Matthew 24:15-28;
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Exodus 32:1-20
In the Name of the Father and of the
+ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Today’s Gospel is unquestionably about
God’s judgment upon sinful mankind. The only question is “When?” Our Lord presents
us with a myriad of signs and prophecies, some seemingly already fulfilled, others
perhaps being fulfilled right now, and still others seemingly yet to be
fulfilled. But, that is how things are with our Lord who is the Alpha and the
Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, and everything in
between. Our Lord is the Lord of History and the Lord of Time, and this is the
nature of His Advent, His Coming: He has come. He comes. And, He is coming. Indeed,
the end of the Church’s Year of Grace is much like its beginning in Advent: We are to watch and to wait, always in faith,
always in prayer, always prepared for His Parousia, the Day of His Coming. That
He has come is the foundation of our
faith. That He comes is the substance
of our faith. That He is coming is
our hope in faith for which we expectantly watch and wait. To do so is to be a
Christian, a subject of Christ our King and recipients of His kingly reign on
earth and in heaven. However, the kingdom of God does not come with signs to be
observed. You must see with your ears and not your eyes. For God’s kingdom in
this world is one of faith, and faith comes by hearing the Word of Christ. Only
on the Last Day, when the King returns, will our faith be turned to sight.
Indeed, it is our sin-corrupted vision
and reason that hinder us from seeing, receiving, and sharing the kingdom of
God, for, in our willful rebellion, our physical eyes and reason may have been
opened to know good and evil, but our spiritual vision and certainty became
blind. Where, once, long ago, God’s will and His ways seemed to us wise, true,
and good, now they seem to us foolish, weak, and despicable. “Why should God
prohibit the eating of that one particular fruit? It obviously looks good to
eat.” That was the root of our fall from grace: man placing his vision and
reason over and above God’s Word. Satan planted that seed of doubt, and then he
leveled his masterstroke: “When you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you
will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Ever since that fateful day, man has
no patience for God, His will, and His ways. Instead, man demands that God
operate on man’s terms, according to man’s wisdom, and prove His existence by
signs and wonders that men count as significant and wonderful.
When God first appeared to Israel on
Mount Sinai, His Presence was accompanied by signs and wonders: “thunders and
lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so
that all the people in the camp trembled.” However, when Moses delayed to come
down from the mountain, how quickly the people turned aside to idolatry,
fashioning a god of their own making from the golden rings in their ears. When
God did not act in the manner they considered wise and god-like, they took matters
into their own hands and created a god of their own imagination, reason, and
wisdom. They knew good and evil: They judged their own wisdom and reason to be
good, and God’s wisdom to be foolishness and evil. In the golden calf, they
created an abomination that resulted in their desolation before God, a
desolating sacrilege.
The abomination is sin, and the
abominable are sinners. The abomination of sin causes desolation, utter
destruction of both the sin and the sinner because they are opposed and antithetical
to God who is holy and righteous and just. The abomination of sin causes
desolation by default, by definition, because sin and sinners cannot possibly
stand in the presence of holy God anymore than darkness can exist in the
presence of light. Therefore, sin must be dealt with, and sinners must be
atoned for, if there is to be any hope of reunification. For this reason God
gave His commandments and established the Levitical priesthood and the
sacrificial system, that sins and sinners may be atoned for, covered over for a
time, until the day when God would act to take away sin once and forever.
Until that day…. However, sinful, self-idolizing
man won’t wait for that. Oh, no. Throughout the intervening years and
centuries, men did not wait and watch for God’s mighty deliverance, but they
continued to raise up and to worship creatures in the place of their Creator.
They desired a king and a kingdom like the pagan nations, with wealth and
military might that they might be glorious and strong in the eyes of men. They
defiled themselves by comingling the pagan religions, with their multitudes of
gods and goddesses, with their own, thus committing spiritual adultery and
making themselves the whore, betraying their faithful God and Husband. Satan
had lead them so far from the light of God’s Word into the darkness, ignorance,
and foolishness of sin that, when the day in which God did act came, they were
found not watching and waiting, but they were eating and drinking, planting and
building, buying and selling, marrying and being given in marriage, and that
day sprung upon them like a trap.
What day was that? It was the day that
Jesus described in the Gospel when the abomination of desolation stood in the
holy place. Yes, that day has already come! The abomination was Jesus, dead on
the cross. The holy place was, not the temple, but Golgotha, the place of a
skull. There, Jesus became what we are, a sinner, an abomination in the
presence of God that cannot stand. However, Jesus was not merely one sinner
among others, but in God’s eyes, He was the only sinner, a sacrilege to God. He
who knew no sin was made to be sin for us. And, cursed is everyone who is
hanged on a tree.
But, this is the nature of the kingdom
of God, and this is how King Jesus reigns. It is a reign of love, a reign of
mercy, and a reign of sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins: Greater love is
not possible than this – that the Son of Man should lay down His life in death
for you. O, Kingly Love! Indeed, it is from the cross that King Jesus reigns.
There He was crowned. There the title above His head read in Greek, Aramaic,
and Latin: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. When Jesus died, the temple –
His body – was destroyed. Then did the earth shake and rocks were split. Then
were tombs opened and many of the saints who had died were raised. Then was
there a mighty earthquake and everyone was filled with awe, and men had to
confess, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
How many people experienced all of this?
As it was the Passover, and Jewish pilgrims had come from all over the middle
east to celebrate the feast, hundreds of thousands at the very least. All of
the phenomena associated with Jesus’ crucifixion and death were experienced by
hundreds of thousands of Jews, Romans, and other Gentiles. And, what about those
saints said to have come out of their graves alive and were seen in the city?
Truly, it is not fabrication or myth, but these things actually occurred – their
truth was incontrovertible, for too many had experienced it and seen it with
their own eyes. Further, after Jesus’ resurrection, the Scriptures record for
us at least eleven post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, at least one time
before more than five hundred, and in the Jewish way of counting that likely
included only the men present.
With all this evidence and eyewitness
testimony, preserved and handed down over the course of two millennia, why then
do men today refuse to believe? Because, seeing is believing, they say. That
is, seeing with your eyes, having no regard for the eyes of faith. But, this is
nothing new. Indeed, it is the first sin repeated again and again – idolatry.
Men are not satisfied and content with the Word of God, even when it is
supported by facts, but prefer to go their own way, according to their own
reason and wisdom, which is foolishness and the pathway to sin and death.
Further, men cannot imagine that God would reign and rule in such seeming
weakness, humility, and pathetic suffering unto death. Surely there must be
another, a different god – or perhaps there is no god at all. Either is preferable
to this God who hides Himself and veils Himself in lowliness. Where is the God
of Sinai? Let Him appear before us, then we will believe; but do not tarry lest
we become the whore and worship gods of our own making. Oh, He will appear in
glory and great power and might, but woe to those who did not receive Him in
His first appearing.
For, indeed, the Day of the Lord has
come, on a Friday afternoon two thousand years ago. Then began the Last Days,
the thousand-year reign of Christ, with His death, resurrection, and ascension.
Now He reigns at the right hand of God the Father in heaven. Now are the days
in which you are not to be enslaved to material things, but you are to be
watching and waiting in faithful, expectant, hope for His second coming, His
Parousia. Now are the days to remain vigilant in the Word of God that you may
not be lead astray by false teachers and false christs who say, “Look, here is
the Christ!” or “There He is!” or “Look, He is in the wilderness.” If they tell
you he is to be found in nature, do not believe it! If they tell you he is to
be found in reason and science, do not believe it! And, if they tell you he is
to be found in worship of yourself, do not believe it! No, when He returns, He
will not come in meekness and humility, veiled so that you may only see with
the eyes of faith. No, when He returns, He will come on the clouds with the
sound of a trumpet and a cry from an archangel, and every eye will see Him,
every tongue will confess Him, and every knee will bow before King Jesus, the
Lord.
No, we do not need signs and wonders,
but what we need now is mercy. We pray for mercy, and we receive mercy. “For
the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast
love.” “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but
is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all
should reach repentance.” King Jesus reigns even now, for you, His Kingly reign
of love, mercy, and sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. He blesses you and keeps you. He makes His face to shine upon you and
is gracious to you. He lifts up His countenance upon you and gives you peace.
He comes to you now on the clouds of heaven with angels and archangels and all
the company of heaven to dine with you at His banquet, a foretaste of the Great
Wedding Feast that is yet to come. Though you do not see Him with your eyes,
through the eyes of faith you see and hear and believe, “the assurance of
things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” And, as the Roman
vultures gathered around the corpse of Jesus dead on the cross, so we, His
faithful subjects, as eagles, gather around His resurrected and ascended body
and blood for the strengthening of our faith, the forgiveness of our sins, and
the hope of eternal life in His Name. “Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and
with fear and trembling stand; ponder nothing earthly minded, for with blessing
in His hand Christ our God to earth descending comes our homage to demand.”
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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