Luke 21:5-19
We are in the last fortnight of the Church Year. And the focus of the readings in these last weeks is always what we call the ‘end times.’ So this year, the year of Luke, we look at Luke’s account of Jesus’ words on the last days, the end of times.
Last week we looked at the certainty of the resurrection, the very heart of our faith. Today we will look at the things that point to the end of the world as we know it.
And next week, the feast of Christ the King, the last Sunday after Pentecost, we will look at what is means when we say Christ is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
And so to the end times. Probably no other question puzzles and vexes the minds of believers (and non-believers for that matter) as what will happen just before what we call time changes, in some way, forever.
Today’s words from Jesus give us a beautiful hope that no matter what happens, “not a hair on our heads will perish” (v.18). We will see that it is the Love of God himself that enables us to endure all things.
Much is written about this in both the New and the Old Testaments; particularly Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, all four gospels, nearly all of Paul’s letters (especially to the Thessalonians), and, of course, the book of Revelation, given to the apostle John by Christ himself.
These ‘last days’ began 2,000 years ago when Jesus ascended to the Father, and since then, the End Times have been seen as coming soon. And they are!
God is outside what we call time, or our experience of time passing. Scripture tells in in quite a few places that a year to us can be 1,000 to God and 1,000 years is like a day; for God is outside time.
For 2,000 years people have looked for the second coming of Jesus and predicted dates that this will happen; even though we are told that only God himself knows the time and the date.
Over two millennia people have claimed to be either Jesus returned, or someone especially chosen by him. To be the one to come and judge the world.
None of them were telling the truth. Jesus himself says in v.8 of today’s Gospel.
“Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and ‘The time is near!” Do not go after them.’
If you do, you will find yourself in a cult worshipping an idol in the form of a person. ‘Beware!’ Jesus says.
Jesus continues in vv.9-12:
9 “’When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.’ 10 Then he said to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; 11 there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. 12 “But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you ..’”
These wars, earthquakes, famines, plagues, portents and signs from heaven are all happening right as we speak. As is the persecution of Christians. The killing and enslavement of Christians did not stop with various Roman Emperors.
In one country alone, Syria, in the thirteen-year civil war which ended last year in a coup, over four million Syrian Christians had their homes and livelihoods destroyed and were forced to flee to Lebanon and elsewhere or taken into slavery – slavery!
This is in one country; not even the worst, in fact it isn’t top ten even. The three worst countries to be a Christian North Korea, Afghanistan, and Somalia.
So, what else does Scripture say about this, well, a fait bit!
Jesus followed the Old Testament prophets in teaching that the struggles in history and the disturbances in nature are more than accidental or cyclical.
They remind believers that God triumphed over chaos in creating the natural world (Gen 1:1-2), and yet both human and spiritual forces are still contending for the earth.
It may sound simplistic, but it is hard to avoid, Scripture describes this as a battle between Good and Evil. Except as believers we know that the final outcome is secure.
As followers of Jesus, we believe his death and resurrection is God's great self-revealing act in a struggle of truly cosmic proportions. The final revelation of God will be when Jesus comes again resulting in the full and final fulfilment of God’s revelation of his Kingdom.
As the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans (8:22-23). "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in labour pains right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”
The hope to which Jesus testifies in this passage, therefore, is no trivial denial of the struggles, the pain and agony of human life, or the catastrophic forces of nature. These are real, and the prophets of old have interpreted such devastations in the context of God's saving work.
Jesus brings this very close to what many have, are, and will face in terms of being persecuted for the love of Jesus by saying that “’this will be an opportunity to testify,’" and "’By your endurance you will gain your souls!’" (vv13, 18)
The "opportunity to testify" doesn't require Jesus' followers to know everything about why bad things happen to good people.’
Jesus is promising that he will give the "words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict (v.15)." Jesus' earlier promise of the Holy Spirit's wisdom in times of testimony (Luke 12:11-12) now becomes Jesus' own promise.
Jesus himself will give you these words and this wisdom because he will be right with you, as he promised he would be always, never to forsake us.
Back at the beginning of Acts, just before his Ascension, Jesus commissions the Apostles as "my witnesses" (Acts 1:8), he assures them of the power and presence of his Holy Spirit, and the stories in Acts will display the fulfillment of this promise of God's "mouth and wisdom"
Even these harsh and fearful prophecies in Luke 21 are filled with the confidence of Jesus' enduring presence.
And the "endurance" that "will gain your souls" is also not mere heroic persistence.
The early Christians knew all about the "endurance" of stoic grit, toughing it out, and their endurance was often tested. Paul describes in Romans (5:3-5), that this endurance is transformed from reliance on human strength to trusting in God's love.
He writes, "We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."
Saving endurance is itself a gift of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Christians who have been admired for their persistence regularly discount their own strength with such words as, "It was only by God's grace that I held on."
David Livingstone, the legendary missionary to Africa, prayed, ‘Lord, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me.’
And he testified, ‘What has sustained me is the promise, “Surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age’ (Matt 28:20b). Through all of this, until time, as we now experience it, changes.
This is the promise Jesus conveys in the midst of these prophetic warnings of what will yet come.
But don’t worry, God is refurbishing the world. As Isaiah puts it in this morning’s reading, “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth (Isa 65:17).
And as Jesus says, “not a hair on your head will perish, and by your endurance, you will gain your souls” (Luke 21:19). Let me pray.