Jesus will preserve His homeless Christians

Sermon for Trinity 25 – Third-to-last Sunday

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18  +  Matthew 24:15-28

We’ve come to one of my favorite Sundays of the Church Year. Not because its Scripture lessons are especially foundational to our religion, but because it describes so well the odd situation in which we find ourselves in the Church, the ecclesiastical chaos all around us, the outward disunity we find in the Christian Church. Sometimes it almost feels like our little independent Lutheran church is a church without a home in the larger world of Christianity. But, as Jesus describes today, that’s exactly how it has to be in the days leading up to His return. In today’s Gospel, Jesus predicts this apparent “homelessness” for the faithful, but He also gives us good reasons not to worry about it, but to take comfort in His promises and to follow His instructions so that we may escape the terrible destruction that’s coming upon those who fail to flee from their home when their home is invaded by the abomination that causes desolation.

It was the end of the day on Tuesday of Holy Week, and Jesus had some final instructions for His disciples. He had just finished telling them about the destruction of Jerusalem that was going to take place. Looking back, we know it took place about 40 years after Jesus predicted it. The disciples, assuming that the destruction of Jerusalem must mean the end of the world and Jesus’ coming again at the end of the age, asked Jesus, Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age? As it turns out the destruction of Jerusalem would not be so closely tied to the end of the world. But it would foreshadow the eventual apostasy and destruction of the Church, leading up to the return of Christ and the end of the age. So the things Jesus says about Jerusalem’s destruction, and the warnings He attaches to them, are not only intended for the Christians living at that time, but for us as well.

In answer to His disciples’ questions, Jesus first goes on to describe the New Testament period and the signs of His coming, including the sign that the gospel would be preached to all nations, and then the end will come. Then He goes back and describes the conditions leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem, which are similar to the conditions leading up to the end of the world. He says that they will see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place. 550 years before Jesus was born, the prophet Daniel prophesied an abomination of desolation, an idol that would cause desolation and destruction, being set up in the temple in Jerusalem. That was partially fulfilled about 160 years before Jesus was born when the Syrian ruler Antiochus set up an altar to Zeus on top of the altar to God in the temple and sacrificed pigs on it. But Jesus says that wasn’t the only fulfillment. Another abomination causing desolation would be set up in the temple.

That was fulfilled in the years after Jesus’ ascension, when Jerusalem refused to believe the Gospel. The Jews kept offering their sacrifices in the temple. Those sacrifices once pointed ahead to Christ’s all-sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world. But now they were being offered in rejection of the Christ. So the very sacrifices that once were pleasing to God had become an abomination in His sight. By rejecting Jesus as their Messiah, the Jews had become idolaters. The more entrenched they became in that anti-Christian idolatry, the worse their behavior became, until they engaged in open revolt against Rome, and then the Roman armies besieged Jerusalem, and finally went in and destroyed the city.

But Jesus knew that something similar would happen to the temple of the outward Christian Church, the Visible Church. Idolatry would take root in the Church and become an abomination in God’s sight, causing the desolation of the outward Church. That happened with the various forms of idolatry that were promoted under the Roman papacy, all of which pushed Jesus and His Word to the background and replaced Gospel with Law, faith with works, and forgiveness with constant guilt. But it has also happened throughout Protestantism, and even within Lutheranism. Idols are set up in the Church. Jesus is pushed to the background, and all sorts of other things are pushed into His place, so that His Word is twisted, so that His Gospel is minimized, so that preserving the institution of the church that a person grew up in becomes more important than preserving the Word of God itself. And hearts that are supposed to be clinging to Jesus begin to cling instead to manmade things. All of that is an abomination in God’s sight, and it has caused untold desolation within the Visible Church, to the point that it’s basically now every man for himself when it comes to interpreting the Bible and understanding the truth. This is all part of what Jesus refers to as the great tribulation. Jerusalem lived through it in the first century. And the Christian Church has been living through it for quite some time.

Other conditions during this great tribulation include false christs and false prophets performing great signs and wonders that will deceive many, that will come close even to deceiving the elect. In other words, these false prophets and their “signs” will not be easy to detect as false, or at least, will be so widely accepted that it will take great courage to denounce them as false. That can include the supposed apparitions of the virgin Mary. It can include the miracles that the Pentecostals claim they can do. It can also include “science” as the teaching of evolution, for example, has almost entirely supplanted the teaching of God’s Word, not only out there among the atheists, but among most who call themselves Christians as well. How many people have been led astray from the Word of God by that idolatrous teaching! And then there are the other false doctrines that become so popular in their various churches and church bodies that practically no one is willing to challenge them anymore. False doctrine becomes “settled doctrine,” and then the abomination has truly taken hold.

But the days will be shortened, Jesus says, for the sake of the elect. And Jesus will return before it becomes impossible to hold onto faith. But He won’t return in secret. He won’t return two or three times. He won’t be coming to perform some kind of rapture and then going away again for a while. No, He’ll return once, at the end of the age. And everyone will see Him at once. His return will be public and visible to all.

Those are the conditions that will exist in the Church and in the world in this New Testament era. Now, given these conditions, what instructions does Jesus leave for us?

First, very simply, let the reader understand. In other words, search the prophets, search the Old Testament Scriptures and study the Bible, whether it’s the prophet Daniel or the prophet Isaiah or the Psalms or the five books of Moses. Read and think about what you read. Read and pray for the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment and spiritual insight.

Second, when you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, that is, when you see idolatry begin to take root in the holy place of the Church, Flee! Flee to the mountains! Flee from your “home.” And do it sooner rather than later! That’s what those references mean about, if a person is on the housetop, not coming down to get anything out of his house, or a man in the field not turning back to get his clothes. It’s also what that reference means when Jesus bemoans the poor women who are nursing or pregnant, or those who may have to travel on the Sabbath day. Those were literal impediments to fleeing leading up to Jerusalem’s destruction. But the urgency in Jesus’ words still applies very much to our situation.

What does it mean to “flee to the mountains”? It means getting away from idolatry in all its forms. Whether that idolatry is set up within a given church or a given church body, leave it behind, and do it quickly. Get out of that visible church. Leave your “home.” That doesn’t mean get out of the Christian Church entirely, of course! But it means you may not be able to stay in the church of your youth. You may have to spend months or years searching for a little church up in the mountains, that is, disconnected from the big and powerful church bodies in the world.

Practically all of you here, in our little “church in the mountains,” have already done this, so you know what it entails. You know what it is to be “homeless” in a spiritual sense. Here in Las Cruces we’ve still been mercifully blessed with a beautiful church building, but not all of our members live close enough to enjoy it. You know what it is to not have a big and impressive church body to take comfort it, or to have a big church with choirs and multiple musicians and all kinds of programs, to not have a voice in the world or a seat at the table with prestigious religious leaders. And why would we expect any of that, if we’re being faithful to Jesus’ instruction? Why would anyone who is in the process of fleeing from his home expect to have all the comforts of home?

Third, Jesus tells His fleeing Church to keep praying that our flight may not be hindered or delayed. God alone provides the ministry of His Word. And God alone provides the strength and the courage we need to live in away from “home.” Our sinful flesh would love nothing more than to stay where it’s comfortable, or even to return to a comfortable home, in spite of the abomination that may be there. But, Jesus says, “Remember Lot’s wife!” She started to flee from her home in Sodom, but turned back toward it in longing and suffered a tragic end. So keep praying that the Lord would guide and protect us as we flee, and guide and protect and strengthen all His children throughout the world, that all may flee from every abomination before the desolation comes.

Jesus’ final instruction to His fleeing Church is this: When people try to convince you that Christ is to be found here or over there, don’t believe it. Don’t be deceived. Don’t go out. It’s easy to grow impatient as we wait, especially in the midst of the great tribulation. So it can be tempting to go looking for Jesus and His salvation wherever anybody tells you you can find Him. In this place, in that practice, in this novel doctrine, like the rapture or the millennium or the real absence of His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. But Jesus’ instruction is, don’t believe any of that. Hold onto His Word and wait patiently for His very public return. Look for the true Church in the marks of the Church: in the pure preaching of the Gospel of Christ and in the proper administration of His Holy Sacraments. And be content with that until He comes.

St. Paul told us a little bit about that coming in today’s Epistle, with everything taking place in quick succession. First He’ll raise from the dead those who have fallen asleep in Him. And then He’ll bring the still-living believers up into the heavens to join the newly raised believers, all safely and joyfully gathered around our Lord.

So, in the midst of this great tribulation, in the midst of fleeing from idolatry in the Visible Church and living as those who have no earthly home, keep watching for the Lord’s return, as eagles carefully scan the countryside for the meal they so eagerly desire, and then all converge on it as soon as they spot it. So set your hearts on the Lord Jesus Christ and be watching diligently for Him. In the midst of the tribulation, in the midst of our flight, Jesus will preserve His homeless Christians. He will shorten the days of this tribulation as much as necessary, so that not a single one of His believers has to miss out on the salvation He’s coming to bring. Amen.