Sermon – Can You Believe It?
Luke 21:25-36; Jeremiah 33:14-16
Farmville Presbyterian Church
12/1/24
What a difference a week can make! Just like that we have officially transitioned into Christmas season and all of the festivities of the time. We have shared in Thanksgiving and I hope that was good and meaningful, but it can also be tough for some as we think about meeting up and gathering around tables. Some family relationships are difficult, and we are also missing people who used to be there. Still, the holiday season, so-to-speak, is upon us whether we are ready or not. That’s what we used to say with hide-and-seek as children – “ready or not, here I come.” That’s when the excitement started. This is a different kind of excitement, though, and I do hope you are looking forward to at least some of it, if not all of it.
When times change, we do have the option to create new meaning. We are never locked into yesterday, and we always have today to shape our idea of tomorrow. In special times of the year, it is easier to see this gift, and it is an especially important opportunity. Yes, there are traditions and the “way we have always done it.” There are familiar and comfortable ways that we have experienced time, but if we ever need something more than what we have, it is ALWAYS our opportunity to find meaning in whatever moment we are given. Something special is happening right now.
It is pretty easy to look at time as day after day and year after year. It is easy to look the passage of time as an ever rolling stream or an unending road, but that is not fair to the actual experience of time or our lives, and it is certainly not fair to God’s purpose of time and the passage of days. This day and this time of the year is a direct call to pay attention to what’s going on.
One of the best movies of my teenage years was Dead Poet’s Society with Robin Williams. He was an incredible and unorthodox English teacher at an all-male prep school. One of the many good moments was Robin William’s urging the young men to see history as a part of today, the young men of previous generations were just like they were, and because of the fleeting nature of time, we needed to live this day with as much purpose as possible. The Latin expression for this was Carpe Diem or “seize the day.” I was a Latin student and a Latin teacher. “Carpe Diem” was on my graduation cap. This idea has been a part of my life for decades, and I am going to propose that you may have similar feelings. What you may or may not have realized is that his is also something that God embedded into time and God’s purposes, too.
Both of today’s passages are just a taste of God’s fixation on time in human history. This is always something important for how God interacts with God’s people. There is always a purpose, a new time, a promise, the establishment of hope, or a warning of what is coming. The Jewish people did not have calendars like we do. They could not have told you what year it was except for what happened in a year or who was the ruler. We established our calendar around the birth of Jesus, so that was inconceivable in that day. They marked the passage of time around events. It would be easy to see time as more and more of the same until something big happened, but God did not want the people to forget that something was going on. The passage of time was crucial to God.
Jesus in Luke’s Gospel is calling attention to a particular happening. This is just after the disciples have come to Jerusalem and they are caught marveling at how amazing the Temple was that Kind Herod built. It was truly impressive as buildings go with some of it still standing, in fact – what we call the Western or Wailing Wall. Jesus confronts their wonder over human achievement with the fact that the Temple was going to be destroyed. In fact, their nation was going to be destroyed in just a few decades. Times will become turbulent and scary. There will be unrest and insecurity. It will be easy to become consumed with events as signs. Humanity has done the same for centuries as they tried to predict calamity with dates. Things have never turned out as they expected, though. Jesus is offering here a promise, though, in the changing times. Kingdoms of the earth will come and go, but the Kingdom of God is coming. The Kingdom of God will be secure. They had no idea what the destruction of Israel would look like under Rome’s hand. We got a taste of that in Bible study recently with a look at Megiddo, but Jesus’ followers had no idea what was truly in store for them. Even if they were not big fans of the Temple, it would have been devastating to watch its plunder and destruction. If another nation came in and ransacked the National Capital as we watched helplessly, it would be hard, even if the Capital itself was not something we had much to do with.
Jeremiah was in a different situation. He was actually in a wartime. The city of Jerusalem was about to fall to the Babylonians. Judah was about to be defeated and the people hauled off into captivity. Jeremiah was trying to guide the people spiritually through the worst happening that they could imagine. You hear in these chapters that God will still be there God and they will still be God’s people. You hear that they will be restored one day. There is also a new covenant coming, but the city will be destroyed. This is actually why the Temple of Jesus’ day is not the Temple of Solomon’s day.
In the middle of the devastation and destruction, however, God also gives an interesting promise for time. The days are coming when that righteous branch will come. God has not forgotten that promise to David to establish his throne. You will not see any Davidic kings for a good while, but there is one who is still coming in the line of David who will restore that throne. He will execute justice and righteousness in the land. The Holy City will be secure. His very name is “The Lord is Righteousness.” He will be that reminder that God has been and will always be faithful.
Looking back, it is easy for us to see that Jesus can be that man. Of course, Jews disagree and are still looking for that Messiah. Marking time, they continue to set an empty seat at the Seder meal in case Elijah shows up to announce the coming of the Messiah. We mark our time differently. We have Advent.
This season, the beginning of our church year every year, is not only about the birth of Jesus. That is the easy story. That is the cute and sentimental story. That is the history that we have with this season, the sweet memories of Christmases past. The harder story is actually the more important one. That is the story that Jeremiah was trying to tell as the city was falling to the Babylonians. That is the story that Jesus was trying give his followers about the destruction that was coming. But we must want something else more than the safe and cute past. Jesus is God’s righteousness. He is what is right in the world. He is the one who brings the Kingdom of God. He is the one who comes with true justice. He is the one who fulfills God’s promise to us all.
I wish it was easy to get there. I wish that it was all sunshine and daffodils along that path. It sounds like it might just be harder than anything we have known, though. The world has never been easy, and it will never be. As we roll on, things get more complicated and more problematic. AI or Artificial Intelligence is another gamechanger like the internet itself. It brings new promises and new challenges. There will always be those out there looking for a fight, and we will always have people within causing problems. But time is not done with us. God’s time is not done with us. God’s promise is just as real and just as valid today as it was when the Jews were watching their city burn and their hopes for a nation vanish.
Advent is when we reinvest ourselves in this hope. It is when we rekindle our love of God’s Kingdom and the hoped-for coming of our Lord. It is when we look for the dawn of righteousness, and when we are reminded that this is all moving to God’s glorious ends. Our lives are not wandering aimlessly through this day and that, but we are here as witnesses to God’s purpose. Jesus is the one who has come, who is here, and who is coming, again. He is our Lord and God’s love for us, and with faith, we can look forward to the day when he and God’s Kingdom come for good – our good and God’s. To God be the glory. Amen.