A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on the first Sunday of Advent, November 29, 2009. Given at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center in Huntington, WV and based on Zechariah 14:4-9:
On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward. 5 And you shall flee to the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azal. And you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.
6 On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost. 7 And there shall be a unique day, which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light.
8 On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter.
9 And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.
Times aren't what they used to be...
Two clay tablets dating back to 2800 BC were recently unearthed at Babylon in an archaeological dig. They both commented on the trends of the day. One read: 'Times are not what they used to be". The other tablet reflected a major concern of the people of the time. Their complaint: "The world must be coming to an end. Children no longer obey their parents and every man wants to write a book."
Concern about the end of the world - Eschatology - seems to be an enduring topic of speculation. This past Wednesday evening, some of us were chatting about the movie 2012 - in which the Mayan calendar abruptly ends, bringing with it world-wide cataclysm - much to the delight of the movie's special effects people.
Other recent movies ranging from Independence Day to the Transformers to Wall-E treat this fascination in their own ways - all of them dystopic - the opposite of Utopic.
People just seem love to predict the End of everything. In 960 AD, Bernard, a visionary in the former German state of Thuringia, announced that the world would end on Good Friday in 992AD. It didn't.
Nor did the end time arrive as Mary Bateman of Leeds, England, said it
would. In 1806, Bateman claimed that her hen was laying eggs inscribed
with the words, "Christ is coming". When Bateman began selling
"tickets" to heaven for a shilling each, she was arrested, convicted
and hanged! (Think about that - some people actually bought a ticket!)
The world did not end - though it did for Mary.
The world didn't end all the times that the Jehovah's witness newspaper The Watchtower predicted it would.
And it didn't end in the 1970's when Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth created quite a stir, or in the 1980's when newspapers worldwide announced that Lord Maitrayea had arrived and would shortly usher in the End.
We are fascinated with the End. I think it may be in part that the Human Race remembers that we were created pure and whole, knows that we have made a hideous mess of things, and realizes that we will surely be judged accordingly.
Of course, for the last 2,000 years the words of Christ have echoed in our ears: “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory." (Luke 21: 25-27)
Even the most complacent among us are given pause by such statements.
As a prophet, Jesus stood as one in a long line who spoke of the end of all things. Today we are reading about Zechariah's prophecy of the End, some 500 years before Christ. Zechariah was given a series of dreams and visions on three very specific dates. In our calendar they are: October/November 520 b.c, February 15, 519 and December 7, 518, during the time of King Darius of Persia. Darius' predecessor, Cyrus had allowed the exiles of Israel to return to their land and begin the rebuilding of the temple under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah. But the Samaritans had objected to the work and there was a 14 year pause in building.
During that time, the people became discouraged and decided that building the temple was just not part of God's plan. Zechariah and his contemporary, Haggai, stirred up the people through their prophecies and the work was finally finished in 516 BC. Thematically, Zechariah's prophecies address the restoration of the Temple, the spiritual life of Israel at the time, but also the future events leading up to Messiah's return and reign - a vision of the End that places Christ on the throne.
For at least 2500 years then, this prophecy of the End of all things has been reverberating in the Judeo-Christian consciousness. It's obviously very different from the Mayan version of the End. But also very different from contemporary versions of the End, in which Global Warming or Cooling overwhelm the world - or in which a meteor crashes into the Earth, destroying everything.
Our understanding of the outcome of all things is very different from the world's various visions. And because of it, we live differently and have a different Hope for our lives. Just like the early Christians, we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord of our Lives and of the World. When we say "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his Kingdom will have no end"... we really mean it. We really believe that Jesus Christ will come to earth and reign.
In regard to Zechariah 14:4 and following, the Wycliffe Bible Commentary
says: "Words cannot express more plainly the personal, visible, bodily, literal return of the Lord Jesus Christ in power."
Zechariah said it this way:
"Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him." (v.5)
Yet, right before he comes in glory to set up His kingdom, there will be yet another sack of Jerusalem. The nations that hate Israel will be drawn by their hatred to the city for one last attempt to annihilate it. And apparently they will almost succeed. In vv. 1-3 of chapter 14, Zechariah tells of the city being taken, the spoil divided and the women violated. But at that very moment, "the Lord will go forth." The Mount of Olives will be split in two, allowing the people to flee. Messiah will then stand on the Mount with his saints and decisively defeat all the enemies.
At that time, there will be unusual phenomena. Verses 6 & 7: "On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost. And there shall be a unique day, which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light.
John Calvin translated verse 7 this way: "The light shall not be clear, but dark" (literally, "condensation," that is, thick mist); like a dark day in which you can hardly distinguish between day and night. English Version renders it: "There shall not be altogether light nor altogether darkness," but an intermediate condition in which sorrows shall be mingled with joys. (Wycliffe Bible Commentary).
Going on in verse 8: "On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter.
9And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one."What we are talking about of course is known as the Millennium - the 1000 year reign of Christ on earth. Although some try to deny that there will be a millennium and some say that we are currently in the millennium, passages such as Zechariah's cannot be explained away and really do point to a literal time of Christ reigning with his saints here on earth.
Please note that this period of time is NOT the "Blessed Hope" - that is our Resurrection at the very end of all things. The Millennium is a time when Christ will do what many people say they wish He would do: make things so that there will be no rebellion and that all the world will obey Him.
Because Satan will be bound (Rev.20:2) during this time, there will be no Adversary around to tempt people to rebellion, but note what Psalms 2 and 110 say about this time:
Psalm 2:7 I will tell of the decree:The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;today I have begotten you.8Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,and the ends of the earth your possession.9 You shall break them with a rod of ironand dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.”
Psalm 110:
The Lord says to my Lord:“Sit at my right hand,until I make your enemies your footstool.”
2 The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies
He will Rule with a Rod of Iron. That means that there will still be unbelievers present during the Millennium, but they will not be allowed to stir up trouble. Human society will be perfectly ordered here on earth as it is in Heaven -with Jesus being manifestly present.
Yet ultimately, this arrangement will not be adequate, because of the aspect of force involved - the mingling of joys and sorrows. God desires to dwell with his people in a loving relationship, not a coercive one. So to consummate everything, Satan will be released to rebel one final time. And one final time there will be a battle to end all battles.
God will decisively win this battle and the very End will come. All things will be burned up and the new Heaven and the new earth will come down out of Heaven. Believers will enter into the joy of their master and the Devil and all who follow him will be cast into the lake of fire - the second death. Thus will all things be summed up.
Eschatological Counterfeits
As you can imagine, the final state of things for the Devil is less than desirable. Although he knows his end is fixed he is fighting to the bitter end to take as many of us humans with him as possible. To that end, he counterfeits God's plan; he imitates what the Lord will do, and tries to make it seem as if the peaceable kingdom can be established here on earth by natural means.
Thus we have seen numerous attempts over the last 100 years to bring in such a millennial kingdom: The League of Nations under Woodrow Wilson, The Eugenics Movement of the 1920s and beyond, Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, the establishment of the United Nations, the worldwide Communist movement, and most recently Eco-fascism: the attempt to bring all nations together under the banner of Climate Change in order to create some sort of Worldwide governing body which can finally right the inequalities brought on by capitalism and Christianity - those 'rapacious' forces which have created poverty for millions and the destruction of the natural environment - or that's how the critique goes anyway.
It's all an attempt to create a counterfeit Kingdom - a unified world community that will finally 'do the right thing' by the poor, minorities and the environment; an attempt to atone for the crimes of the past via economic sanctions and create a secular shining city set on a hill - a return to Babel, a restoration of the Garden of Eden. It's a millennial kingdom without the King - Jesus.
As Christians, we know that attempt will ultimately fail. It must, because it is not based on the Lordship of the King of Kings. As Christians, we are resident aliens, citizens of a heavenly country, who will bow to no one but Christ. At some point that might put us in hot water with the secular authorities. If past history is any indication, some of us might even be required to die for our faith. At the minimum, we can expect things to heat up before Christ returns. According to Zechariah, we can expect the nations to gang up on Israel in an attempt to destroy her.
In the meantime, we are waiting for the Return of the King. We long for his return - and while we long for him, we prepare our hearts to receive him. As John Paul II said: To prepare our hearts to welcome the Lord...we must learn to recognize his presence in the events of daily life. Advent then is a period of intense training that directs us decisively to the One who has already come, who will come and who continuously comes".
Practicing His Presence in our midst means loving one another as Christians - who after all, carry the Spirit of God within them. It means doing good to all, but especially to the household of faith (Gal. 6:10). It means that we actively seek the welfare of our city (Jer. 29:7) - because in doing so we find our own welfare as well, and we in so doing, we extend the love of Christ to our community.
Practicing the Presence means voluntarily limiting our consumption of goods and giving to the poor -- because it is in the poor that Christ is especially seen and honored (cf. RB and Mother Teresa).
Practicing the Presence of Christ means respecting the Earth as God's creation and ourselves as His stewards. We don't worship the earth as our Mother, but we do honor her has our sister. Ps 24 says The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. ...The Lord is present everywhere and his creation speaks to us night and day if we will but listen to it (Ps. 19). Saving the planet is not the 'Sumum bonum - the highest of all goods - but it is a matter of stewardship and we would do well to consider how best to take care of God's Creation.
Finally, as Christians, we Worship. We celebrate and give thanks for His presence in our midst now and we look forward to Christ's return. We worship the One who will come again in glory - not anyone or anything else. We proclaim our allegiance to the High King of Heaven every time we come to church, witnessing to our confident belief in the One who Rules in our hearts. Thus, we worship as a subversive political act, an act which says emphatically that we will accept no earthly substitutes - ever - even in the face of death.
And just as Jesus was taken, broken and given for us, so we offer ourselves to Jesus, to be taken, broken and given to the world all the while longing for the second advent of our Lord.
Augustine said, " Give me one who yearns;...give me one far away in this desert, who is thirsty and sighs for the spring of the Eternal country. Give me that sort of man; he knows what I mean."
May we be people who know our End and who actively yearn for its revealing in Christ. AMEN.
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