Göttinger Predigten
Choose your language:
Göttinger Predigten im Internet hg. von U. Nembach
Donations for Sermons from Goettingen
26th Sunday after Pentecost, 11/13/2016
No Fear Is Needed
Sermon on Luke 21:5-19, by Walter W. Harms
Luke 21:5-19
5 Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, 6 “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”
7 “Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?”
8 He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. 9 When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”
10 Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
12 “But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. 13 And so you will bear testimony to me. 14 But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. 15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death.17 Everyone will hate you because of me. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish.19 Stand firm, and you will win life.
No Fear Is Needed
The presidential elections are over in the USA. I wonder what your emotions are. Elated? Frightened? Disturbed? Feel a revolution will be necessary? At least you cast your vote, right?
An interesting note in that regard is what God’s Word says about governments. It says they are ordained by God. So we will have to see what God wants to happen through this administration.
Of course, there are so many other events happening in our country and around the world that can really be frightening, if we forget who you and I are: we are people who trust that our gracious and almighty God will bring us through all that is happening and will happen, and bring us safely home to heaven. So, no fear is needed!
When St. Luke whose coverage of the life of Jesus we are reading this church year recorded the event of this Gospel reading, some really terrible events had taken place. Jesus’ statement that the beautiful piece of architecture, the temple in Jerusalem built by Herod the Great would be leveled and the slaughter of the inhabitants of Jerusalem so great that it is recorded that the blood ran ankle deep.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the eruption of Mt Vesuvius had just happened, destroying villages rather close to Rome and experienced around the Mediterranean world. Italy, even these days, is experiencing earthquakes that shatter ancient churches.
Talk about the slaughter in Jerusalem, it is reported that around 400,000 Syrians have been killed by bombs. Refugees from that war and others in Africa on a scale never experienced before are flooding to Europe from the Middle East and Africa. Thousands are pouring across our own southern border, fleeing abject poverty and cruelty we have for the most part never experienced ourselves.
Floods devastated vast areas in our South and East. Droughts threaten our food supply and insects are wreaking havoc on the citrus groves in Florida. Oklahoma has had more earthquakes that it has ever experienced before.
Rogue nations are developing atomic bombs on an unprecedented scale. We wonder when the next terrorist or cyber attack will bring our nation to its knees. All this, while the rich get richer and the middle class barely clings to being the middle class any more.
To quote Jesus: “when you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened.” No fear is needed! Yeah? Well, Jesus think again, think again why we shouldn’t be frightened. I don’t think Jesus has to think about that at all.
We feel so helpless. We can’t even get our wagons in a circle, and if we could, the opposition to what we think and believe is coming is as if a 1000 buffalo are stampeding toward us.
Every year there seem to be fewer people who confess Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Some countries in Europe are becoming Muslim. Now there are more Christians in Africa than in the USA. When did that happen?
Why not be frightened when most of the congregations to which we belong, are aging, declining, being less certain of what we stand for and, just in general, seem to be facing opposition of persons saying they are Christian but preach some kind of get rich quick by being a follower of Jesus. Wow! What has happened?
The only possible answer is that what Jesus said would happen is happening and that end isn’t in sight just yet. That is not his only statement. He said he would tell us what to say when we face opposition that threatens our very spiritual as well as physical existence. Then he tells us that not a hair on our heads will be touched! Hard to believe.
Why trust Jesus today? Let’s look for a moment at some of the alternatives. We can’t go anywhere where we don’t face most of the same threats where we are today. We can’t build bunkers to avoid any of these events. Most of us don’t have enough financial resources to bribe our way out of these forces. So?
Eat, drink, and get it on, right? Live it up because the end is surely coming all too soon. Where I live, sexual promiscuity is greater than many other cities, the consumption of alcohol rises by about 10% every month, housing for public school teachers and minimum wage earners is out of financial reach, over 50% of the students in public schools are from homes in poverty, and people are flocking to this city at a rate of 5,000 a month!
So why trust Jesus today? Why believe we don’t have to be frightened when this and so much more is happening around and to us?
Well, I guess you should trust Jesus and believe in him as the One who not only makes life possible but who gives life meaning and substance. You see, we all, every one of us are perplexed by life. We make mistakes, we trust ourselves, we have false hopes and dreams, and most of all we want to survive. We really want to have life!
Jesus himself faced opposition from every angle. Sometimes his family thought he needed to go to a place to rest because he was a little touched in the head. His closest friends, known as his disciples, couldn’t get it straight who this Jesus was. They were always looking to him to become a ruler and give them places of authority and power. The “church” leaders thought he was a danger to everything that they believed in. They eventually had him executed for pretending to be someone they thought he pretended to be but who he really was—the Messiah, the promise Savior of us all.
How often do we have it wrong? How often don’t we want to do it “my way”? We need someone to straighten the whole thing we call life out and give us a way of escape from ourselves. That’s what Jesus did for us and still does for us each and every day.
That’s why he did what is so strange to contemplate even today. He went to the cross where he experienced all the crushing results of our failures. He had totally and once and for all freed our lives from all the fears that haunt us from our past and about our future that cause us to have so many anxieties about today and what is coming down the road.
No one in this world can keep us safe. No action on our part or on the part of any other entity, religious or otherwise will give you full life now and forever and keep us safe until that time. To experience life in its truest form, we need to see Jesus as the Lord of life and the one who promises us eternal life in his presence. No person, no action on our part or on the part of others, nothing, but Jesus gives you life. There is nothing else that can begin to alleviate any of our fears
Stand firm in Jesus and as most of you already have experienced: you have real and abiding life! No fear needed!
Amen.