Jesus Gives
Birth to God’s Kingdom
Lent 5 – March 29, 2020
“End of the Age”
To see the video for this sermon, click here
Musical Hamilton: Battle of Yorktown – describes final
battle leading up to surrender of British forces during Revolutionary War
“and as our fallen foes retreat, I
hear the drinking song they’re singing:
‘The
world turned upside down.
The
world turned upside down.
The
world turned upside down…’”
(click the title above to hear the cast at the Tony awards a few years back - much better than my singing ;) )
That chorus just echoes through my head lately. Because it
surely does feel like the world has turned upside down in the past few weeks.
·
3rd
week of not gathering for worship
together
·
I
don’t even remember for sure when the request for social distancing happened,
followed this past week in WI by the “Safer At Home” order that closed
non-essential businesses, asked those that could to work from home, and
everyone not to go anywhere or do anything that wasn’t truly necessary (or
“mission critical” as an article I read this week put it)
·
Cases
of COVID-19 climbing exponentially in all parts of our country, and esp. so in
certain places
o Even though heard about it happening
in China and South Korea and Italy, we somehow were taken by surprise that it
might happen here
o Last council meeting on March 10 –
not even 3 weeks ago – talked about taking precautions, but not closing – and
then by that Friday, the world had started to turn upside down
·
Change
on this scale is unprecedented in our lifetimes;
o Might have expected or worried about
troubles and tragedies in our own individual lives, those things happen to
everyone at some time –
o but never would we have thought to
have a pandemic ravaging the world’s populations, we would not have expected
America’s economy to suddenly come to a halt in the way that it has had to
o Fear for our health or health of
loved ones; healthcare professionals, others who have “essential” jobs that
require them to go to work and be potentially exposed
o Never have so many pastors and
teachers and other careers had to suddenly get up to speed on technology they
never really thought they’d need to use to communicate and teach and keep in
touch with church members and students and clients
·
Until
just a few weeks ago, we mostly just assumed life would go on as it always has
– we didn’t give it much thought, just trusted the things we rely on would
always be there.
See a similar turning of the world in the gospel today
Mark’s “little apocalypse” (a word that means “unveiling” or
“revelation” – not “the END of the world”, even though it reads like that to
us!)
·
Jesus
leaving temple where we left off last week (widow’s offering of all that she
had)
·
Disciples
point out the amazingness of the Temple to Jesus – look at these buildings!
Look at how big the stones are! Wow!
o Sense of their magnitude and
immensity and everlastingness (something that big will be around forever)
o Plus symbolizes God’s presence among
God’s people; heart of the culture and identity
·
What
a shock & surprise it must have been to hear Jesus say, “Not one stone will
be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
·
Not
just the temple but the whole religious system they have placed such trust in
to be destroyed – that would turn your world upside down!
·
And
then for Jesus to lay out this whole disturbing scenario with wars and rumors
of wars, kingdom rising against kingdom, earthquakes, famines – Yikes
o And if that’s not enough – wait,
there’s more!
§ Skipped some verses about being
called before authorities and family betrayals and fleeing the ruling powers
o But that’s not all! – darkened sun,
lightless moon, stars falling from heaven
o Holy moly!
·
And
Jesus says – beware, keep alert, for you don’t know when all of this will
happen
·
Like
a man going on a journey expects to find workers at their posts when he
returns, whether at night or midnight or cockcrow or dawn – Keep awake!
o (Might be inclined to have nightmares
or stress dreams if I fall asleep anyway Jesus! ;) )
Listened to a podcaster this week who said she had woken up
early – unable to sleep, decided to read the gospel in hopes of finding hope –
and this was the assigned reading!
Hahaha!
·
Doesn’t
feel like the most hopeful reading in the world
·
It
sounds like the end of the world
And yet, apocalyptic literature is actually intended to bring
comfort to people who are living through tumultuous, anxiety-provoking times,
as scary as the images may be to us reading them so many generations later
·
And
I do find hope in these words!
Especially the end of verse 8: “This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”
o Hard to fall asleep while giving
birth for 1 thing
·
Pandemic
and economic strife, as awful as they are, certainly wake us up
o In the case of our country, help us to
notice and recognize all of the people around us who we take for granted in our
daily lives that make our way of life possible – child care workers, teachers,
garbage collectors, grocery store stockers and cashiers, truck drivers, the
“gig” economy – Uber/Lyft drivers/ Instacart shoppers, Amazon warehouse
workers, restaurant employees– and how we have not valued their work with
reliable compensation or benefits
o Long-standing problems with health
care system – affordability, accessibility, etc – now revealed, brought to
light to all of us as we see the ways that what affects some may well affect us
all (when previously, we could just be blind to those challenges)
·
When
Jesus says, “the beginning of the birth pangs” – that sounds kind of ominous
too – like it’s gonna get worse before it gets better; birth does get more
intense and more painful
o Birth is a LIFE-CHANGING process
o Labor and delivery is exhausting and
painful and causes you to draw on reserves of strength you didn’t know you had;
can be drawn out and filled with complications and worry
§ And yet – all of that is with a
purpose
§ birth is something we anticipate and
long for – the bringing of a new life into the world!
·
And
so I wonder what God may be giving birth to in this pandemic?
o Not that God designed or sent this
virus, but that God is able to bring good out of bad
o God can use it, can use US to give
birth to something new, something different
o Meme: “In the rush to return to
normal, use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back
to.”
§ What might we want and need to
change, not just in our personal lives, but in the world around us?
·
How
do we keep alert, keep awake rather than falling back into lethargy when the
current crisis is over?
·
How
do we partner with God in bringing God’s kingdom here on earth as it is in
heaven?
o Hungry fed, naked clothed, sick
tended to, homeless housed, prisoner visited, etc…
o And to dismantle and change the
systems that cause so much of these circumstances in the first place
For the disciples in the timeline of this story, they are
very close to having their world turned upside down.
·
Soon,
they will gather for a final meal and will scatter – terrified – when Jesus is
betrayed and arrested in the garden; Peter will deny Jesus as the cock crows
the 3rd time; Jesus will be brought before Pilate and condemned to
death on the cross
·
He
will die and be laid in the stone-sealed tomb
But we know what the disciples don’t
yet know
·
The
tomb will give birth to resurrection, to new life; unimaginable on Good Friday,
almost unbelievable on Easter Sunday
·
That
sadness and fear and grief do not last forever – because Jesus has conquered
all of those thing, replacing them with love and peace and hope and courage!
The world turned upside down indeed!
·
Or
rather, Jesus beginning to turn the world right side up again, ushering in the
coming kingdom of God
·
And
calling us to keep awake, and be about the work of that kingdom, until at last
he comes again in glory to gather us together
What a great day that will be! Thanks be to God. Amen.
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