^{The Countdown | Pentecost 23 | 16.11.2025 | Luke 21, 5-19 | David Zersen |}

⁵When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, ⁶“As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” ⁷They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” ⁸And he said, “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. 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.” ¹⁰Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; ¹¹there 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; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. ¹³This will give you an opportunity to testify. ¹⁴So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; ¹⁵for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. ¹⁶You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. ¹⁷You will be hated by all because of my name. ¹⁸But not a hair of your head will perish. ¹⁹By your endurance you will gain your souls.

THE COUNTDOWN

Today’s Gospel lesson is a good text for us because we’re approaching the end. “The end of what?” you ask. Well, of course, some may count the days to the end of our culture. One pundit announced after the New York election of Mamdami that in three years, New York will be 100% Muslim! I’ve also heard some say that Russia will resolve the Ukraine conflict with a nuclear weapon, ending much of Europe, as T.S.Eliot predicted in “The Hollow Men”, “not with a bang, but a whimper.” Sometimes changes can be extreme, but I’m merely thinking about the end of the church year! Next Sunday is the last Sunday of the church year, bringing us to Advent. Some remember it as Christ the King Sunday. In any case, the lectionary uses the opportunity to focus on the last things that we often paint with bold brush words like eschatology (the study of the end of things) or apocalyptic (which refers to the unveiling of scary things at the end of time).

And, indeed, the chosen Gospel lesson gives a countdown to terrifying events. The text, therefore, is appropriate, not only because of the end of the church year around the corner, but because it outlines terrible events that have happened to followers of Jesus before and are still happening this very day. The end times, from some perspectives, can be ominous.

In writing this Gospel, Luke may have become aware of some of the fateful events that were problematic for Christians. The separations taking place when members of a family convert to Christianity, the job losses that happen when people are dismissed for choosing a new faith, or the divisions that happen when new views of morality challenge old ones. Much of this can be observed in our own time. The persecutions against Christians taking place in Sudan, in Nigeria and in Ukraine are good examples of what first century Christians already experienced. And in our own country, religious scruples among Christians themselves have led to demonstrations, protests, destruction and killings. When Jesus says, “Nation will rise against nation” it not only means that foreign powers may attack others, but that uprisings can take place within one’s own family, tribe, political party, trade union or church body. The current divisions among the Anglicans, the Methodists, the Lutherans, the Roman Catholics, etc., are good examples of the latter.

On the one hand, it seems that Jesus is preparing his followers for the inevitable because his presence did not remove the reality of evil among us. His loving example and insightful words do give us the option to choose forgiveness and charity as a means to suppress escalating violence. How often do you and I instead choose to react to condescension and violence from others with angry retaliation of our own? And think of the many ways in which the “old man” within us plots to get even, although we may never act on our impulses. When we think about the end of the church and the end of time, if our progression and that of others is simply toward an increasingly ‘get even” mentality, then what Jesus predicts is right on for all of us. The eschaton, the end, as Jesus predicts, can be apocalyptic, explosive, in a bad way, for everyone. Many among us, the “ain’t it awful” people, see only the negative aspects of the future, and occasionally we too are sucked into approaches that can only result in a dead end.

In the last month, I read a book called Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions, collaboratively written by famous novelist John Grisham and by Jim McCloskey, a Presbyterian minister and the founder of Centurion Ministries, an organization dedicated to freeing the wrongly convicted. At times, because the book’s ten chapters are dedicated to telling the full stories, the accounts descend into language that a reader may think makes the book pornographic, filled with lies and vituperative killings, and clear accounts of corruption in halls of government and the courts. In the process, the reader understands that for all the honesty and justice we might like to ascribe to our country’s leadership, we are a flawed society, in which the countdown seems to lead only to dead ends. Many men and women languish in our prisons because witnesses lied, juries were bought, politics shaped the sentence, judges were dishonest, and innocence couldn’t be established until thirty years later, when DNA testing was available to allow a prisoner to go free. On the one hand, the book establishes the reality that we live in a flawed society populated by people who use base motives, attempts to avoid personal conviction, and attachment to evil groups, to hold on to perspectives that usually leads to dead ends.

On the other hand, our Gospel lesson and the book, Framed, itself, make it clear that in the countdown, all is not negative. Many were the examples of love and forgiveness that allowed a wrongly convicted killer, for example, to be freed and to live without a desire for vengeance or hatred because of being wrongly incarcerated. And Jesus ended his predictions about the inevitabilities in an evil world by saying, “You may be hated by all, but not a hair of your head will perish.” It’s hyperbole, an exaggerated way of making a point. No matter what happens, Jesus is saying, no matter how many ends you face in life, I am with you always, and there is no end to life in me.  His words are clear: You are mine, from the time when you were baptized into an eternal future. There is no end for you with me.

The well-known painting of the footprints in the sand has a person question why Jesus ceased to accompany her/him when suddenly there were not two, but only one set of footprints on the beach. Jesus responds, “That was the point at which I carried you, my friend.” You and I experience many times when we are ready to throw in the towel, to call it quits. It was Jesus’ own experience at the cross, when he said to his Father, “If it be your will, take this cup from me.”  But his commitment to his Father’s will and to all of us who follow him made a potential dead end a doorway to life. Rather than claim a right to his own way, he sought a way for us, the way of self-giving love. When, therefore, you are tempted to expect a seeming dead end and a need to fight or follow false leadership, remember the one walking beside you. He is the one who moved forward in love for us. When you seek to sum up your life, in the countdown, don’t be afraid to walk with Jesus. There are no dead ends with him.

Hymn: Let us ever walk with Jesus.

David Zersen., D.Min., Ed.D., FRHistS
President Emeritus, Concordia University Texas
zersendj@gmail.com
414 727 3890