Jeremiah 33 : 14 16 Luke 21 : 25 36 Sermon There were various things which I was quite certain about when I was younger. I knew that computers were huge machines which very few people could ever learn how to operate. I knew that telephones had to be plugged into a phone socket before they could work. And I knew that you needed an aerial on the roof to pick up the three television channels which were available. Well somehow those certainties don t seem so certain anymore. Not that this is a problem. I m quite happy to use a laptop and a mobile phone and watch satellite television. But of course there are others ways in which certainties are sometimes taken away from us, and these can be enormously disturbing and traumatic. Think of the trauma we sometimes experience in our personal lives, where we might have a job that gives us status and purpose, until we found out that our job is not as secure as we had assumed. Or we might have believed we were basically in good health until the doctor gave us that news. Or we might have been absolutely sure that we could trust that person until we discovered otherwise. Having our assumptions shaken, having our certainties taken away from us, is like having the rug pulled from under our feet. It leaves us wondering if we can really be sure of anything anymore. But this kind of trauma, this sense that the world as we knew it seems to be falling apart is not just a private, personal experience. For we are living in times when many of the things which we once knew to be true about the world we live in are now far from certain. Think about the assumptions we would once safely make about finance and the value of investments and the stability of banks. Those hardly hold true today in the way they did just 10 or 20 years ago, and it is still far from certain what the current crisis will lead to. Think about the assumptions we once made about international politics and the power structures which hold sway. We have the so-called Arab Spring and just how that part of the will finally settle is far from
clear, never mind the way it s influence may yet spread through other parts of the world. Or think about the assumptions we once held about the stability of our planet, its weather patterns, its sea levels. And each new scientific report seems to tell us that the change is happening faster and more dramatically than previously predicted. Even something as stable and resistant to change as the church, the good old church, is now threatening to self destruct over issues of gender and sexuality. Is there nothing we can depend on? Sometimes it seems that the forces which pull things apart are so strong that we cannot imagine how anything can hold together. Actually, suspect that every generation has felt the same thing to some extent, has had a sense that the world is falling apart. But it certainly seems that it is not far from the surface in our own time. I believe the latest date for the end of the world is the 21 st of December, but there have been plenty of others, and assuming this one is no more accurate that the others, there will no doubt be plenty more. Even in our relatively secure part of the world, where we live in peace and are well provided for, levels of anxiety are at least as high today as they have ever been. So think what it must feel like if you live in Sudan, or Egypt, or Gaza, or Syria. There must be such a strong feeling that the world is falling apart, that all the things we thought were stable, those things we assumed we could depend on, now look so fragile. Surely it must seem as if the end must be drawing close. So the question which I have to ask is this - what does the gospel have to say to people living in a world so troubled and so chaotic that many just cannot see how it can continue, many are ready to believe that it all must be coming to an end. Well it does have something to say, and it has something very direct to say. For the sense that the old certainties have crumbled away, the sense that the world is falling apart is not new to our generation. It has been true from many people before us, for many different reasons. And what we discover in the New Testament is that this was precisely the case when Luke s gospel began to circulate, which was perhaps 30 or 40
years after Christ's death and resurrection. Jerusalem, the capital city, which has been the focus of the nations hope for so long, has been overrun and largely destroyed by Roman soldiers. The great Temple which was the centre of religious life over such a long history, was desecrated and left in ruins. And those who had put their trust in Jesus Christ as their saviour we not exactly having a great time. The Emperor Nero has carried out violent persecution against Christians, and his subsequent suicide has led to a terrifying power struggle at the head of the Roman Empire which has threatened whatever kind of social order might have previously existed. Anything which seemed certain, anything which people might have said they knew to be true, anything firm enough to hold on to, had been ripped from their grasp. So when they read of Jesus talking about the universe falling into chaos, and of there being distress and confusion among the nations, we should be clear that the original readers did not imagine he must be talking about some apocalypse far off in future. It would have been immediately clear to them that he was talking about the world they were living in and the days they were living through, for surely it would have seemed to them that the end was at hand. So what does the gospel say to people living through times of crisis? Well first of all there is a warning that we need to be careful. Be on your guard Jesus says. There are two temptations which people are faced with in times of crisis, two extreme reactions which we get pulled towards. The first is to ignore the problem. We can deny for as long as we can that there is anything going wrong or that any of it matters, and instead just live for today, just do whatever it takes to make us feel good - if only for a moment. The temptation is the desire to get drunk and party and shop till you drop. It is sexual promiscuity and drugs and gambling and overeating. It is all kinds of selfish over indulgence. The other extreme is to become overwhelmed and terrified. So overwhelmed and so terrified that you don t want to do anything because there doesn t seem much point in anything you might do. This temptation is to become defensive, to stop thinking about anything beyond yourself, to stop caring or bothering about anyone else.
Perhaps we are aware of these temptations, or even these trends, in our own time, but certainly this is what Jesus warns about in his own culture. His word to people who were facing the most awful trauma, and therefore his word to all of us when we face times of trauma, is firstly to avoid those temptations. Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life. That may not sound very positive, but long with that warning he gives the most profound promise to people facing crisis: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Everything that we had been certain of may not seem so certain any more. Everything that we thought our life is built upon may be whipped away from under us. All of the comforting convictions which we had been able to hold on to in the past may be shaken from our grip. Many things may change. Heaven and earth might pass away, but the word of God will never pass away. Here is something we can depend on. The love of God remains constant through every crisis, through every global crisis and through every personal crisis. The love of God is the one thing which will always remain in place, the one thing which is truly worthy of our putting trust in and building our lives around. We are all going to have moments when it feels as if our world is coming to an end. Perhaps the day will come when the world does come to an end. And what we discover, what some of you have already discovered in your own lives, is that the love of God is just as real on the other side of that experience as before. So perhaps the world finish on the 21 st of December, though I doubt it. I think I will still take the risk of buying Christmas presents. And perhaps our personal circumstances will change in ways we could never have anticipated. The one thing we can depend on is that whatever may change and whatever we may lose and even if heaven and earth pass away, we will discover that the love of God will remain as powerful as ever it was. And that faith should help us face every circumstance in a very different way.