Father Gary’s Sermon

Inspired from Luke 21:5-19

Proclaimed on November 14, 2004

What happens to people who try to warn of coming doom? The great nineteenth century Danish theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, answered this question by telling of a particular event that took place during his lifetime. It happened that a fire broke out behind the stage in a nearby theater. A clown came out to inform the public. They thought that it was just a part of the act and began applauding. He repeated his warning more loudly, but the more desperate he became the louder the crowd’s laughter. To this calamity the great theologian commented, “I think the world will come to an end amid general applause from all the wits, who believe that it is a joke.”

Indeed, this in part is what did take place with Jesus following the words he uttered in our Gospel reading this morning. Jesus and his disciples were in Jerusalem, one of the grandest and most beautiful cities in the ancient world of that time. King Herod the Great had taken this royal city of the Jews and transformed it into a wonder of the Roman world. On the north and western side of the city he built a grand palace in the midst of a fortress with three great towers. Against the wishes of the Jewish authorities of his day he tore down the second temple of the Jews and replaced it with an even grander third Temple. It stood in the most sacred and prominent of places. While most of the construction had been finished within the first ten years, it would not be finally completed for another seventy-seven years. It rested on a huge granite platform that was the width of four football fields and the length of five football fields. The Temple itself was constructed of beautiful white marble, giving it the appearance of a mountain of snow. Its eastern side was completely covered with plates of gold, to which it had been said by the Jewish historian, Josephus, “The sun was no sooner up than it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as from the rays of the sun.” To all visitors coming into Jerusalem it was truly an awesome sight, even to the disciples who accompanied Jesus. Here was their evidence of the splendid presence of God. Even though they were a conquered people under Roman rule, they still had the Temple of God in their midst. But the Temple was not only centrally located in Jerusalem, the Temple was also the very center of their economic, political, cultural, and religious life. They could not imagine being Jewish without it.

Then along came this poor wandering Hebrew prophet predicting not only the utter destruction of their Temple, but also the coming of natural calamities, as well. Jesus' words sounded absurd to those around him, as the vast majority of them took him no more seriously than the people in Kierkegaard’s burning theater heeded the desperate warnings of the clown.

What did Jesus know, however, that the people around him failed to see? First of all, in the history of the Hebrews something of major consequence seemed to take place every five hundred years. Beginning with Abraham the people worshipped on portable altars for five hundred years until their bondage to the Egyptians. Moses then led the Hebrew people out of their bondage and brought about a significant change in their worship. The decisive shift was from individual worship at portable altars to a corporate worship in a traveling tabernacle. This form of worship remained in place until five hundred years later their King David established a permanent site of worship in Jerusalem. His son Solomon built a great Temple on the site that lasted another five hundred years when the Babylonians destroyed it. Upon their return to the land, the Hebrews constructed a new Temple on the same site, which was rebuilt by Herod the Great. This was the Temple that existed at the time of our Gospel lesson this morning. Jesus' words may have sounded absurd to those around him, but he knew that the time was set for another radical change. As stated by the Rev. H. Oehmig King, “Within a week of making this prophecy, Jesus would be dead. In his death, his words about the destruction of the Temple would be regarded as mere delusion. He had been destroyed, not Herod’s grand edifice.” Within forty years, however, the Temple would come crumbling down at the hands of the Romans, making true the prophecy of Jesus. And what of that so-called clown called “Jesus”? Not only is he said to have been raised from the dead, but also a disciple writing the Book of the Revelation saw a New Jerusalem descending out of heaven, but also there was no Temple in the midst of it. Rather in its place stood the Blessed Lamb that was slain, now serving as the Lamp and Light of all eternity. Worship was no longer restricted to one place. Now it occurred within the heart of the believer who experienced the presence of Christ in unlimited ways.

These five hundred year cycles of change, however, did not stop. With the fall of Jerusalem that Jesus predicted, early persecuted Christians endured and eventually Christianized the Roman Empire. This conquest, however, did not prevent the next cataclysm, which after five hundred years saw the destruction of the Roman Empire by the invasion of barbarian tribes. From this destruction birth was given to a new world, a dark age if you will, which looked to the Church for order until the coming of a new emperor. The Church obliged for five hundred years, when the known western world under the leadership of the Roman pope was turned upside down once again with the Crusades that brought in the Renaissance. This age then gave way to the next cataclysm that occurred yet another five hundred years later with the Protestant Reformation and the birth of the modern world.

Now here we are living during the end of one of the world’s five hundred-year cycles. Many believe we are on the verge of something new, something we cannot even begin to describe, but something very exciting, as well as perhaps very frightening. What we do know is that each age before us has always come to a cataclysmic end in order to give way to a new birth, a new world, with new possibilities. Realizing that the world around us seems to be unraveling, we see the Kierkegaardian clowns coming out in force desperately shouting to us that the stage of our world theater is on fire, while most among us applaud and laugh at them, and a few among us panic.

Whether this is the time to laugh and cheer, or panic and run to who knows where, is difficult to tell, but one thing certainly seems to be true. We may be in a place similar to that in our Gospel reading today. Now it is our turn to imagine Jesus teaching us as he did with his disciples outside that wall in Jerusalem.

As the Church becomes less significant in our culture, we see the decline of the mainline churches. It does indeed seem to be the end of an era. It is evident that we need to discover a new purpose. To do so we need to discern what things are distracting us. What are the things that are about to fade and die. What new things are being birthed?

As we uncover these answers it will have dramatic consequences on how we handle our stewardship of God’s resources. As were those early disciples of Jesus, so must we be made accountable. Therefore we must ask, not only personally, but also collectively, what shall we do with our time? What will we do with our talents? How will we spend our money in a world that is giving in to new births and new possibilities?

We must determine whether the decisions we make are mere distractions or God’s true purposes. This is the promise of the Gospel, that while it may predispose us to become Kierkegaardian clowns destined to be applauded and laughed at by the very world we seek to save, in the end we will be vindicated. Some will even be saved, saved to build a new stage and a new theater in which to carry on the drama, the drama of a loving God, who in the crucifixion personally went through a Divine cataclysm, and in whose resurrection we continue to find a sustaining hope, the promise of a new birth, and a new world with new possibilities.