A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on November 21, 2021 at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on Mark 13:24-37. You may play the audio of the sermon here.
A mostly unedited transcript of the sermon follows the jump:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Gospel according to St. Mark, the 13th chapter:
“But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning— lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.”
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
Have you ever thought about this, that the Son of Man doesn't know the day that he's coming back? I find that that's a confusing thing for people, but you have to realize Jesus being both God and man did not always make use of his divinity. In fact, this should be a comfort for you, that he was so focused on the task at hand, which was going toward his own crucifixion to win for you your salvation, that he wasn't focused on what was going to happen in the future. He was focused on what he was focused on, which is to achieve that forgiveness of sins to give to you everlasting life.
I mean, that's really what this entire passage is actually about: him giving you everlasting life. This is all right on the heels of last week's Gospel lesson, where Jesus told us all about the earthquakes and the wars and the rumors of wars and the famines and how all of these things will be the beginning of the birth pains. And in those days, he continues, then after that tribulation, after all the birth pangs are there, well, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall out of the heavens and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. It's almost as if all of these birth pangs are leading up to that final push. And when the final push of labor begins, the entire universe folds in on itself. And then finally our Lord returns.
Now, it is really interesting to me too, that he talks about the sun and the stars and the moon. If you know, John's Revelation, you know the saying: “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” There is no more sun, for the Son is the light of the world. The S O N son will be the light of the world. There's no need for the sun to give its light. There's no need for a sun to waste its fuel and shine out from the darkness and give light to the world. Instead, the Son of Man, who has returned from heaven to live among his people, will be the light of the entire universe. Think about that for a moment.
If we know our science, we know that the light we see in the stars above seem to be coming from a great distance away, as far as we can tell. The further away a star is from the earth, the longer it takes for its light to get here. And it seems over time as light passes. Thus, if a star is 93 million miles away, the lights that we are receiving is 93 million years old. Now I don't believe that the universe is actually that old. I believe that God created the stars in the sky and just sent their light to this earth, to illuminate us all the time, to remind us always of his word, which will not pass away. The lights will go out, but the word of God remains forever. I think God is able to do that bots. There is something to be said for that science that tells us the light that we're getting is 93 million years old.
I'd like you to consider for a moment what this means, that when Christ comes back, and he is the light of the world, he is the light of the universe, he is shining out into the cosmos. And if you were standing on a distant star, you'd be seeing his light coming to you. And the time that it would take to get to you, it's pretty incredible that he's dwelling with his people for all of these millions and billions and trillions and quadrillions of years. His light will reach across the galaxies and it will never end for all eternity. He promises you that kind of light and that kind of life. That's an amazing thing.
Now, I don't know if that means that Jesus walking around on the earth is going to be just beaming, as he was in his transfiguration. It's certainly possible, but whatever it is, Jesus is enough. That's what we need to take from this. The sun will be darkened. The moon will not give its light and the stars will fall out of the heavens and Jesus will be enough. Notice he does not leave you without light. Once this happens, at once, he says, they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. Jesus returns to his earth just as he left.
That's kind of interesting knowing especially that Jesus has not ascended into heaven when he is telling his apostles this. As he's giving this message to his apostles, Jesus knows how he is going to be leaving them. After those 40 days are completed after his resurrection, he knows that he'll be ascending to the right hand of his Father in the clouds. And those clouds will one day part and our Lord will return. And in that moment, then the angels will be sent out to gather all of us, his elect, his chosen, from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. The angels will gather us together and we will accompany our Lord and we will live in his glory and power and light, forever and ever.
It's an interesting thing. I really wish that Jesus would access his divinity a little bit more here to give us a bit more information. I would love to know a date. I would love to know exactly when it is that our Lord is coming, but this is the thing, isn't it? He commands us to stay awake. I think if Jesus had given us a date, if he’d given us a sure and definitive sign, When this happens, wait five minutes and there I come, he knows if he gave us that kind of thing, we would grow lazy and complacent. Instead he tells us stay awake.
Now I don't know about you, but I am a night owl. My wife and I used to go to bed at the same time. It was always something, having her fall asleep and I’d still be reading or watching a show. And that was lovely. But right around the time that she got pregnant with Ava, she started going to bed at about seven o'clock. And I said, no. And so I stayed up later and this actually fed into my night owlness. The hours I’d go to bed got later and later. Now, it’s just whenever I start to feel tired. So, I’ll go into our dark room, crawl into bed, lay my head down, and fall asleep. Sometimes that's 10 o'clock and sometimes that's 11 o'clock and sometimes it's one o'clock in the morning, but that hour comes when I just can't stay awake anymore.
And yet the Lord tells us stay awake. Now, I don't know that he means that you're supposed to stay up 24/7. I think that would be a little bit ridiculous. Certainly if anyone could do it, it would be Jesus, but we know even he would retire back to his own home and sleep. Then h gets started on the next day we are created for rest. Jesus does not mean just stay awake all the time. Pop those caffeine pills, drink the espresso. If he did, that would be kind of dangerous for us. But his stay awake means to be prepared. Just as the master goes out of town on a journey and he leaves his home and he puts his servants in charge of the house, each to go about their own work, because they never know when he's coming back, so also does he give us this charge.
He's going, he's ascending to the right hand of the Father. We cannot see him bodily. I mean, we know that he's with us in Word and Sacrament. We know that when I'm speaking the words of Absolution, we should be seeing Jesus. We know that when you're receiving the Lord's Supper from my hand, you should be seeing Jesus as the host of that meal and the meal itself. But he has gone bodily from our eyes. And in that time, he's given us our work to do, and the sun rises and we begin our work and the sun sets and we end our work and we rest. The Sabbath day comes yet again and we rest. We go about our work, just like these servants. It's not like the master would demand that they work 24 hours a day. After all, Jesus lives in age without electricity. 24/7 work would have been impossible and incomprehensible.
People couldn’t work when the sun went down. You can’t see. We have night time stuff now because of the miracle of electricity. Someone figured out how to harness electric power and make it light things up. You’d get up in the morning, work hard from sunrise to sundown, and you’d eat and go to bed. And why? Because you can't see.
Notice this, the sun goes out, the moon stops its light, the stars fall from the sky. And in that time you do not work anymore. I went for a walk this week at about seven o'clock that night. Ava was home sick all day and I was with her, and Liz got home and I gave Ava over to her and I said, look, I've got to get some exercise in. And so I went out for this walk and the moon was lighting my way. I barely needed my flashlight. The only time I turned it on was when a car was approaching, just so they didn't run me over. But I saw by the light of the moon and by the stars exactly where I was going. And I walked through forest and park and I walked up hills and down fields. And I found my way by the light of the moon. Imagine if the moon had not shined, imagine if you had no electricity, no battery, no power to see, you know, that the time then is there to rest.
And that's what Jesus is telling us, the day is coming when he will return. And he, being our light, will first indicate to us that our rest has been achieved and we can put our rest in him by turning out all the lights in the universe. And thus, when he comes and he is our light, we go to him for life. And we know that we can work and do our business in his light and never have to fear of the dark coming again for us.
You see the Lord, we talked last week, is tarrying. He is waiting to gather all of the people who are written in the Book of Life. And this is out of his mercy, and out of his mercy, too, he is leading this world into darkness. I know that seems counterintuitive to what our Jesus is doing, but as the world grows darker and darker, and this, as we prepare to enter our Advent season, as the world grows darker, we await his second coming, because we know that when the dark is finally achieved, then we will have our rest. Until then we stay awake in the Lord.
Until then, we go about our business, and you saw what that business was in Jude, did you not? Jude had a wonderful list of things, and I'm going to read them all to you here: build yourselves up in your most holy faith, Edify one another. He says, pray in the Holy Spirit. That doesn't mean as the charismatics take it to mean that you pray in some kind of weird language that no one understands, but you pray in the fact that you are a baptized child of God, approaching your Father as a beloved child would their beloved father. The Holy Spirit has given you faith to pray. And so pray in the Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God, hear his Word, receive his Sacrament, wait for the mercy of your Lord Jesus Christ that leads you to eternal life. Have mercy on those who doubt. Save others by snatching them out of the fire. To others, show mercy with fear; that mercy which fears fears the Lord, it is the beginning of wisdom. Hate the garment stained by the flesh. Hate this world, hate exactly what it has done to you and what it is doing to others, dragging them into the pit of hell. This is the work that we do to stay awake because we know that this world is wearing out like a garment, it’s wearing out and it's wearing thin. And as it wears out and wears thin, the darkness begins to take it over.
And yet as the darkness comes, know that your Lord also is coming. Jesus says, From the fig tree, learn the lesson. Ancient Israel did not have a 365 day calendar. They operated by a lunar calendar; roughly every 28 days was a new month. And so, the calendar always kind of varied. However long the year might be, you might be in one month and all of a sudden winter happens and you might be in another month the next year and there's winter happening. And so it wasn't always sure when winter actually would come, it wasn't always sure when spring and summer and fall would happen, you had to look to what nature was telling you. He says when the fig tree begins to sprout its leaves, you know that the summer is near; it's growing in such a way to soak up all of the light that it can to prepare itself, to produce the fruit for the harvest and, finally then, to rest in the dark of the winter and to come back to life in the spring. So, too, should you look, not just at nature, but everything that we have in this world, so that we see the darkness coming in. And we know that our time of rest in Christ is coming.
We are in the midst of the theological summer, even as we are approaching the eschatological days of winter; we are out there, producing our work. We're out there giving fruit for this world to eat, to receive, but soon the winter is coming and there we bundle up, we sit by our fires and we wait. We wait because our Lord's promise is sure. And in fact, during the Advent season, this is what it is all about. Advent means coming and, sure, Advent seems like, well, let's have a couple of weeks to get up to Christmas day. That's not it. Advent is there for you to see and to know that your Lord is coming soon. And if he is coming soon, then your rest also is coming.
But until then, stay awake, be about the business of the master, work as a servant in his fields and in his house until he returns, because he is coming back to take ownership of all of it, but know that your work is not in vain. Your work is there to bring you to the day of rest, that rest where Jesus Christ will bring you up out of your grave and will give to you life everlasting, where you will live in his light and his joy and his glory and his power forever. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment