26th Sunday After Pentecost
Daniel 12:1-3 Psalm 16 Hebrews 10:11-25 Mark 13:1-8 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who shows us the path of life. Amen This is one of those Sundays where it seems like there should be a question mark after the gospel response. Thanks be to God? How is it good news that stone shall not be left on stone and that people will come and pretend to be God and there will be wars and rumors of wars before the final end will come? It sure doesn’t seem good, And today we have this gospel paired with our first reading, another passage predicting a time of anguish. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of good news in these apocalyptic passages. As a side note, apocalyptic refers to a genre of writing that deals with a prophetic revelation, not necessarily but often including descriptions of disasters to come, and only secondarily but more commonly has the term come to be used as a description of an end of the world type scenario. So we have these apocalyptic texts, these prophetic passages predicting disasters, and the question is: what do they have to do with us? On the face of it, it seems like not much. A group of Pastors and I meet at the beginning of each week to read and discuss the texts for the week, and this week we pretty much agreed that our best chance of finding a sermon, finding good news lay in the other readings assigned for the week, we weren’t going to mess with these texts. And then the other day I was driving to a meeting and I was listening to NPR, and they did a story, an update really on the wildfires in California, particularly the Camp Fire that wiped out the town of Paradise 10,000 homes destroyed, and the reporter on the ground interviewed a resident, who’d seen her former house and the woman said something to the effect of ‘it looks like there’s been an apocalypse.’ I don’t remember the exact quote but she used the word apocalypse. And it hit me, the people of Paradise are in the midst of a catastrophe, life as they know it is over, in a sense that world ended and they are faced with the question: now what? And as I thought about the people in the midst of world altering catastrophes, the disasters of our readings began to fade and the hope began to shine through, yes Daniel begins “There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence” but then he continues “But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.” and sure Jesus says “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.” but then he pauses and goes on “This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” the birth pangs of what? Of the new world, The new way of life that Jesus has promised he will bring about, Jesus is saying that the turmoil he is describing, that the disciples will experience is not the last say God will work through it, and there lies the good news. For those of us who are relatively safe and secure, apocalyptic passages sound scary, we focus on the pain and suffering that we’d really rather avoid, but for those in the midst of pain and suffering they bring hope, because they describe reality and a life on the other side of the suffering, a life brought about by God who goes through the suffering with us because we have a God who promises never to leave us. Our God is realistic, not making promises that won’t come true. That’s one way you can tell you’re dealing with a false god, they promise that if you follow them, give them $9.95 a month then everything will be okay, your problems will be solved. Our God does not sugar coat things, part of life is experiencing pain and suffering and instead of making false impossible claims our God promises never to leave our side throughout all of life. We see this in our psalm, the psalmist describes different phases of life and in each God is there. For those in danger God is described by the psalmist as a refuge. This is a familiar image for us, we turn to God when we’re in trouble. But the psalmist also assures us that God is present with those who are content, at one point the psalmist says “My boundaries enclose a pleasant land; indeed, I have a rich inheritance.” God is with us in the times when life is going well, these are often times we bless God as a way of giving thanks for the good in our lives. God is with us in the bad times, God is with us in the good times, and God is with us when we are in between, in need of direction, The psalmist sings “I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel;” and speaks with assurance that because God goes before the psalmist they will not be shaken by whatever comes their way. “My heart therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; my body also shall rest in hope. For you will not abandon me to the grave, nor let your holy one see the pit. You will show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of you, and in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Whether it seems like the world has ended or life could never get better or somewhere in between God is with us God shows us the path of life, God travels the path with us. Whatever comes our way, God is there, and we are never alone. Amen
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AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
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