Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost

November 14-15, 2009

“Enduring to the End”

Mark 13:1-13

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God our heavenly Father, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Sooner or later, we all find ourselves affected by what we call “Murphy’s Law.” Murphy’s Law says that if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way. Engineers will tell you that 80-90% of controls on a typical machine are there to deal with those times when the equipment fails to operate according to its design. Murphy’s Law happens to all of us. You can drink gallons of water over brand new light-colored carpet with no problem, but as soon as you have a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, it will spill. Get in the shortest line at the grocery store, and the person in front of you will need a price check on something. Run late for work, or an important meeting, and it’s almost guaranteed you’ll hit every traffic light red. We laugh about Murphy’s Law, except when it’s happening to us, but really, it’s just an expression of the decay and frustration that came into this world with the fall into sin.

From the time that Adam and Eve gave in to the serpent’s temptation, and ate the forbidden fruit, sin has been in the world, and the world has been slowly coming to an end ever since. It’s been slowly wearing out, and the time will come when God will put an end to it all, bringing a new, perfect, pure world into existence. The world we know and see around us will cease to exist, and a new one will take its place.

It is the tradition of the Church to think about those end times as we come upon the end of another church year. The Scripture lessons today and next week address this topic of the end of the world; the end of time as we know it. Today’s Gospel lesson picks up on the Tuesday of Holy Week, as Jesus has just left the Temple in Jerusalem for the last time. He is just a few days away from the cross. And as they leave the Temple, one of the disciples says, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” This disciple was clearly impressed with the architecture of the Temple.

And this is how we all are, in a sense. It’s easy for us to be impressed with things that we see, and forget that all things must come to an end. After all, the pyramids of Egypt have been around for thousands of years; they seem so permanent. The mountain ranges of the earth have been here even longer; we can’t even imagine the world without them. We are tempted to think that what has been will continue to be, just as the disciple in our text had to wonder how anything as magnificent as the Temple could possibly come to an unfortunate end.

And then Jesus reminds him, and us, that all things do come to an end. He says, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” He agreed that the buildings were great, that they were beautiful, but He warned that they would not last. As wonderful and imposing as the Temple was, it would not last even to the end of that century. In the year 70 A.D., the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem, and dismantled the Temple stone by stone. Today, a Muslim shrine, the Dome of the Rock, now stands where that majestic Temple once stood.

Jesus went on to warn against putting our trust in anything that is rooted in this world. Sitting on the Mount of Olives, looking across the valley at the city and the Temple, He warned His followers then and now what to expect as the world wears down to its final moments. He talked first about the spiritual decay of the world. He began to say to them, “See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray.” There is no shortage of those leading people astray in our world. Now, we know about the various cults out there, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Mormons, who present a false christ. L. Ron Hubbard’s Church of Scientology has been advertising quite a bit lately. And while it may not be a false christ per se, the recent hysteria over this ancient Mayan prophecy regarding the end of the world in 2012 is, as we speak, leading people astray from the truth. Even some of the mainline Christian denominations are abandoning the Word of God in an attempt to redefine the very concept of sin. There is more than a little evidence of spiritual decay in our world.

Jesus also talks in our Gospel lesson of the social decay of the world. Many of the catastrophes He mentions are man-made: wars, rumors of wars, nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom. Even famine can be the result of people using hunger as a weapon against others, or at the very least, economic and agricultural policies based in satisfying the greed of a few, rather than the welfare of all. Even family members will turn against each other; “brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death.” A quick scan of the news headlines tells us that these social breakdowns are already happening.

The interesting thing about all these prophecies is that they have all happened throughout history, and continue to happen today. All of these warnings were already happening during the time of the apostles. Wars, famines, spiritual unfaithfulness, family breakdowns, all are part of the sinful, fallen fabric of our world. Many of us probably don’t even think of such things as warning signs, because we have never known a world without them. Which means that since these prophecies have all come to pass, the stage is set, and has been set for some time now, for the end of the world.

And that leads us to this question: If we can’t take it with us when we die, and it will all melt away on the last day, why do we give the things of this world such a high priority? Why do we so often rely on things that cannot, and will not, last? There is another way, and you already know that way. Jesus said, “the one who endures to the end will be saved.” There is a salvation that lasts beyond the end of this world; a salvation that lasts forever.

Our Gospel lesson today began with a focus on the temporary stones of the Temple. Those stones could not save, but there is a stone that can. The Psalmist wrote, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” That stone is Jesus Christ. The Temple authorities rejected the cornerstone; they had him arrested, and arranged to have Him beaten and crucified. As He hung on the cross, it looked like His end was near. As He died on the cross, it looked like His end had come. As His body lay in the tomb, it looked like His end had passed. His suffering and death was an end, but not His end. It marked the end of our slavery to sin. It was the end of the condemnation and the guilt earned by our sin. It was the end of the reign of death in this world. On the Sunday after He was crucified, Christ rose from the dead. He rose to live forever, and through His death and resurrection, the stone that had been rejected became the cornerstone.

Those who believe in Jesus Christ believe in the only stone that will last forever. They believe in the Living Stone who is the foundation of the New Heavens and the New Earth. The one who endures to the end is the one who has enduring faith in Christ. The one who believes that Jesus Christ is the only Savior from sin and death is the one who will endure to the end, and receive eternal salvation.

All things on this earth come to an end. Our Gospel lesson talks of the beautiful buildings of the Temple. That beauty has been replaced by a Muslim shrine. But there will be a time when that shrine will be gone, too. Eventually, even the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars will all be gone. Only Jesus Christ will remain, to preserve those who believe and trust in Him. Those who are led astray, who chase after the false messiahs of this world, will not know His salvation. But those who are baptized into Christ, who have been fed and nourished by His Word, and by His body and blood received at His Table, will endure in the one true faith, and will be saved. God grant such endurance to us, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep both your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.