Living in exile from the city of God

Sermon for the Third to Last Sunday after Trinity (Trinity 25)

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

In his monumental work The City of God, St. Augustine divided all people into two “cities,” two groups: the city of God, and the city of man; the heavenly city and the earthly city. The city of God is made up of those who worship and serve the true God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The city of man is made up of those who, ultimately, worship and serve man. Both cities exist here on earth, but you can’t see their walls or count their citizens. In a sense, the cities are invisible.

Still, there was a time in history when God chose a visible city, with visible walls, to represent the invisible city of God: Jerusalem. The Old Testament Scriptures even refer to Jerusalem as the city of God, as we sang in today’s Gradual.

That’s what makes today’s Gospel so devastating as Jesus predicts the corruption and the impending destruction of the city of God, of Jerusalem, and even warns His people to flee from it, to flee from the city of God before they were caught up in its destruction. We’ll see that Jesus was not referring only to the city of God that was Jerusalem, but also to the city of God that is the visible Christian Church that has become apostate, the Church that has fallen away, and His warning to flee from the city of God has an application in our time as well, because mingled with the horror of that city’s impending destruction and the anxiety involved with fleeing and living for a while in the “mountains of Judea” is also the promise that God will still be with us and provide for us all the way up until Christ comes again at the end of the age, as Paul mentioned in today’s Epistle.

In Matthew 24, Jesus mentions the “abomination of desolation standing in the holy place,” which Daniel, too, had prophesied. An abomination is something that God despises and hates, and it was a common word used in the Old Testament to describe idols and idolatry in general: false worship, false doctrine that portrayed a god who does not save sinners by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone; false doctrine that portrays a divine spirit who deals with men, not through the Word of God, not through the divinely instituted ministry of the Word, the appointed Means of Grace, but directly and inwardly.

That abomination was firmly set in place in Jerusalem and in her temple in the decades after Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. Some of the Jews listened to the Gospel for a while, but eventually the city as a whole—the city of God—rejected their God. They rejected their Savior, who was the true Temple where God is to be worshiped. They kept looking for an earthly savior who would save them, not from sin, death and the devil, but from the Romans. So God caused those very Romans to bring destruction on Jerusalem and her earthly temple. That happened first in 70 AD, and again in the 130’s AD when Emperor Hadrian stamped out the Third Jewish Revolt and exiled all Jews from Jerusalem permanently.

But all who heeded the warning of Jesus and His instructions—let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains—were spared from Jerusalem’s demise. But a time of great tribulation came upon those Christians for the next 250 years or so. They were spared from the wrath of God that was poured out on Jerusalem, but that doesn’t mean they lived in safety. The citizens of the city of God had to keep fleeing from one place to another as the Roman empire ramped up its persecutions, and many Christians became martyrs for the Christian faith: tortured in unspeakable ways, imprisoned, and finally killed. For most of that time, there was practically nowhere in the world where it was legal or safe to be a Christian.

According to the promise of Jesus, those days were cut short (although 250 years is a pretty long time to live in that kind of earthly instability). In the fourth century, Emperor Constantine became a Christian and ended the bloody persecution of Christians throughout the world. The “great tribulation” came to an end. But Christ hadn’t returned. So Jesus’ prophecy in Matthew 24 still had a spiritual meaning and a spiritual fulfillment that would yet take place. They should expect another “abomination of desolation” to be set up in the holy place, in the city of God.

Now, the days of earthly Jerusalem’s importance are past. It will never again be called by God “the holy city,” and “the holy place” will never again be located in a Jerusalem temple. The holy city is now the Holy Christian Church, and the holy place is the hearts of Christians, whom God has sanctified for Himself through Holy Baptism. As St. Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians, Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy. And you are that temple.

The abomination that would be set up in the visible Christian Church is idolatry, specifically, the exaltation of man over God, and it’s summed up well in the Roman papacy, which has its seat in Rome, which also came to be known as the “city of God.” As Lutherans, we’ve recognized that now for about 500 years. It doesn’t matter which pope we’re talking about, or how different one is from another. What the papacy represents is manmade doctrine, manmade forms of worship, and the worship of man. It represents all the false doctrine that has invaded and now desolated Christendom, every teaching of man that obscures or darkens the work of Christ and faith in Christ, whether in the Roman Church or outside of it. The Gospel is clear: that all have sinned against God and deserve His wrath, that Christ has come and suffered for all sin and risen from the dead, that God offers forgiveness of sins and eternal life to sinners for the sake of Christ alone, through faith alone, apart from all our works and obedience, that God sends His ministers to call all men to repent of their sins and believe in Christ Jesus, and that God the Holy Spirit will work through Word and Sacrament to gather His Church, to create and preserve faith until Christ comes again for the resurrection and for judgment. That is the simple Gospel of Christ. Wherever human works are added as a cause of our salvation, wherever human doctrine is exalted above divine doctrine, wherever sinners are directed to seek peace with God apart from Christ or apart from His Means of Grace—that is of the devil. It’s an abomination in the sight of God. It causes desolation—devastation within the Christian Church.

The first Lutherans didn’t immediately try to flee from Rome. As you know, they tried to reform it. But when that failed, they realized that they had to heed Jesus’ words and “flee to the mountains,” to flee from the pope’s mangled institution. They couldn’t, in good conscience, remain under the Roman bishops. They couldn’t hold onto the earthly safety and prosperity that came with loyalty to the Roman papacy. Instead, they lived in exile. And with exile comes instability and confusion and uncertainty. Fleeing involves scattering, a few here, a few there, in pockets of refugees throughout the world.

That’s where we live, in exile, outside the earthly city of God, with instability and confusion and uncertainty. A few scattered Christians, here, there, and throughout the world. We’re still living in the midst of the “great tribulation.” Just as the early Church had to fight two battles at once, against persecution from without and against false doctrine from within, so it is today. In some parts of the world, Christians are treated brutally and shamefully. In our country, we’re only seeing the first beginnings of that kind of persecution. But we’re already deeply mired in false doctrine that has largely corrupted the American churches. The spirit of antichrist still calls out all around us, “Here is Christ, in the one big church! Come back! And don’t let doctrine get in your way! Come back to the safety of Jerusalem, the safety of Rome, the safety of Constantinople, the safety of the big and glorious Lutheran synod! Think of all the nice things you and your children are missing out on by your picky doctrinal positions! Think of all the good you’re failing to do for the poor and for the oppressed by remaining in your tiny little church!”

Dear Christians, that’s all part of the great tribulation, and it’s the life that we citizens of the city of God, living in exile from the earthly city of God—which has actually become the city of man—will continue to live until Jesus comes for us. We’re constantly surrounded by false prophets who are always shouting, either, “Here’s Jesus, over here in the big church! There’s Jesus, over there, in the desert, by yourself, away from organized religion entirely!” “Over here, in the inner room of your heart, in your feelings, in your emotions, in your dreams! That’s where you’ll find Jesus!”

Do not believe it, Jesus says. You won’t find Jesus attached to manmade doctrine or the worship of man. You won’t find Him in your emotions. You won’t find Him floating around somewhere in the air. You will find Him as He comes through His Holy Spirit, where two or three are gathered in His name, where His Word is rightly preached and His Sacraments are rightly administered. There is Jesus. There is His catholic Church. There are His elect, living the life of waiting in exile until Christ comes again.

And when He comes again, there will be no doubt about where He is. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together. The eagles don’t think to themselves, let’s go find a carcass over in such and such a place. Instead they’re constantly flying around, watching, waiting, without knowing where the carcass will appear, waiting and watching until it does. Then they know where to go. Then they know where to gather.

Such is the life of Christians, living as exiles of Jerusalem. We don’t expect to find Jesus in Jerusalem or in Rome or in any human institution, and so we cannot be permanently tied to any human institution, including this church building, including this diocese of which we’re so gladly a part. Instead, we fly around, following where the Word of Christ is preached in its truth and purity. And then, when Christ appears in the clouds with all His saints, we will fly to Him and gather to Him, to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Amen.