2025 11 16 Proper 28 (33)
Isaiah 65:17-25 and Isaiah 12 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 Luke 21:5-19
Things are surely going to get bumpy!
Last week, through
our reading from the prophet, Haggai, we were encouraged to make the house of
the Lord a priority, and to build the house of the Lord. This might seem like a strange priority when
we hear Jesus talk about the temple being torn down this week. However, we are called to build a house of God,
whose walls are not made of brick and wood, but made from the precious gems who
are you, me and people who are “out there….”, who are not yet part of our
church, but who God is calling to be part of his Kingdom.
This week we again,
hear about things to come – the promise of new Heavens and a new Earth. Isaiah
prophecies; “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the
former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” A promise of a glorious future, and although
this was written approximately five centuries before Christ, it was a prophecy
that has been reiterated and still is yet to be fulfilled.
At each service we
declare the mystery of faith; Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will
come again. I suspect that we sometimes
forget this last part; Christ will come again.
In fact, I think that many people brought up in the faith who stop
coming to church forget the first two statements as well. “Christ has died”, is a statement that
declares an undeniable fact. Jesus is
recorded in history, by non-Christian historians, as a person who performed
great deeds and was crucified. I
guarantee that if we went down the street and asked people, most would not
realize the authenticity and reliability of this information.
“Christ is risen”, is
a statement that declares a whole other incredible factor, upon which our faith
stands. We can be assured that we are
forgiven our sins by God the father, because Jesus is the lamb of God who
willingly gave himself for that purpose.
We wouldn’t be sure we could believe this, if Jesus didn’t rise from the
dead, proving that he has power and authority over death, and proving his
divinity…. He is God! This fact, while
not recorded by non-Christian historians, was written about in the New
Testament and it says that after Jesus rose, he appeared to over 500 people and
these people were still alive at the time it was written, and able to testify
to the fact.
“Christ will come
again,” is a somewhat mysterious statement that will probably leave most of us
bewildered, but it just might be the crucial part of our faith. Actually, it is all crucial, but when people
are wanting to know what life is all about, and feeling perhaps a little
hopeless or depressed about the state of the world, it could just be, that this
is because they, and sometimes we, are ignorant of, or forgotten our origins in
God, and who we are in God, and our future reality in God.
The ancient
Israelites who had been in exile, were exactly the same, in their lost
identity. These people were chosen by
God, but while being in exile, a new generation had grown up who heard the
stories, but they heard them as someone else’s story. They, and we, need to experience our own
story, that confirms who we are in God.
What we believe impacts
our actions and our outlook on life. If
we believe there is no God and at the end we simply cease to be, we have no
real reason to push through the hard times.
We have no real value in life beyond its usefulness to how it makes us
feel.
As Christians, we
believe that we were purposely formed from the time of our conception. God had a part in our formation in the womb. Ephesians 2:10 tells us, “For we are God’s
handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God
prepared in advance for us to do.” God
has good works prepared for us to do here and now, and in the future. Jesus will come again, and there will be
new heavens and a new earth, when God restores all things in harmony and peace. We believe that there is a purpose in our
lives here and now, but there is even more in eternity. The Bible gives us hints, but most of it is a
mystery, as 1 Corinthians 2:9 tells us; ““What no eye has seen, what no ear
has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”— the things God has prepared
for those who love him. “
Isaiah had a word
from God that was an encouragement to the exiled Jewish people. The prophecy has elements that are for the
distant future and there are elements that were for the people of that current
time. Those people needed to know that
God had everything in his plan. They
needed to know that they were purposefully created and chosen by God
and that God had prepared a future for them…. A good and wonderful
future. They needed to know this, and so
do we. We need to know that we are
God’s precious and chosen creation, purposely put together in our mother’s
womb. Ephesians 1:4 tells us that God
predestined us. It says, “For He chose us in Him before the creation of the
world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
In love he predestined us for adoption as sons…”
God created. We turned away. God sent Jesus to redeem us. We are redeemed, but that isn’t the end of
the story. There will be a time that God
will bring everything under his control and His Kingdom will come. The new
heaven and new earth is the ultimate, restored creation where God will
dwell fully with His people forever, free from sin, suffering, and death. This
new reality will involve a renewed, glorified physical existence for believers,
not a purely spiritual one, where heaven and earth are united. This includes
experiencing God's presence intimately, seeing Him face-to-face, and living in
harmony with Him, each other, and all of creation. Does knowing this give
us the resilience needed for facing the problems of today? Surely it does! We believe that there is ultimate good in our
future and these trials we experience are momentary in comparison to eternity.
We need to know that God
has secured a future for us, not just so that we can live with hope when we are
faced with everyday trials. We need to
know that we have a future which is sure and secure, and we need to know that
we know that we know….. and we need to be so sure and assured of it and of the
glorious future that it is, that we can truly rejoice in that future here and
now and through every trial that might come, because Jesus has warned us,
between now and his coming again the times are going to get “Bumpy”.
Our Gospel reading
spells this out. Jesus tells us that
there will be wars, insurrections, earthquakes, famines and wonderous signs in
the sky. Also, we are warned that there
will be many who will come in Jesus’ name, saying that the time is near. Jesus warns us to not be led astray.
Possibly the most
upsetting thing in our readings today is this part in the Gospel about being
betrayed by parents, siblings and relatives and being hated because of the name
of Jesus. The early Christians faced
these trials.
I thought I would do
a google search to see what Christians are currently being persecuted and
where. Firstly, AI affirmed that many
Christians are being persecuted. What
surprised me, was that some countries whose main religion is Christianity are
listed as places of extreme persecution for being Christian. One of these is Mexico and a few places
nearby such as Columbia. This is a quote
from a man in Columbia: “I'm not close to my brother, nor to my sister, and
I'm estranged from my brother-in-law. Because you preach the gospel, you are no
longer considered part of the family. And because you preach, you also lose the
right to work in the community. I no longer have the right to work because, as
a Christian, I have lost their trust.” David, an indigenous believer in Colombia.
If these countries
with a strong history of Christianity can reach a point where there is
persecution for being a Christian, we need to realize that we could well find
ourselves in the same position in our country in the future, and we need to
pray and thank God for the freedom we still have.
Today, we take stock
and consider our faith in the reality of the world situation, where our
Christian brothers and sisters are being persecuted. If push comes to shove, and we are placed in
this situation, will we be able to stand and not be led astray? Jesus says that he will give us wisdom that
none of our opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. Jesus says some will be put to death, yet not
a hair on our head will perish. The
assurance that not a hair on our head will perish seems a strange thing to say
considering that some will be put to death, but Jesus is talking about our
eternal life…. A reality that is deeper and even more precious than this life.
In the light of all
this, how should we be living while things are good and safe? Our letter to the Thessalonians deals with
this. What happens when things are good,
is that we forget all that God has done for us and we grumble about things that
really don’t matter in the light of eternity – and this includes me!
Our challenge today
is to live in the reality of the incredible future that God has planned for
us. Our Christian brothers and sisters
who stand firm in the faith regardless of persecution, do so, because they have
experienced the love of God and know that he has an eternal future secured for
us, and nothing else compares. The key
to standing firm is in knowing Jesus and knowing God’s love. Truly, nothing compares to this.
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