READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Malachi 4:1-6
Romans 15:4-13
- St. Luke 21:25-36
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who speaks to us on this second Sunday of the new Church Year, saying,
“But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have
strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand
before the Son of Man”
In these words, St. Luke does not use the same words as we heard in the parable of the 10 virgins, on Ultimate Sunday: “Watch” and “stay awake”. They are different today, because there is a lot more to “keeping watch”, than just open eyes.
Thus Jesus includes this in His Word to show us the real world He created versus the false world our sin shows us. He wants us to see that it is His Word and His Church which are the Truth and that they will appear weak and insufficient for life. Yet still we should trust in them and memorize our Lord’s teachings, so that we have a foundation for resistance to sin, death, and the devil.
With flashing lights to draw our attention, enticing smells, large hits of dopamine, delicious delights, and pleasing sounds to fill all our senses, we are thrown for a loop. We conclude that God has created this wonderful world and so the things in it, all of them, must be part of His plan as well, no matter what they are.
This argument has been used on all kinds of things from drugs to sexual immorality. “God made it, so He must want us to use and enjoy!” The devil, the world, and our sinful nature want us asleep at the wheel. They want you drowsy, susceptible, hypnotized which is the opposite of the word Jesus uses in today’s Gospel.
Turns out, its not all that hard to hypnotize someone. If you believe John Lennon wrote the greatest song ever in “Imagine”, and then can listen to “So this is Christmas” in the same list, you have been hypnotized. If you think next year’s election is finally going to make you a better person, you’ve been hypnotized. If you believe every spirit, every place that calls itself church, and every person that calls themselves Christian is the same, you’ve been hypnotized.
You are easily fooled because you want to be. It is not some flaw in creation, it is our lust for sin. All hypnotic suggestions are accepted because you want them to work, you want them to fix whatever you want fixed with you, and you believe this will finally do it, even if it is going against God’s Word.
We will even be fooled by events and signs happening right in front of us. We will become apathetic. There’s a sign in the sun, moon, and stars? Just wait a bit, they’ll go back to normal. The nations are at war? Just send Dennis Rodman and he’ll negotiate peace. Storms at sea? People losing their minds? Just one more minute, one more pill, and one more time and it will go back to normal.
It is as St. Peter warned us in his 2nd epistle. Scoffers, in the Last Days, will be following their own sinful desires, preaching, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” (v.3-4).
Repent. God did not make us wrong, we have gone wrong. We have breathed the thick air of corruption and found it a delight and to be desired to make one wise. Even worse than our own sin in the matter, we are accused of rejecting discipline and the subduing of the flesh, as Jesus commands.
We believe in our sin, that by noticing a pattern or riding out the storm that God will just go away. Hypnotism works, because we want it to work. To undo the hypnotism we need someone Who is not hypnotized, someone not on the inside, but on the outside.
So when Jesus comes to undo the hypnotism, He sounds like a madman to us. He has to repeatedly tell the Apostles why He’s here and they still don’t believe Him, even though it is right in front of their eyes. He repeated it so they’d memorize it, it would be imbedded in their brains, and be remembered at the right time.
We are confused because the signs of the coming Day of the Lord do not look like we expect. We expect love and peace, calm and restful. Yet Jesus brings swords, upheaval, and alertness. We are not even at liberty to sleep well, or so it seems.
So we memorize, not just that our Lord predicted His Cross and Passion, but His doctrine. In the face of the false gods of pornography and excess, we recite, “We should fear love and trust in God above all things”. In front of the false idols that demand all of our time and cash, we recite, “All this He does only out of fatherly divine goodness and mercy”.
That is, even though the days grow rougher, we have already been told. We have already been told and given comfort, that these perplexities and fears have been overcome by the Lamb. Not just in the past and not just at the Coming Day, but today. Today you use your catechism, what you have been taught by the Apostles, to undo your hypnosis.
By those pure words you have memorized, you see through to the Truth. It is frightening in this world; disasters, wars, and such, but those are not the signs. They are the warnings. The truth of the strength to escape lies in a manger, which does not look to be enough to tackle this world and our sins.
Our peace in war comes at the cross. Our relief from fear is given in water, Word, bread, and wine. These are the signs of victory and the signs we are to unhypnotized ourselves with. For amidst the confusion and false flags of perplexity, Jesus offers 4 promises in today’s Gospel.
The distress and foreboding simply inaugurate your redemption that is near. The dead fig tree will once again leaf in the coming, eternal summer. God’s Word is forever, thus there is no need to wait for things to go back to “normal”. And the final promise is the strength to stand before the Son of Man. That is the gift of power to be resurrected from the fainting, the sleep, the death that the cares and concerns this world causes.
Indeed, the worst the world can do is cause death. But the worst has been overcome by the worst. In His dying, Jesus destroyed death. And if death is defeated, then any and all paths to it have been conquered as well.
Thus, the distressing signs of evil and insanity in this world are actually signs of joy and triumph. Not “the end is near”, but Jesus is coming quickly! The sun, moon, and stars sing Re-creation’s song. The nations stress and people faint over free forgiveness. The heavens shake that God draws near to touch the earth with His own Body and Soul.
With the birth of Jesus and the coming of His greatest work of salvation on the cross, everything is turned on its head. It appears the world is being turned upside-down, when really it is being righted. It appears as if there is no hope, but in darkness Christ is born and the darkness flees.
“So then, brothers” St. Paul preaches in 2 Thessalonians, “stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter” (2 Thess 2:15). That is, recite the words and truths Jesus has already taught and throw those in the face of your doubts and fears.
Hold fast to pure doctrine, that Jesus is God in the flesh, come to Judge the earth in Love. Heaven and earth passes away, because God loves us and wants us by His side for all eternity. He has come in the manger, He will come at the End of all, and He comes today bringing truth and peace.
The proclamation of the pure Gospel is what overcomes this world. Jesus and the faith He gives, overturns this world of sin. The cry of “the bridegroom is near” and He is lying in a manger, wake the sinner from his sleep, his hypnosis, to rise again and stand before the Son of Man.
Who then proclaims His own truth: the graves will be opened and no longer will the signs be as though in a mirror dimly. The truth of Jesus shines in Word and Sacrament, just as they did at the Transfiguration, where “Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep, but when they became fully awake they saw his glory” (Lk 9:32).
For Jesus had come to them. From St. Matthew “But Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Rise, and have no fear.’ And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only” (17:7-8).
You know the time. It has been taught to you. This world is out of time, but God’s time is eternity. You know the ways of the world and how they will not enter heaven. You have been taught The Way, God’s Way. The way of the Cross in which suffering produces hope.
Hope that hopes to be saved. Hope that trust in our dear Lord Jesus Christ, who is both God and man, Who cemented my trust by dying for me and shedding His Blood for me on the cross for the forgiveness of sins.
The signs are put in our hearts. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters. (The Silver Chair)
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