Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Luke 21,25-33. Ad te Levavi, The 2. Sunday in Advent

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ

Luke 21,25-33 0215

2. Sonntag im Advent 02 Ad te Levavi

Agathon, soldier, Martyr 250.

Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Italy and Hymnwriter, ✠ 397

7. Dezember 2014

1. O God of Life, draw near with Your kindness and Your justice. May Your righteousness fill everyone, particularly those who are distressed, oppressed, exploited or in dire need of temporal Providence. Draw near, O God of Life, and provide for us all that we need for life on this earth and eternal life in heaven. (VELKD, Prayer for 2. Sunday in Advent § 1-2). Amen.

2. The first two Sundays in Advent emphasize Jesus’ eschatological teachings, and thus our Gospel pericope for Ad te Levavi (I lift up to You) reads: »Jesus said to His disciples: „There will be signs in sun, moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is approaching the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man descending in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.“ And He told them a parable: „Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. As soon as they bear out in leaves, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the reign of God is near. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.“

3. Jesus spoke these words in answer to the questions His disciples had asked at the beginning of Chapter 21, namely: When will the temple be destroyed, and what signs will signal it’s imminent destruction? The disciples expected the destruction of the temple to herald the end of the world. People still make similar cause-and-effect conclusions and thus ask these questions today, so bookshelves and Amazon.com have dozens of books examining the questions from every conceivable angle. Some of these books treat the subject Biblically, but many of these books border on absurdity and contain false teaching.

4. The beauty of the Church Year and the Historic Lectionary is the symmetry between the beginning of the Liturgical Year and its ending. Both deal with the advent of Jesus: His first advent and His second. The first two Sundays in Advent look more at the return of Jesus on the last day, and in doing so remind us of His first advent in Bethlehem at Christmas. Consider what Jesus says in Luke 21:

I. There will be signs in the heavens.

II. The Son of Man descends with power and great glory.

III. Our redemption is drawing near.

Is this not similar to what occurred at Jesus’ birth? Indeed, it is! There were signs in heaven, Jesus arrived and our redemption drew near. First, an angelic choir sang in the heavens on the night when Jesus was born. The shepherds saw this choir and heard their anthem. They went into Bethlehem to see the newborn Jesus (Luke 2,13-15). The magi also saw signs in the heavens. The position of the planets and stars informed them that a great and glorious king had been born in Judea. They saddled up their camels, gathered their gifts and rode west to Jerusalem to pay homage to the newborn King of the Jews (Matthew 2,1-2). Jesus descended from heaven to earth with power and glory. O it may not have seemed that way. In all appearances Jesus was an ordinary boy born into an ordinary family. His begotten father was a carpenter from Nazareth. His mother was a young teenager who had not long before left her father and mother to marry her husband. The Infant Jesus looked no different than any of us when we were born, but that little baby is the very Son of God with all His Divine power and glory humbled and hidden from the world’s view. An angel of Yahweh told Joseph: »Mary will bear a son, and you will name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins« (Matthew 1,21). Months later an angel of Yahweh told the shepherds: »For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord« (Luke 211). Jesus was born to save fallen mankind from our sinfulness, and thus Christmas is a celebration of God’s salvation history becoming flesh and dwelling among us.

5. The 2. Sunday in Advent helps us to see the continuity between the first and second advent of Jesus to this earth. Jesus’ disciples thought that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple would be the opening salvo of a series of cataclysmic events that would culminate with Jesus’ return. The answer Jesus gave to their question told them that such an understanding was wrong. There was no correlation between the timing of the temple’s destruction and Jesus’ return. Many well-meaning Christian teachers and preachers make a likewise errant connection with the return of Christ. Their argument goes: Now that Israel is restored as a nation, the return of Christ is at hand. This simply ignores the entire point Jesus put forth in Luke 21. Jesus lists all sorts of spectacular signs as heralds of the temple’s imminent demise, but does not link its destruction to His return and the end of the world. Jesus’ second advent was not connected to the temples’ destruction and it is not connected to Israel being recognized as a nation in 1948. Jesus teaches that His return will catch everyone by surprise, but that once He arrives there will be no doubt that He has returned. The same was true at His first advent. Other than Mary, Joseph and their close relatives, no one expected Jesus’ arrival until the angels announced it and the magi realized the signs in the heaven announced Jesus’ birth.

6. The signs Jesus lists obviously cause us to pause and consider the tumultuous state of the world. Natural disasters, wars, violence, murders and many other events herald the fallen distress of our world. But distress and destruction still catch us unaware or ill-prepared. The soldiers and sailors at Pearl Harbor on 7. December 1941 expected another peaceful, lazy Sunday morning. The attack by the Imperial Navy of Japan caught them completely off-guard. Regarding His advent, Jesus taught: »Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the Flood came and destroyed them all« (Luke 17,26-27).

7. The signs can be understood as portents of God’s mercy. Jesus said: »Now when these signs begin to take place, your redemption is drawing near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the reign of God is near. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.« The signs Jesus gives are ordinary signs that occur on a regular basis throughout human history. There are always signs in the heavens, distress upon the earth and tumult in nature. Life continues. Signs occur, and human history marches forward. Wars and violence engulf the earth, but peace eventually is restored. Natural disasters happen, and the survivors clean up the wreckage, rebuild and continue their lives. God thus reminds us that order is always restored after a chaotic event. Yes, one day the world will end and Jesus will return. That is a good day, a day to look forward to for it is the day of our salvation when the old cursed order of the fallen world is replaced with a pristine, holy new world order where Jesus reigns as Lord Supreme.

8. The signs point us to Christ. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son and will call Him: God is with us. (Isaiah 7,14). Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? We saw His star when it rose and have arrived to worship Him (Matthew 2,2). There will be signs in sun, moon and stars, and then they will see the Son of Man arriving in a cloud with power and great glory. Behold, there is the Christ! He slept in a Bethlehem manger. He rode an ass up to Jerusalem. He died on the cross and His grave is empty. He now is seated at the right hand of God His Father. All these signs remind us of the mercy and forgiveness of God manifested by Jesus. Just as surely as He arrived on this earth in Bethlehem to save us from our sinfulness, so He will arrive again in majestic clouds to usher us into heavenly eternal life. Amen.

9. Let us pray. O Yahweh, the world’s Righteousness Judge, when the stars grow dark and the seas roar in rage, then comfort us with the promise of our salvation on account of Your righteousness and faithfulness that You have freely credited to us by grace through faith. Amen.

To God alone be the Glory

Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm

✠

All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Monday, December 8, 2014

Luke 21,25-33. Ad te Levavi, The 2. Sunday in Advent

No comments:

Post a Comment