.

Living here you soon discover that somewhere a deer carcass is cooking as you see the vultures flying overhead waiting for dinner to be ready.  Perhaps that is how we have come to view the end times.  We look at the broken and tattered remnants of humanity, our failed institutions, the brutality of war and violence, and the balance of nature seemingly out of whack and presume the worst.  That is how it was for the disciples.  They wanted to know what the end was going to look like or, more accurately, how bad is it going to get.  We are not so different.  We look at the pace of change, the flourishing of evil, and the growing uncertainty over the future and we want to know if this is the beginning of the end and how much worse it will be down the road.  So our judgment of the times and our question to God is the same – how bad will it get?

It would be easy enough to preach a simple sermon of warning to you now but that is not what you need to hear.  Furthermore, it is not what Jesus said.  Yes, there will be worse times to come as the world seems to spin out of control toward destruction but that is not the main point.  It may not be the beginning of the end, but I can tell you clearly it is most certainly the end of the beginning.  We are not in the period of Christian infancy when hopes were high as the faith seemed to spread over all the earth.  We are in the achy adulthood of the faith and have learned the lessons of disappointment, disillusionment, and fear.  But even then, we are not without hope.  He who endures to the end shall be saved.

Before we jump more directly to the shape of our hope, let me dismiss the false use of Jesus’ words to shift the burden of judgment away from God and onto us.  When Jesus says the Gospel must first be preached to all nations, He is most certainly not conditioning the timing of God on what we do or fail to do.  The coming of Christ has not been delayed because we did not preach the Gospel more ambitiously or to every corner of this globe.  Jesus is not issuing a command to us here but revealing the promise.  The Gospel is for every sinner and no one is beyond reach of that Gospel by the working of the Spirit.  What we do with what we hear, well, that is on us.  But the Word is not kept impotent in a cage because of what we do or have not done.  So do not go there and forget what Jesus said.

These are the last days.  They have been since Christ rose from the dead, since the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, and since the apostles led the Church in the great missionary enterprise that turned a sect into a worldwide kingdom of faith.  The signs are all there.  No, not the wars and rumors of wars or terrorism or sexual immorality or abortion or child abuse or false prophets or threats against the Church.  These are not new.  No, what I am speaking to you about today are the signs of hope and promise that we too easily forget.  The same Daniel who stood in the lion’s den recorded the promise.  You shall be delivered – everyone whose names are written in the book of life.  The dead shall be raised.  Life shall triumph. The wise in faith shall shine like stars in the dark night of the soul.  This is what Jesus is referring to when He promises “those who endure shall be saved.”

None of us needs a preacher in the pulpit or a prophet speaking “Thus saith the Lord” to know the world is going to hell in a handbasket.  The warnings are all around us and obvious.  But the hope is not.  Hope is what must be preached when all we see is destruction and death, evil and indulgence.  The day of the Lord is coming and to those who are baptized into Christ, whose names are written in the book of life in the ink of Christ’s blood, who have been called to faith by the Word preached, who have been absolved and restored from their weakness and sin, and who have been fed and nourished upon the heavenly food of Christ’s flesh and blood – this is GOOD NEWS.  We do not have anything to fear.  Our sins have been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb and our bodies endowed with the promise of the resurrection to life everlasting.

The day of the Lord will come and it will surprise us.  It will shock those who are unprepared, who live outside the banner of faith, and who have been too busy sinning to repent.  But it will be the glorious surprise to the faithful who long for an end to the fight, who are weary from all the battles, who wear the scars of their warfare, who know only too well their weakness.  Christ’s victory will not be ours because it is already ours.  Christ is risen from the dead not for Him but for you and me.  He lives not for Himself but for us.  He has covered us with His righteousness so that we will be found worthy.  He has planted His kingdom here in time so that we may be transferred to eternity.  He comes among us still as our Good Shepherd, our Great Redeemer, our Brother in love, who will guard us as His most treasured possession even as we guard our faith in Him as our most treasured possession.

For now we are tested by school shootings and violence that intrudes into every place that is supposed to be safe.  For now we are tested by the world that seems unstoppable while we seem impotent.  
For now we fight – not to be saved but to remain as the saved of the Lord, enduring in the hope into which we have been planted in baptismal water and fed in the Holy Eucharist.  Contrary to those who think the days are needlessly prolonged, He has promised they will be cut short because He loves us and He does not want any to be lost and all to be saved.  

He knows our names.  This is our comfort.  He calls us by name.  This is our courage.  He wrote our names in the book of life.  This is our confidence.  We call Him Lord because He has taught us to call Him Savior.  Instead of looking at the signs of the times that stir up fear, we need to look to the promises that give us hope in which we stand.  The world is not getting better and it is getting worse at a frightening pace.  But husbands and wives still love each other and cherish their days together, plan and rejoice for a family of children who will know and call God Father as they do and go to bed at night with a clear conscience through forgiveness and hope that whatever the morning brings, we will still belong to the Lord and His promises will prevail.

The world is not ours to fix and our hopes are not planted upon an improving tomorrow.  Where the dead are, the vultures will gather.  Well, guess what.  Where death is, God is already there.  Death has not the final word for your lives or mine.  So when we see the evil, hear the rumors of war, lament the immorality that passes for goodness, and see how casually life is treated, do not give into despair and repent of your fears.  Look to the signs of hope Christ has planted among us.  The Word and Sacraments.  And pray: Maranatha!  Come, Lord Jesus.

In the holy name of Jesus.  Amen.