Sermon notes from 11/13
When I was growing up in the 1990s, if you stayed up late enough and you were lucky enough to have cable TV, you might run across a late-night infomercial that appealed more to urgency than to art. “Do you know what’s coming?” an ominous voice would demand as distorted letters flashed across the screen. “Discover the Bible Code.” Now, this idea of a “bible code” wasn’t new in the 90s, though I do think this was probably the first instantiation of the code having an infomercial, but there was a heady revival of the idea. The authors of this book explained a basic belief that various historical events had been predicted by the arrangement of words in the Bible. Words like “Holocaust” and “Berlin Wall” and things of that nature were shown to be mappable within the larger text, a bit like if one used a word search puzzle as a ouija board. Of course, it wasn’t long before critics of the alleged bible code quickly pointed out that the very same process could be just as effectively applied to any text long enough to contain lots of word patterns. You could do this with Moby Dick, it turns out. And - as it happens - the entire lyrical repertoire of the great 90s hip-hop icon, Vanilla Ice.
But that question sells books. “Do you know what’s coming?” Doomsday predictions and signs proclaiming the end of the world have existed since human beings could write things down.
We are captivated by that question. We are afraid of that question. Because it remains the fact that for all of our skill, our knowledge, our capacities, and our cunning, we actually do not generally have a very strong sense of precisely what it is that’s coming.
It is always around this time of year when we meet this apocalyptic language in the Gospel as appointed for the weeks just at the edges of Advent. I’ve always found it a bit wonderful that when the rest of the world is turning up Christmas music, we’re here in church talking about the end of the world. It’s as if each of us could be looking toward our holiday decorations or the lights in Rittenhouse Square and pointing out their magnificence just like the people in temple who pointed toward its beauty, and Jesus suddenly turns to us as says, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when all will be thrown down."
Today in this 21st chapter from St. Luke, Jesus is teaching in the Temple itself in Jerusalem. For just about ten chapters - nearly half of the entire Gospel text - Jesus has been traveling toward this very place, where he will soon be arrested, scorned, and crucified. His hearers point toward the splendor of this incomparable place: the temple was glorious - covered in gold and shining like a lighthouse of pure white marble above the clay and stone of Jerusalem. Jesus wastes no time with his reply: all of this - even this magnificent thing - will fall. Even the things that seem indestructible are doomed. When his listeners ask him when this all will be, note that Jesus does not tell them directly, but rather instructs them to beware that they are not led astray. Beware of false prophets. And even when all seems lost, do not be terrified.
What follows seems like a litany of terrors. Wars. Persecution. Betrayal by family and friends. But then his assurance: “not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.” What is Jesus up to here?
It assists us when we remember that the word “apocalypse” comes to us immediately from the Greek, “apocalypsis,” which does not mean “the end of the world” at all. It means “disclosure.” “Uncovering.” Revelation. The apocalyptic preaching of Jesus is not to herald something deadly but rather to reveal something true. This is not a text about the end of all things. It is about the truth of all things - the truth of all things to be uncovered and disclosed by the Son of God. The truth is just as Jesus says it is: the old ways of being are passing away. Something new is coming. Be wary, but do not be terrified.
Because the truth that his hearers do not yet know is that what’s coming is the Resurrection. For generations, the temple had been the center of power and religious life, but something new is coming. In just a few short chapters, we will find that the place where God’s people meet him will no longer be within the walls of a building, but within the flesh of his own Son, risen from the dead. You think you’ve seen power? In buildings? In kings? In gold? Here is true power - disclosed, uncovered, revealed - in the Incarnate Word. Here is true power: the Son of God - crucified, died, and yet alive.
An apocalypse may not be the end of the world as God knows it, but it might just be the end of the world as we do. The image that comes to me when I take this passage to contemplation is the image of setting a bone. When a bone is broken, it must be put aright again. But there is that moment - right before the bone is set - when it seems perfectly logical to us to just let it be. The act of setting it will be excruciating. It will feel like death. O Lord, please just let my leg dangle as it is and let me suffer at a level I can manage. Setting the bone aright will feel like death. But it is necessary for the bone to heal. It is necessary for the limb to be whole. The truth can feel just like this. We become so familiar with the broken bone that we wince at the idea of anything that might touch it, but somewhere within us, we know what it is to yearn to heal.
Resurrection is the only answer to our question: “do you know what’s coming?” What's coming is the savior of the world. What’s coming is the truth that whatever we are holding onto that is not Christ will be torn down. What’s coming is renewal, and a divine rearticulation of hope so beautiful that it will make broken bones feel like wings.
Preached by Mtr. Brit Frazier
13 November 2022
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia