11.30.08 A1 Days of the Cross

• Show of hands – How many of you have been to Washington DC?
  • For those who have been there, do you remember the first time you were there?
  • Do you remember how BIG and MAJESTIC everything was?
  • How the Washington monument soared into the sky, the capital building was so majestic and stately, and the Smithsonian Institute's buildings that line the mall between the capital and the Washington monument were huge – yet at first looked almost normal sized because of the giant, sprawling vista of grass in front of them?
• Show of hands – how many of you have NOT been to Washington DC?
  • Let me tell you what I find excitiing – I find the Smithsonian Institute, the vast collection of things in so many museum buildings, houses treasures that send shivers through me!
    • In the Aerospace Museum, there is one of the first airplanes flown by the Wright brothers
    • A mile or so away, the Natural Science Museum displays the Hope Diamond
    • And just beyond that, the American History Museum has the actual Star Spangled Banner
    • And if you go nearby to the National Archives, you can view the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights
• Washington is a place where huge buildings, and what they contain, give goose-bumps
• Goose-bumps – that's a little bit like how the disciples must have felt when they came down from the rural north country and saw the huge, majestic temple in Jerusalem looming over the city. As one of the disciples said a little bit before today's gospel reading, "Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!"
• And even more important than the large buildings of the Temple Complex, was what was inside – more than museum artifacts, more than jewels, more than the history of Israel – what was inside was the presence of God!
  • God had lived on Mount Sinai, God had traveled with the people in the wilderness with the tabernacle, God had dwelt in Solomon's temple, God had gone with the people into exile through the proclamation of God's Word by the prophets, and God had dwelt again in the new temple that had been build to replace Solomon's Temple that had been destroyed at the time of the exile
  • This newer temple was a magnificent place, and while God was not a captive to the temple, the temple was God's primary dwelling place!
• Imagine the shock, imagine the surprise, and more than that, imagine the fear that must have struck the disciples when in response to their admiration for the big, grand buildings that comprised God's Temple, Jesus said, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down."
  • Shock, dismay, a disaster even greater to them, than 9/11 was to us, because GOD'S dwelling would be destroyed
• Now this is where some of our brothers and sisters in the faith have wandered off into speculation
  • Because you see, in what followed his words about the destruction of the temple, Jesus described a lot of strange, frightening images, filled with symbols, scary characters, and what seems to be talk about a future end of the world that finally climaxes with our gospel reading for today
  • And so, some parts of the church have picked up some words of Jesus from this chapter, and stitched them together with some other vivid words and images from the Apostle Paul and the Revelation to John, and they have come up with a whole end-time scenario popularized most recently by the "Left Behind" books and movies
  • Therefore, strangely enough, some people are eager to look for signs of the end, even though Jesus clearly cautions against it
    • The most recent example, is that when Barach Obama was elected president, one of the Illinois lotteries picked 666, a number that is significant in these end-time scenarios. Therefore, some people have concluded that Obama must be the mysterious figure of the Antichrist, and so the end must be near.
    • Or to be even handed when it comes to politics, some people thought that Ronald Wilson Reagan was the Antichrist because there are six letters in each of his three names, and moreover that he negotiated with Mickael Gorbachov of the Soviet Union, who some of you may remember had a big birthmark on his forehead which a few mistaken Christians took to be "the Mark of the Beast" mentioned in passing in the Book of Revelation
• But all this end-time speculation misses something so important – these occasional outbursts of strange cosmic images and characters, whether they're from Jesus, or from his followers like Paul or John – these strange images and characters were a common form of writing and speaking in ancient times
  • It was a clear, common style, that used these images in time of distress (like the impending destruction of the temple), and it's a style that often set and portrayed events in the distant future, as a source of hope for the PRESENT.
• Now these vivid images are not ENTIRELY strange to us either. In times of stress, our theater, books and movies tend to use outlandish images to assure us that good will win out
  • Therefore during the unrest during the Viet Nam War, the Broadway musical "Hair" talked about the cosmic events of the "moon in the seventh house and Jupiter aligning with Mars" and that peace – peace and love would then reign over the planet
  • For those just a little younger during the nuclear arms race, what about Star Wars? Incredible images, strange characters, but a mysterious assurance that the force of good would prevail
  • Or even now, the opening this week of "Twilight" – a book-based movie about young, forbidden love between a teenage girl and a teenage vampire – with the assurance that in a time when so many people are looking to exploit one another, there is true love ironically with an almost chivalrous vampire!
• But centuries from now, will people think that Hair, Star Wars, and Twilight were literal? Will they think that we were looking for the moon in the seventh house, or watching for the appearance of Darth Vader, or that we believed in vampires?
• I hope not! But that's what people have done when they have taken similar strange, but hope-filled images from scripture, and tried to construct a literal future!
• So in the midst of the frightening images and scary characters that swirl in and around today's gospel reading that follows on the heals of Jesus declaring that the temple would soon be destroyed, where's the hope?
• Where is the hope in the midst of the frightening images and scary characters that Jesus used to point to the DAY OF THE LORD?
• It's all there – hidden in today's gospel, a reading which ends this way: "…you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake. [Mk 13:35-37]"
  • Cockcrow! Does that sound familiar to anyone? Where else in scripture do you hear about the rooster crowing?
    • Peter's denial of Jesus when he was on trial before his crucifixion
  • What about the other times – evening, midnight, or dawn?
    • These exact words in sequence are used in what IMMEDIATELY follows in Mark
      • Evening is when Judas was revealed as the betrayer at the Lord's Supper
      • Midnight was when the disciples fell asleep while Jesus prayed in Gethsemane
      • Cockcrow is when Peter denied Jesus
      • And morning – morning is when battered Jesus was brought before Pilate
• Mark is telling us that the temple had been God's primary dwelling place, but now in the fantastic images of what was portrayed in a distant future, Jesus is really pointing to events just ahead – that God's new dwelling place and dying place would be a cross
  • Disciples are to stay awake and watch the cross
    • However, the disciples failed to stay awake, but slept in Gethsemane
    • The disciples also abandoned Jesus at the cross
  • And yet, in the midst of the failure of disciples then AND now to stay awake before the cross – the cross is really where the work of God has taken place – not because either disciples then or now somehow deserve the benefits of a sacrificed God, but because God in Jesus Christ has chosen in love and grace to offer himself up for us once and for all – in Christ's dying, sin is absolved! Christ's death vanquishes our death!
  • This offering of God's self for us – THIS is the Day of the Lord, and it is the source and ground of all our hope even and especially in the face of the uncertainties of the present, and the anxieties of the future.

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