Sermon on St. Luke 21:25-28 [29-36]
Advent II + Populus Zion
+ Jesu Juva +
From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
Jesus warns His hearers that in the last days between His ascension and His second coming there will be signs in all of creation, both on earth and in the heavens: the heavens will be shaken, the earth will be in perplexity, and people will faint with fear. To you, who watch national disasters on 24-hour news channels and who lived through 9/11, we need not build a polemical case that Jesus’ words have come true. There have been disasters from the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 to more recent tsunamis and many, many more. Why have these disasters come upon us? The signs in heaven and on earth are the beginning of the implosion of this fallen creation as it makes way for a new creation. God created the heavens and the earth to be a dwelling place for God and man. It has since fallen into sin and become a place of death for mankind. But God has promised to make all things new, a promised first fulfilled in Christ and finally consummated in a new heaven a new earth, where sin and death are no more. So when you see the powers of heaven and earth imploding, know that this fallen creation is passing away and a new heaven and earth are coming in Christ.
And then what will happen? You will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” Or, as the Apostles’ Creed puts it, “From thence He will come to judge the quick and the dead.” His angels will separate the sheep from the goats. He will then send the unbelievers to eternal damnation and bring the believers to eternal life. I ask you: Is the word of final judgment law or gospel? Does it show us our sin or show us our Savior? In good Lutheran fashion, I am going to say ‘yes’ – it is both law and gospel. For the unbelievers, Jesus’ final advent is starkest law, for “they shall look on Him whom they have pierced.” But it will be too late to repent. As we have just sung:
Ev’ry eye shall now behold Him / Robed in glorious majesty;
Those who set at nought and sold Him, Pierced and nailed Him to the tree,
Deeply wailing . . . Shall their true Messiah see (HS98 802.2).
Those who sold Jesus into death and cried, “Crucify! Crucify!” shall know that He was indeed the Son of God. And all those who do not confess with the church catholic that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, will join the generation of unbelievers to suffer eternal damnation in hell. Recall that when the high priest asked Jesus, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” the Lord answered Him “I am,” and immediately added, “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mk 14:62). Upon hearing those words, the high priest tore his clothes, accused Jesus of blasphemy, and handed him over into death. For the high priest and all unbelievers, the last day will be a day of remorse and regret.
But for those of us who believe and are baptized into the confession that Jesus is Lord, His second coming is good news. He comes to us, and He comes in the way of grace to bring us everlasting life. Again, from our hymn of the day:
Those dear tokens of His Passion / Still His dazzling body bears,
Cause of endless exultation / To His ransomed worshipers.
With what rapture . . . Gaze we on those glorious scars (HS98 802.3).
The tokens of His Passion are the five holy wounds: two on His hands, two on His feet, and one in His side. The exalted Christ, lifted high in His ascension, still has the scars of His crucifixion, proof that He is the crucified One who ransomed us with His own body on the cross. With great joy we will rise from the dead, behold His face, and ascend to heaven with Him.
So how do the people of Zion prepare for the end of days? “Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” This “lifting up” theme is very important for Advent because it teaches us how to greet our King when He comes to us. Hence the Psalms we are singing this Advent, both on Sunday morning and on Wednesday night, talk about lifting up one’s eyes to the Lord. On Wednesday nights, we sing, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help” (Ps. 121:1) And on Sunday mornings, “Unto Thee I lift up mine eyes, O You who dwell in heaven” (Ps. 123:1). On the Law side, the Psalmists encourage us to turn away from our sin, from our false gods, and from our inclination to search for God in the inner recesses of the human heart. You will not find Him there. He comes to us this Advent externally, riding into our midst as the Advent King, both in the Lord’s Supper and at the end of time. So lift up your heads, your eyes, your hearts, yes, your entire being to the Lord. As we pray in the Communion liturgy, “Lift up your hearts / We lift them up unto the Lord.” The Latin actually says, “Hearts up!” We have our hearts up (and eyes and heads and everything else) to the Lord, for our hearts are already in heaven. Christ is in us through the means of grace. We are in Christ through faith. So as God’s forgiven and redeemed people, we are ready to meet Him who comes to us in His blessed Sacrament and in His final judgment.
And so on this, the Second Sunday in Advent, we recall the Beloved Apostle and the faithful women who waited at the foot of the cross. Recall that the other disciples denied, betrayed, and fled from Jesus. Others literally fell asleep on the job. But John and the faithful women waited with our Lord until His dying moment, only to behold the beginning of the last things in the signs in creation after Jesus died. The rocks split, the earth shook, and even a few graves of the People of Zion popped open. In the faithful few at the foot of the cross, we see the posture of the church in these last days. She waits patiently for her Lord, not in doubt or in sensationalism, but in daily repentance and faith, knowing that her Lord will return to judge the quick and the dead. For the Faithful, the final judgment is simply the application of the sentences already pronounced from the cross, “Father, forgive them” (Lk 23:34) and “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Lk 23:43). And so today we pray, “Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to make ready the way of Thine only-begotten Son, so that by His coming we may be enabled to serve Thee with pure minds” (Collect). Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Rev. Brian Hamer
Redeemer Lutheran Church
Bayside, NY