SKYFALL
A Sermon Based Upon Luke 21: 25-36
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
First Sunday of Advent, December 2, 2012
“Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory”. (v. 27)
Clouds aren’t what they used to be. Today we don’t just talk about “clouds” in the sky but we also speak about ‘iclouds’. These “iclouds” are those places in cyberspace where you can store personal information about yourself, your work, your music or your movies, all safely stored away somewhere out there in appledom (who invented the icloud), where it will be protected from any evil, earthly virus that makes your computer come crashing down. It can also store all your stuff until you want to download it to a new computer, cell-phone, or laptop. No matter where you are or when you need it you can access all your stuff. One major concern about all the gathering information in cyberspace is that we will die, but all that “cyberstuff” will live on in an “cloud” until somebody finds it and pushes “delete”. All your stuff survives, even when its owners don’t.
Our text for this Advent also speaks of a “cloud”. The picture Jesus gives us is not about a computer that comes crashing down, but of a world that comes crashing down. The only thing that survives and brings any hope is that the “Son of Man” will survive and come “in a cloud with great power and glory”. When the world crumbles so that “one stone is not left upon another; and all is thrown down” and when even the “heavens will be shaken” the only power and glory remaining comes from this “cloud” which holds all human hope for redemption. Of course, all this “cloud” talk, is metaphoric “end of the world” talk. It’s strange talk, but it’s true. Like the advent of “iclouds” or “Son of Man clouds”, the truth can be stranger than fiction.
THE END THAT ALREADY CAME
When Jesus speaks about the “Son of Man coming in a cloud” he is talking apocalyptic. He is talking about an an “end” that has already come to “his world”. The clues about all this are all around in this mysterious text. When Jesus says, “not one stone will be left upon another”, he is speaking specifically about the destruction of the temple. Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans about 40 years, less than one generation after Jesus saw it coming. “This generation will not pass away, until this is fulfilled”. That is exactly how it happened. Another clue of how all this happened then comes when Jesus says, “but before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you…” This is also exactly what happened. By the time Luke’s gospel was written, all kinds of Christians had been arrested, persecuted and killed. Stephen was stoned. James was shot with an arrow. Peter was hung upside down. Paul was beheaded…and the list goes on. The whole history of the early church is filled with the blood of the martyrs which became the seed of the church. “You will be hated by all, but not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls” (v. 18-19). Many who followed Jesus died. But the church didn’t die, nor did the church lose its soul. With the promised and predicted persecution, the church only got stronger and stronger, and grew more and more. This is one of the true “wonders” of the ancient world; how the church was built around a crucified, defeated Jesus, who was worshipped by a people who were constantly hated, attacked, ridiculed and even killed for their faith. It sounds impossible that the message or mission of the church could have survived, but it did.
Another clue we have about Jesus’ mysterious words is that he told his listeners “when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you’ll know…..” (vs. 20). He’s speaking directly about the Roman invasion of Jerusalem in 70 AD which gave us Masada and the diaspora---the tragic death of the last hold Jewish hold-outs, and the scattering of the Jewish people over the whole earth, so that they became a people without a country. The descriptions Jesus gave are utterly realistic of war, invasion and the chaos that follows: “Those in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those inside the city must leave it….for these are days of vengeance, as a fulfillment…. Woe to those who are pregnant….there will be great distress….they will fall by the edge of the sword…they will be taken away captive among all nations….(remember two will be a mill, and one will be taken, the other left). Those who live and die will be random and unpredictable. It will all seem so meaningless, but this is what will happen when “Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles….until the time of the Gentiles will be fulfilled” (v. 24).
“That is how the world will end, that is how the world will end, said the poet, T.S. Elliot, not with a bang, but with a whimper.” Well, it all depends how who you are and who you aren’t. For some people, especially the rich, there is a very big bang. But for others, especially the poor, the end often comes like a fading recording, it’s gets fainter and fainter to end as a whimper----unnoticed until it’s gone. It will never return. Things will never be the same. Even though some survive, everything will is different. It wasn’t just the earth that was shaking, but it was also the “heavens” that shook (26). This is what Jesus was describing and history is a witness how and when this all happened.
THE END THAT IS STILL COMING
I guess many might read this passage and say, who cares? That’s how it was, but that’s not how it is now, right? Right?
Oh, how we wish it weren’t true. We wish things in life, and life itself did not have an ending---and could go on forever. Eternity seems to be in our “hearts”. We wish worlds, nations, and other human projects and dreams would not end. But the Bible tells us the truth, not what we wish. What happened then, can happen also, and will also again. History has a funny way of repeating itself. Dejavu happens again, again, and again. Way too much in this passage is exactly how things always happen when “worlds” falls apart. Wars. Disasters. Intolerance. Persecution. Marching Armies. Trampled cities. People fleeing as refugees. People fainting for fear. We haven’t known much of this here it here in America, at least not yet, but Europe has. We hadn’t known poverty and hunger either, but now we do. Things do fall apart. Who would have figured the Arab spring, or who would have thought about the Halloween Hurricane? It’s not so hard to imagine “what” might happen, but it’s “when” or “who” it will happen to is harder to imagine, but it will happen. “You can bet your bottom dollar, it will,” my mother used to say. How did she know? The end comes, it will always come.
When people run websites and write books about the coming end, which sell like hot cakes, the fear is there---it’s always there. Much of the predictions are ridiculous. Much of the books, even the interpretations of the Bible are just plain ludicrous. Imaginations and predictions can run wild, very wild. But what is most frightening, is to know that the end can be self-fulfilling prophecy, where we imagine it and make it so. The themes of Jesus are much too familiar, alarming not to command our attention: “Beware that you not be led astray…. the end will not come immediately…..Nation will rise up against nation…You will be hated because of my name…. the Son of Man will come….Heaven and earth will pass away…. Jesus seems to be speaking, not just of what has happened, but he is also speaking to what will happen to all of us, as he says: “For it will come upon all who live upon the face of the whole earth.”
A few years ago, most of us could never have imagined what has happened to America in these past few years. Especially right after the great victory of World War II, we could not have imagined, Viet Nam or the Cuban Missile crisis. I was alive then, but too young to realize just how near the end we all were. There was fear, but I didn’t feel it. Bobby Kennedy felt it, and he asked his children if they wanted to leave Washington and go to California, but they all refused. I didn’t know all that fear was there. After that, who would have never imagined a President murdered in cold blood. None of us could have imagined 911 on such a crystal clear September morning. Neither could we have imagined the crash on Wall Street—a second time. We all still have trouble imagining that the end might come, not just to the world, but also to us. I could have never imagined being seriously injured in a car wreck at 17 and have to suffer the results all my life. Who can imagine that an end can come. But it can. And this is this is exactly where Jesus is going with all this. “For it will come upon all who live….” Are you alive? Does your life have a beginning? It will also have an end. You, as a physical, breathing, living human being will have an end, no matter how hard it is to face or imagine. Now I know, that I sound a lot like “chicken little” now, running around calling out that the sky is falling, the sky is falling, when it’s not falling, at least not just yet. But it could. The sky may not fall, but it can and some day it will. We live is a physical, energy expending, and constantly changing world, that does not remain the same, but the only sure constant is change; beginnings that have endings.
ALWAYS HAVING THE END IN VIEW
Facing the reality of everything is something that’s very hard for “living”, “working”, and very “distracted” people to get our heads or our hearts around, but we should and we must. Jesus does not tell his disciples all this simply to make them afraid, but he is helping them face reality---their reality---the world’s reality---life’s reality. Jesus tells them this to get them ready, mentally, physically and spiritually. He does not want to scare them. Fear is already present. But Jesus wants to warn them, and to prepare them so they can save both their lives and souls.
Listen, to what Jesus prepares them, when he says, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded….you must flee to the mountains….leave the city.” Don’t fight for it. Don’t re-enter it. When the end comes, this is not a time to fight, to hold on, or to defend, but this is a time to “give up” and to go and “run for your life”. We don’t like to hear that kind of talk. Jews didn’t like to hear it either. Many of them held out on Masada and died. They could have run and lived. Sometimes things in the world fall apart. And you have to learn to let them go. You have to stop fighting against everything. Sometimes you have to let go, and let God. Sometimes you have to find somewhere to go and to give up. This will be the best thing, not the worst thing that will happen. When the end comes, you have to “let go” and not hold on.
Most of us have been there when someone is terminally ill and is near death. We’ve been there when some have held on and even other family members have begged their loved one, selfishly, “Don’t leave, Don’t leave me! We understand such feelings, but it’s often not in the dying person’s best interest. Sometimes we have to tell our loved ones it’s O.K. to let go---that we are going to be O.K., and that they are O.K., and that everything is in God’s hands. We give them permission and they give us permission to “let go and let God”. That can be a blessing. What is a curse, is to hold on, and on, unless there is a specific purpose. I remember how a lady had a heart attack and was lying in the cardiac unit in Charlotte. They called me. I got there first. She was still holding on. Then, not long after me, her daughter got there. We went in to say goodbye to her mother together. Right as we were exiting the door, I heard the flat-line alarm go off. I had worked in a hospital, and had been around it often. The daughter had not. We set down in the waiting room, and it wasn’t but just a couple of minutes they came and told us she was gone. She was holding on, and there was a purpose. When she knew her daughter had come, she let go.
Sometimes we all have to let go. They say that 90 percent of health care costs, come in the last year of life. Nobody can finance immortality. Sometimes we all have to let go and let God. This is what Jesus is getting at. Whether it be letting go of loved ones, letting go of dreams, letting go of worlds or ideas---they will have their rise, but they will also have their fall.
But most interesting of all, is that it is right here that Jesus says that at the same time “things” are falling apart, ending, and coming crumbling down, something good, great, powerful and glorious is taking place. This “ending” is not a time to bow or bury your head and die, but he says, that endings can also be a time of new beginnings. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not.” “For the powers of the heavens, will be shaken.. But “then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory”. “Now when these begin to take place, raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Who would have thought, that things are coming together—being renewed, reborn, or made new, right when things fall apart? Who would have thought, but this is exactly the new world the Bible invites us to enter and to prepare ourselves for. The Bible calls us to trust in a God that allows worlds to come and go, but he is also the same God who builds new ones and shows us how to save ourselves for them. But these new worlds that God can bring to us are not automatic. They don’t come on their own. They only come when we prepare for them and ready ourselves for them. If we hold on, or if we don’t anticipate this new world, we can be find ourselves “trapped” in the old one, when the new one has arrived.
One of the terms we hear a lot these days, is the title of a T.V. show, called “The New Normal”. Now, there’s a lot of me that would protest to the this idea of “The New Normal.” I’m sure I’m showing my age and my own personal prejudices when I share with you how much I despise that idea. The whole concept frightens me. But these new “normals” do come, don’t they? When we lose a loved one, or spouse, there is a “new normal”. When we recover from surgery, things are not the same, but there is a “new normal”. When elections are lost or won, there is a “new normal”. But even this “new normal” might not last that long until it also quickly becomes an “old normal”. The “new normal” of our time, can last about as long as a new cell phone. It is quickly outdated.
What Jesus wants his disciples to understand is that when things fall apart, there is not simply a “new normal” but there is the chance to be get “near” and be close to God’s Kingdom, which is still coming, but not yet here. God’s kingdom is not a new normal, but the absolutely new “abnormal”, an ‘odd’, surprising, coming world, that we should get special glimpes of, and get to see how it is coming, especially when it ‘peaks” through the endings we face in life.
Lately, there have been several new claims, even by medical doctors about the afterlife. Several doctors have claimed to have died and visited a “world” beyond this world. There messages are reassuring to many, but they are not new. Such visions are as old as the Bible and even before. Humans have always been able to get glimpses of new beginnings, new worlds, and new normals or abnormals, if you want to call them that. When we allow God to give us those visions, or when we stay alert, we humans have a way of finding hope, seeing, lifting up our heads, and finding redemption, even in the midst of crumbling, falling, and dying worlds.
But Jesus reminds his listeners, that this redemption is not ever automatic. We must prepare ourselves for what might come. We have to learn to read the signs. We have to be “on guard” with our hearts. We can’t let the worries of this life, “weigh us down” and make us hold on to the very things that are falling apart. To hold on, we can get trapped, and end up waiting to what is going down, to snag us and take us down with it. No, you need learn to “let go”, “flee”, to “stay alert”, keep praying, and “to find the strength to escape all these things”.
Amazingly, but not accidentally, yet intentionally and deliberately, we can “escape” these things that are ending, dying, or falling apart, by getting ourselves ready to “stand before the Son of Man”. We must prepare hearts to be with Jesus, the eternal one, when any of the temporary worlds of our life, even the world of our own life, comes to end. Nothing in this world is forever, and we aren’t either. Nothing is forever, except the “words” and the “world” of the kingdom that is still coming, the eternal kingdom--which came near in Jesus.
When we stand with him, we keep this end in view and we keep seeing the coming new world, which can’t help but break through when our worlds end, and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of Our LORD, and of his Christ. This kingdom is always just around the corner, for both me and for you. “Be on guard”. “Stay alert.” “The Son of Man is coming in a cloud with power and with great glory.” “Raise up your heads, redemption is near.” Amen.
