One of the most incredible experiences I find, is to go to a magnificent historic site or a place or an edifice, and to be taken on a tour of it, and to be able to have a firsthand idea of precisely what this great edifice or this historic site really means. Just this spring, for example, I went and visited St. Paul’s Cathedral in London for the first time. When I went in I was given the option of having a recording mechanism that I carried around with me, in which the Dean of the Cathedral gave a magnificent commentary of this edifice, built by Christopher Wren.
It was as if I had this personal invitation, a personal moment to tour this incredible church, with the Dean’s mellifluous voice in my ear, giving me instructions as to where to go and the meaning of things. Many of you will have done something similar in other places. It really is an incredible way to have a sense of what it means to be in one of these glorious places.
I want you to tuck that away for a moment and what I want you to do now is to use your imaginations. I want you to go back in time two thousand years to the land of Israel. I want you to place yourself in Jerusalem, and I want you to imagine that you are in the great city of Zion. I want you to imagine that the country where you are is not a happy one. It has been invaded by a foreign force, an Empire.
The Empire is all-powerful and has reached an agreement with the nation as to how it can operate under the aegis of the Empire. You are a conquered people. What is more, you have to pay taxes: taxes not only to the local government, not only to your national government, but you have to pay taxes to the invading power – in order to support their tyranny and to maintain their structure!
I want you to realize that your monarch, your leader has had so many of the de jure and de facto powers taken away that he, the monarch, is only a titular head, and doesn’t have the power that he would normally have. Sounds eerily familiar, doesn’t it? That you were told that your religious leaders must obey what the oppressors say they must: they can carry on their religion, but only within the context of what the ruling power is able to accept and acknowledge and must not go beyond the confines of their rules.
The poor in your land, known as the ptochoi - the people of the land, are really poor. They are really subjugated. The addition of having to pay extra taxes just heaps on them the burden of their poverty, and they are hardly able to make ends meet. Also, because of the structure of the Empire, their goods and services are sold only with the permission of the ruling power that governs the economy. They are religiously an outcast group mainly, because they cannot adhere to all the religious laws.
In the midst of all this, things seem sad and yet there is one edifice, there is one great place, one magnificent building to which everyone looks with awe and majesty and respect. The disciples have come with Jesus to look at this Temple. They are now in Jerusalem, and they comment “Isn’t this Temple in Jerusalem a magnificent thing?”
Built by Herod, it was according to the historian Josephus, one of the greatest buildings of its time. It was many, many cubits in size, had many courts, many rooms. It is estimated that you could in fact get almost a million people in to it; it was so majestic. There was gold filigree and gold on the walls. It was an incredible place! It was a source of pride for a nation that had been subjugated, so much so, that it was a holy place.
It was a place that was a living reminder of the presence of God. “We have this Temple and Rome cannot take this away from us!” It was an icon of God’s covenantal relationship with Israel: that Israel would never be defeated because the Temple was there. It was a great and a glorious place! Then, in the midst of this, enters Jesus. Jesus, who has come with many of his disciples from the country and from the small towns back into Jerusalem, where he had of course been before, but this time for the last time.
Jesus goes into the Temple and he notices there an abomination, an anomaly: the House of God that should be a place of prayer has now been turned into a place of money lending and exploitation, and he turns the tables. He says, “You have turned this house of prayer into a den of thieves! He talks about taxation. He says, “Look, you give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but don’t forget to give unto God what is God’s!” In other words, don’t lose sight of God in the midst of all this. Sure, pay Caesar his taxes, but pay God as well. Give God your honour, your homage, and your support.
He goes on to tell a series of parables, mainly about the kingdom, and how the kingdom is greater than the people’s perception of that kingdom. Then, in one of the most sensitive moments, in one of the courts in the Temple, he points to a woman who is outside, who is actually giving her alms, her money, to God. She does it as a widow with very little. When everyone else is putting on the big show, she gives from the depth of her heart, and he lifts her up.
Jesus enters into the Temple with an entirely different view. The disciples are still talking about the grandeur of it, and how magnificent it is, and they thrust their chests out with pride – “We still have this Temple!” Then, Jesus says, “There will come a time when there is not one stone in this Temple that will not be overturned. There will come a time when even this great edifice will be destroyed.”
To those in political power, this had the sound of sedition. This was dangerous talk! To those who were the religious elite, this sounded like heresy. This was dangerous talk in a land that had this Temple and held on to it with all its heart and with all its soul. But Jesus does it anyway. The disciples are amazed. Then he goes on to say, “Look, there will earthquakes and there will be famines and there will be plagues, and there will be floods and there will be wars, and there will be rumours of wars, and even they are not going to be the end, and this will happen too. There will be further destruction; there will be further annihilation of things and people.” Imagine how the disciples are feeling! “My gosh, we came here just to have a look at the Temple, and you are talking about destroying it and earthquakes and floods and famines!”
Jesus then gets personal and it gets worse. He says, “There will come a time when you are arrested, when you will appear before kings and governors. You will be hated. You will be betrayed by family. You might even die, all because of my name, all because of me.” At this point, if you imagine how the disciples must have felt, you are devastated. This is terrible news. Yet, in the midst of all this, there is a profound teaching moment.
Jesus in fact rather than sounding as if there is no hope, gives great hope. He teaches his disciples and his followers how to remain faithful when it seems like everything is falling apart, when it seems like there is chaos everywhere, when it seems like even they are going to be persecuted for following him. He does this recognizing that there are those who will feel, even amongst his disciples, that when the Temple goes, that is the end. If the Temple goes, it is all over: the kingdom is coming to an end; the world will come to an end; if the Temple is gone, nothing is left.
Isn’t that how many people feel, and don’t you even sometimes feel it yourself in your heart? When you hear about famines, when you hear about the devastation in the Philippines, or Katrina, or Sandy, or when you hear about 9/11, or you hear about the destruction of human life don’t you sometimes think, “Oh, it all just about to come to an end. It is all just too much to bear! We were told there would be floods and earthquakes, and here they are, right before our eyes.”
Well, they have been happening for thousands of years, but when we experience them, it is as if it all comes to us. Sometimes it is even deeply personal. Sometimes this sense of the destruction of things becomes part of our own lives as well. Sometimes when we receive bad medical news, sometimes when we have tragedies or losses in our family, sometimes when we lose jobs and things go wrong, all manner of things, we feel chaos, like our city feels chaos at the moment. We wonder, “Is this all darkness? Is it all eventually going to come to an end?” It is inevitable. We do that. We are human beings, just like those disciples.
In the midst of it all, Jesus speaks simply to them. He says to them, “Do not be terrified.” Or, another translation is, “Do not be frightened.” Don’t think just because the Temple is going to be destroyed everything is coming to an end. Don’t think that because there are going to be cataclysms, everything is going to come to an end. Do not get into the mindset that there is no hope in the midst of this cataclysm. For indeed, the very word “apocalyptic” means a revelation, something that has been revealed or observed and in these apocalyptic things something else is revealed.
On the other hand, beware. “Beware,” says Jesus to his disciples, “beware of the false teachers who are going to come along and say ‘I am He’ who are going to pretend to be me. Beware of those people, for those people will use these terrors and they will exploit you and bear false witness.” I think there are some who come along, still to this day, who bear false witness. Those who in their own way feel that the idea is to mask the effect of the problems that are around us and to pretend that they don’t exist, just sort of obliterate them, pretend nothing bad is happening, be a Pollyanna and say, “Oh, everything is just going to work out dandy.”
We see these people and we have heard them, but sometimes we echo them. Oh, sometimes we cover up the pain of the sorrows of the tragedies of the world, and we do so with the abuse of stimulus or depressives. Sometimes we do it with drugs, sometimes we do it – and I love this phrase – with “shopping therapy.” What on earth does that mean? Shopping, I get. I like shopping sometimes, as long as I don’t have to spend much money, I am Scottish after all.
I understand shopping. I like the idea of getting things, but ‘therapy’, what kind of a notion is that? Shop yourself into joy! Shop yourself into ecstasy! Shop yourself into pleasure! The world can go to wherever it is going to go, but I am going to shop – and feel good about myself! Isn’t that sort of the masking of things? And is there not a culture of materialism that is the false teacher of our day and that gives this as the option?
Then are there not the deceivers who say and play on the fears of people: the world is coming to an end, some time you might die, you might not wake up tomorrow morning, therefore listen to me! Give your money to me. Snake oil salesmen just love playing on the fears and the catastrophes of people as if they are enjoying them. Deceiving people by making them fear.
I don’t know if you watched the television program on Marketplace a couple of weeks ago about a particular company that was selling oil changes. The idea was that you went in to have a quick oil change on your car for $29.99. It was a very good deal. But, as soon as you drove in, the crook behind the desk says, “Oh, I notice that maybe you need transmission fluid and your right rear axle doesn’t look very good and maybe an alignment is needed. I think you need a couple of sets of tires as well. If you go down the road and don’t have those things, well, we can’t be responsible for you.”
So you go in fear, “Okay, well, I guess if I need to have this done.....”
And a $29.99 oil change becomes a $280 bill – all because of fear! It is diabolical. All because of fear that everything will just fall apart if you don’t do what they are telling you to do.
False teachers! False prophets! To those who came along in Jesus’ time and have come ever since, trying to play on your fears, Jesus says, “Do not allow this to happen. Do not fear. Do not be frightened, for I will be with you. When you don’t know what to say before those who are making a charge against you in my name, I will give you the words to say. When you are uncertain in the midst of all the destruction that surrounds you, I will bring you through this. Do not be dismayed!”
Now, the irony in all of this is that in 70 AD, the Temple was destroyed. All that we are left with now, as many of you know is the Western Wall – the Wailing Wall – a sign of what once was: A wonderful symbol, a touching symbol of the fact that these things come and they go. But has God gone? Has the world come to an end? By no means! Luke, who was writing his Gospel, was writing it after the events had taken place. In a sense, there is a confidence I am sure in Luke as he is recording this that these events had actually taken place. But even so, Jesus’ word is not to be terrified. What powerful words for those disciples.
Jesus says something else to them. He says, “I also want you to stand firm and to gain your soul.” Stand firm in the shaking earth, in the quagmire of uncertainty that our lives often reflect. Stand firm! Then, Jesus says something quite remarkable: “Make a decision not to worry.” It is not only a matter of having faith and trust in God, but you have to make a decision that you are not going to be worried or frightened. Make a decision! Stand firm! To those early Christians who were facing persecution, this was of all things the most wonderful statement, the greatest encouragement. Stand firm and make a decision that you are not going to worry, you are going to trust.
In another Gospel, Jesus says, “There will come a time when the Temple will be destroyed and my body will be like that Temple, but on the third day I will rise from the dead.” In other words, I will rise above death and destruction; I am the source of hope; I am the living Lord. Our trust is not in temples, our trust is not in nations, our trust is not in cultural ascendancy, our trust is not in wealth, our trust is not in other people who come along and may or may not deceive us; our trust is in the Lord. That is what Jesus wanted the disciples to understand. No matter what may befall them, the symbol of the Temple being destroyed was the symbol of something being knocked down but God’s sovereign grace was not being knocked down.
In 1932, there was a great songwriter named Tommy Dorsey. Now, let’s not get confused, there were in 1932, two Tommy Dorseys. One of them was the band leader; the other was the Gospel hymn writer. Each in their own way quite famous: one of course who most people know about, primarily because he was white and a band leader; the other one came from the south side of Chicago, and was not as well known, although as you will see, his music lived on after him.
Well, the Thomas A. Dorsey from Chicago, the gospel songwriter, one day received a call to go to St. Louis to play in a great revival meeting. They wanted his music and they wanted his abilities. He was torn because his wife was at home and she was very pregnant. He didn’t know if he should leave her. She also didn’t seem particularly well, but maybe that was because of the impending birth of the child. So, they talked about it and decided that he should go to St. Louis.
He got into his Model T Ford and he started to drive to St. Louis when he realized that he had forgotten his music case. He drove back to Chicago, went into the house and saw his wife lying quietly on the couch, and because she needed the rest, he decided not to bother her, so he picked up his case and just closed the door and left and went to St. Louis.
After a couple of days of a great revival meeting and a wonderful, wonderful Gospel festival of music, where his music was at the top of its game, he received a Great Western card. It said simply, “Your wife is dead.” Tommy Dorsey was shattered! He immediately drove back to Chicago. When he got there, he asked if his child was alive, “Is the baby all right?”
They said, “Well, your wife gave birth the night you left, but in childbirth she died, and your son has also died.”
Dorsey was devastated. He writes in his autobiography, “My world had come to an end! There was nothing more. Everything was devastated.” Then, he started to read the Scriptures and he tried to sing some hymns but he found them really hard to sing. They hurt too much. Then he read the words of Jesus from Luke 21: “Make a decision not to worry.” And he wrote:
At that point, I had to decide whether or not I believed all the hymns that I had sung for all these years or not. But if I believed them, then I had to believe that this Risen Christ has also got my wife and son in his hands.
That night, he sat down at the piano and he wrote these words, and I bet most of you know them:
Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
When my way grows drear precious Lord linger near
When my light is almost gone
Hear my cry, hear my call
Hold my hand lest I fall
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
This song that had come to him was exactly what Jesus was saying to his disciples. It is what he has said to his followers for two thousand years: “Do not be afraid, stand firm, make a decision you will not worry, for when all of this comes and when all of this goes, I am the Lord.” Amen.