~ Populus Zion ~
Readings: Malachi 4:1-6 | Romans 15:4-13 | Luke 21:25-36
Text: Luke 21:25-36
The return of Christ is utterly inconvenient. It ruins our plans for the future. It ruins all of our imagining that life will just continue as is has been. Most of all, it completely obliterates our delusion that we are the ones in charge, that we are the sole Judge. Yet, in the meantime, before that Day, there are many signs the Lord gives which are given to prepare us to meet that truth with repentance, forgiveness, and hope.
Both our Old Testament lesson and our Gospel lesson this week are a bit on the scary side. “All the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.” Wars and tumults. Nation against nation. Earthquakes, famines, and diseases. Terrors and signs in the heavens. Christians around the world are watching for these things as if they were signs of the end. Even though Jesus calls these the first things that must take place, not the last. Again, inconvenient for our plans!
Have you checked out the world? The whole world is afraid. Fear is the engine that drives everything. Spend ten minutes with the news media, and you’ll see it. People vote because they’re terrified of the other candidate. Leaders make their decisions because they’re frightened of public backlash. People go to war out of a worry that they will lose everything if they don’t. Even a slight change in weather can create panic! Whenever anything fails to go right, the world becomes alarmed. People are in a constant state of dread. No one knows how to truly fix it! Those we hear only seem to offer partial solutions with poor results. We only know how to use it as fuel to get what we want.
True, we get caught up in that fear just as easily as everyone else. But without a doubt, the whole world, including us, is afraid. And it’s understandable. We have together filled this world with sin, and standing before us is a holy God. Even if the world denies that God exists, the fear remains. So whether it’s fight or it’s flight, people will react. We have a reflex of self-preservation, whether the action is right or wrong. But the only action we are able to take as sinners before a holy God, is to make up excuses. Yet, there is no worse thing that we can do than to justify our sins. In fact, if we do that, we are telling God how right we are and rejecting His Word.
But this fear people have toward God is not rational. It also has this strange effect: Those who love God are also feared. In an attempt to control their fear, it is Christians who the world will blame. Jesus says, “[T]hey will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake.” “You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name’s sake.”
But, when we see these things happening all around us, and the fear welling up inside us, Jesus gives us a very different path to follow: “Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Easy for Him to say. Our own sin is the very reason we cower in fear. The sin of the world is why we cannot stand up. And yet Jesus says this precisely because He has taken our sin away. Jesus doesn’t just tell us to be bold, as if we could just will ourselves courage. He Himself overcomes what makes us afraid. Our sin, our death, the devil who torments us, Christ Jesus has conquered them all on His cross and confirmed it with His empty tomb.
Our Lord Jesus did not fear our sin, nor the sin of the whole world. He instead took it all onto His own shoulders. He paid its price on our behalf. He bore the worst that we deserve when He cried out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46) His death proclaimed that death had done its worst to Him when He said, “It is finished” and breathed His last [John 19:30]. Jesus took it all away from us, forgave us, so that we would no longer have to be afraid of it ever again.
Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. And His resurrection is the promise of our resurrection as well. Death cannot hold anyone for long. We too will rise on the last day.
That devil we fear, who accuses us of all our sin? The one who says, “Wait until God sees what you’ve done, you shall surely pay the price for your sin”? Jesus has thrown him down. He no longer has a place from which to accuse you. His power may be greater than yours or mine, but it is not greater than Christ’s.
“[W]hen these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” When the world in its fear rises up against you. When all the things that we have been afraid of come upon you like a roaring lion. When the devil himself throws everything he has at you, that is the time to take heart. Be courageous. Stand up. And turn your eyes towards heaven. Jesus is coming near. Jesus is coming to you with what you need. Not your own justification, but His, which He gives to you without price.
Because of Jesus, we can now stand up to the world. We can stand up to the devil. We can stand up to the sin that accuses us, the death that threatens us. As the Lord has promised though Malachi in our Old Testament lesson, “But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.” Or Jesus, who says, “ You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives.” And in the resurrection, His promises are all fulfilled. God will restore our bodies, and they will be without sin. Eternal life will be ours. And we will be with God and the faithful forever.
That’s the hope for which we straighten out our fear-hunched backs. That’s the hope for which we raise our heads. Jesus Christ is our redemption. He has taken away our sin. He has saved us. And there is nothing left to fear.
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
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