I recently saw Bob Botsford
of Horizon Christian Fellowship in California use this illustration…
He had a large vase of water
on stage with two oranges. He dropped the first orange into the water, and it
floated to the top. Then he peeled the second orange, dropped it in the water,
and it sank. Then he drew this comparison: when we have Jesus as our covering,
we float to the top. Without Jesus, we sink.
I think that is a perfect
illustration of our Gospel reading for today. I have entitled this message,
“How to Face the End”. But it might better be titled, “How to Face What Seems
to be the End”. Listen for God’s word to you from Luke 21:5-19…
When
some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones
and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, “As for these things that you see,
the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be
thrown down.”
They
asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is
about to take place?” And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for
many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Do
not go after them.
“When
you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must
take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” Then he said to
them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will
be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will
be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
“But
before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand
you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and
governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to
testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in
advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your
opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed
even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some
of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not
a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your
souls.
The best way to face what
seems to be the end, is to have Jesus as our covering. I believe we can learn at
least four things about Jesus from this passage…
First, Jesus predicts. He predicted the destruction of Jerusalem 40 years
before it happened.
Jesus and his disciples were
standing outside the Temple in Jerusalem. His disciples commented on how
beautiful it was. And Jesus responded: “As for these things that you see, the
days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown
down.”
And it happened.
William Barclay describes
that destruction of Jerusalem in this way…
Jerusalem
fell to the Roman armies in A.D. 70 after a desperate siege in which the
inhabitants were actually reduced to cannibalism and in which the city had to
be taken literally stone by stone. Josephus says that an incredible number of
1,100,000 people perished in the siege and 97,000 were carried away into
captivity. The Jewish nation was obliterated; and the Temple was fired and
became a desolation.
Others might have been blind
to the approaching disaster, but Jesus was not. I believe it is only when we
get God’s perspective on things that we begin to see reality clearly.
The fact that Jesus was able
to predict such an event also suggests that Jesus is not surprised by anything.
As someone once said, God never says, “Whoops!” God and his Son know your
future before it even happens and, in a way, that foreknowledge, along with
God’s love and power, leads to everything else he is able to do for us.
Second, Jesus not only
predicts, he prepares. Jesus prepares his disciples for the
worst. He is always completely honest. Jesus told his disciples then and he tells
us now what it will cost to follow him. Some preachers might be tempted to
present a rosy picture of what is involved in following Jesus so that they
might attract more adherents. Jesus himself never did this.
Jesus prepared his first
disciples for the fact that many false prophets would come claiming to be the
Messiah. And Jesus warned his followers not to follow such leaders.
Jesus prepared his first
disciples that there would be many wars and insurrections, lest they think the
age of the Messiah would be one of unparalleled peace. Jesus prepared his
disciples for international conflict and natural disasters. All this, he
predicted, would be a part of their normal lives.
Jesus prepared his first
disciples for persecution. He told them they would be handed over to synagogues
and prisons. They would be brought before kings and governors because of the
name of Jesus.
As I have said many times
before, Jesus promises us at least four things: peace, power, purpose, and
trouble!
For some of us, the persecution
we have to face may be more spiritual, emotional, and intellectual than it is
physical…
In 1927, the famous poet and
essayist T.S. Eliot became a Christian and was baptized and confirmed. Prior to
his conversion, Eliot belonged to London’s Bloomsbury Group, a small, informal
association of artists and intellectuals who lived and worked in the Bloomsbury
area of central London. But when news of Eliot’s conversion hit, the Bloomsbury
Group responded with shock and even disgust. The writer Virginia Woolf, the de
facto leader of the group, penned the following letter to one of her peers:
I have had a most shameful and distressing interview with dear Tom
Eliot, who may be called dead to us all from this day forward. He has become a
[believer] in God and immortality, and he goes to church. I was shocked. A
corpse would seem more credible than he is. I mean, there’s something obscene
in a living person sitting by the fire and believing in God.[1]
Thankfully, Jesus does not
leave us alone in persecution. A third thing we see in this passage is that Jesus
promises. In fact, Jesus gives us many great and precious promises. But
specifically, in this passage, Jesus promises to give us words and wisdom. “I
will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able
to withstand or contradict.”
I don’t know if you have ever
experienced this, but I know I have. My first experiences in ministry started
when I was in high school and I taught a fifth grade Sunday School class. That
summer I served as a camp counselor at Indian Village, a Christian camp that
our church participated in every year. One of my jobs as a camp counselor was
to lead a devotional time with my six or seven campers right before bedtime. I
remember doing this on the first night of camp and having many questions from
my fourth, fifth and sixth grade campers. I would answer one spiritual question
followed by another. It must have gone on for a half hour or so. And I remember
thinking after the last camper fell asleep, “I don’t know where all of those
answers came from.”
I experienced this again on a
mission to the Baltic Republic of Latvia shortly after they achieved their
independence from Russia. I trained a number of Latvian young people in street
evangelism. We went from city to city ministering in the streets and the
churches. Our group would perform skits and sing songs to attract a crowd, and
then I would preach. On one occasion, after I finished preaching along the
sidewalk of a major street in one city, the members of our group engaged the
listeners in one-to-one conversation. Before we knew what was happening, we saw
that the youngest member of our group, fourteen-year-old Janis, was in an
animated discussion with an elderly man. The conversation was so interesting
that it began to draw a crowd. Several minutes later, when we walked away from
that conversation, Janis turned to me and said, “I don’t know where all those
things I was saying to that man came from.” I told Janis that I knew. That night,
the man whom Janis had spoken to in the street came to the church where I was
preaching, and he committed his life to follow Jesus Christ.
The fourth and final thing we
see about Jesus in this passage is that Jesus protects. Jesus speaks here
of a safety that surpasses the threats of earth. “Not one hair of your head
will be harmed.” It is true that the person who walks with Christ may lose his
or her earthly life but he or she will never lose their soul.
In 2005, my brother Roger died as a result
of complications with chemotherapy. He lost his earthly life, but he didn’t
lose his soul. He kept his faith in Jesus right up to the end, or what seemed
to be the end of his life.
Roger was married with two young sons at
the time. Those sons are now grown up, and my nephew, Evan, got married last
fall to his high school sweetheart, Amy. They are expecting their first child
and Amy was about 27 weeks along in her pregnancy when they found out, a couple
of weeks ago, that Amy has lung cancer. The doctors have, since that time, told
Amy that her cancer has spread and that it is incurable. Amy is now undergoing
chemotherapy to slow the spread of the cancer long enough for her to
successfully deliver her baby.
Talk about a diagnosis that seems to be an
announcement of the end! I don’t know how you would handle such news. I’m not
even sure how I would handle it. But Evan and Amy are handling this news with a
courage that I can only conclude comes to them from the heavenly realm. In
short, they are wrapped in the love of Jesus, and though they know Amy’s body
will die, her soul is floating upward. Practically every day Amy posts something
on Facebook reflecting her trust in Jesus.
Another example to me of how to face what
seems to be the end, is my mother. As you may know, my mother died in August
after 90+ wonderful years. We had a memorial service for her in Virginia in
October, and one in California this month. At the second memorial service, my
brother Dennis shared how much Mom loved hymns and praise songs. Dennis was
caring for Mom in his home during the last days of her life on earth. She was
confined to her bed as a result of a number of strokes that left her paralyzed
on the right side of her body. Sometimes Dennis would play for Mom, in her
room, the hymns and praise songs she so loved. And every once in a while,
Dennis would sneak a peek at Mom while she was listening to her favorite songs.
On one occasion he saw her mouthing the words to one of her favorite hymns with
her one hand upraised in the air.
I don’t know about you, but that’s how I
want to face the end, or what seems to be the end of life. When I can’t do
anything else, I want to raise one hand in praise to Jesus. When I hardly have
any voice left, I want to use what voice I do have to praise my Lord and Savior
and to point others to him. That’s how to face the end, or what seems to be the
end of life. For, after all, death is not the end of the road for the one who
is wrapped in Jesus. Rather, death is just a bend in the road. If we are
wrapped in Jesus, we can be sure that we will float to the top.
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