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Sermon for Third to Last Sunday after Trinity (Trinity 25)
Matthew 24:15-28 + Exodus 32:1-20 + 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
The Church Year ends in two weeks and the new Church Year begins in three. As we approach the end of the Church Year the focus of the Gospel turns toward the end of this world and the Second Coming of Christ. Many events in Bible history prefigured the end times: The Great Flood. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The First Coming of Christ, his humble life, his bearing of the cross, his judgment, his death and his resurrection prefigure the humble life of his Church under the cross and the resurrection of all the dead on the Last Day. All these are real events in Bible history, real life events used in the Holy Scriptures to picture for us what the end of days will be like. And those are just a few.
Jesus picks up on one of those events in today’s Gospel. Last week we were given a peek at the saints in heaven, the elect people of God, chosen by him in eternity to be saved by faith in the redemption that Christ Jesus has accomplished. We saw these elect souls coming out of the great tribulation. We saw the rest and the peace that is theirs in the presence of the Lamb. We were comforted for them. But today we’re jolted back to earth, to the trials of the Church leading up to that day when Christ returns, to the reality that the elect children of God have to face in this world, especially as the time of Christ’s second coming gets closer and closer. In our Gospel, Jesus turns our attention back to the great tribulation, and comforts us as we face Times of tribulation for the elect.
Jesus points back to a prophecy of the prophet Daniel who prophesied in his book about “the abomination that causes desolation.” An abomination – something that God hates. It causes desolation – it causes people to desert the worship of God.
We saw an example of an abomination that causes desolation in the Old Testament Lesson today, when the Israelites set up in their midst an idol in the form of a golden calf. And as you heard, they called it the LORD – Yahweh. They tried to worship the LORD in a way that the LORD had forbidden. That’s an abomination to God and it caused desolation in the Israelite community, including the death of 3,000 people that day.
Now Daniel, in his prophecy, said that an abomination would be set up right in the temple of God. And it was, about 400 years after Daniel lived, about 167 years before Jesus was born. The Greeks had already conquered the land of Israel, but in about 167 BC the Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes came to Jerusalem and set up a pagan altar in God’s Temple and sacrificed a pig on it – an unclean animal according to God’s Law – in defiance of the God of Israel. It was idolatry taking place right in the temple of God, a true abomination that causes desolation, a partial fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy. And a terrible time of tribulation followed.
But Jesus knew that. So his disciples. Jesus informs his disciples that it isn’t over. Daniel’s prophecy still has a future fulfillment. Another abomination that causes desolation is coming to the holy place, and when the Christians see it, they are to flee. Immediately. Because it’s going to get much worse.
And it did. After Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world and rose again, the temple in Jerusalem was used for a time by the Christians to gather and to hear the Word of Christ from the apostles, and for a time, many Jews listened and converted to Christianity.
But by the 60’s AD, the Jews in Jerusalem weren’t listening anymore. The Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire began in about 66 AD. Jerusalem was still full of Christians at that time. But things started getting bad. In about 68 AD the Jews led a bloody revolt against the Roman oppression right in the temple of Jerusalem, and about 8,500 people were slaughtered on one day in the Temple courts. It was more idolatry in the temple, another abomination that causes desolation. And a terrible time of tribulation followed. Within two years, the entire Jewish nation – everyone who remained in Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside – would be wiped out, and the Temple destroyed so that not one stone remained on another.
But the elect – the Christians, those who believed Jesus’ words about the coming destruction of Jerusalem – they escaped! They did what Jesus told them to do and ran; they fled Judea and didn’t look back. Only the unbelievers, those who rejected the word of Jesus remained in Jerusalem to be slaughtered by the Romans – the ultimate act of judgment by God on the people who had rejected his Only-begotten Son.
Jesus’ words saved the lives of his First Century Christians, and also kept them from being deceived by the false messiah’s and the false prophets who came along at that time. But Jesus’ words weren’t meant only for them. They’re for us, too. St. Matthew alludes to it, and St. Luke explains it even more. The abomination that causes desolation and the destruction of Jerusalem foreshadow another abomination that causes desolation in the Church leading up to the Second Coming of Christ. More times of tribulation are coming for the elect.
What is this other abomination that causes desolation, standing in the holy place? In the New Testament, the holy ones are the saints – those who are counted by God as holy by faith alone in Jesus. That’s you and I. The New Testament holy place is the Church of God throughout all the world.
This is where an abomination would be set up, an idol in the holy place so that people are directed away from the blood of Jesus Christ to worship the LORD where the LORD has not permitted himself to be worshiped, to seek the LORD, to seek refuge, to seek God’s approval somewhere else. It’s an abomination that causes desolation, that is, it causes people to abandon the true worship of Christ, and so to abandon faith in Christ.
You know that our Lutheran forefathers identified this abomination that causes desolation in the Roman Catholic papacy, and so do we. Why? Because, even as the papacy pays lip service to Christ, it directs Christians away from Christ to trust in the saints, to trust in Mary, to trust in their own works, their own goodness in order to gain God’s approval, in order to erase guilt, in order to be justified before God. And even though it’s all said to be done in honor of Christ, it’s no different than the Israelite worship of the golden calf that was said to be done in honor of the LORD Yahweh.
Listen to these official decrees by Rome, from the Council of Trent. CANON 9 under justification: “If any one says that by faith alone the ungodly is justified,… let him be anathema.” CANON 12: “If any one says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy pardoning sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is that confidence alone by which we are justified … let him be accursed.”
You see, you and I are anathematized and cursed by the Roman papacy, because that’s exactly what we believe: that we sinners, we ungodly people are justified – declared righteous before God – by faith alone in Christ who bore all our sins and whose perfect righteousness is credited to us who believe in him. Our only confidence is in the divine mercy that pardons sins for Christ’s sake alone. He alone makes you acceptable to God. He alone is your peace on the day of judgment, and it’s a perfect peace. And so you who mourn over your sins – believe in Jesus! In him, your sins are forgiven. By faith in Christ, you have a part among the elect children of God.
But see! Even though we’ve identified the abomination that causes desolation, it doesn’t mean times of peace on this earth. On the contrary, there will be times of tribulation for the elect. There will be false prophets and false christs who will constantly be trying to lead you away from Christ to a false worship, to a false god, to a false hope of salvation.
Whatever detracts from the Gospel – the message of God that condemns the sinner to hell and that raises up the penitent sinner through faith in Christ Jesus who made full payment for you and for all; whatever turns our attention away from Christ – this is part of the abomination that causes desolation. Wherever man becomes the center of worship, wherever the works of man replace the Gospel as the focus of our worship, wherever the Word of Christ is emptied of its power, where women pretend to stand as pastors of the people of God and where churches accept such rebellion against God, where homosexuals pretend to stand as pastors of the people of God and where churches accept such rebellion against God, there an abomination that causes desolation has been set up in the holy place. There destruction is imminent. From there the elect are called to flee when they see such things taking place, to flee and to never look back.
But as they flee, they are not to be deceived, for many false christs and false prophets will continue to appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect, if possible. It shouldn’t surprise us that even believers, even the elect are sometimes lured into these traps that detract from Christ. Look here! A growing church! A prosperous ministry! Christ must be there! Listen! A little voice inside me telling me what to do with my life! It must be Jesus! It must be his Spirit! Look here – a miracle! Look there – friendly people! Christ must be there!
What do you know? It’s idolatry all over again. Don’t go running after these things. They are not Christ. Christ is found where he says he’s found: in his Word and Sacraments. There he is to shelter you behind his cross. There he is to give you faith, to strengthen your faith, to protect your faith from the assaults of Satan. Here in his Word he has given you all the protection you need in these terrible times of tribulation in which you suffer, in which you mourn over the desolation that sin has caused in this world and in yourself. Here in his Gospel, in his Word and Sacraments – this is where Jesus comes to meet you now. Here and only here.
But then, just when the great tribulation seems too great to bear, even with his Word and Sacraments, then Jesus will come for you. Then Jesus will return and make his glory known from one end of the earth to the other, like lightning flashes across the sky. Then the elect children of God will be revealed. Then the times of tribulation will end and the celebration will truly begin. The signs of the end of time, the signs that Jesus’ coming is near mean that our redemption is drawing near. It means that we’re close to that time that the Apostle Paul prophesied in our Epistle today, when the trumpet will sound and the dead in Christ will be raised and we who are left will be reunited with them in the clouds and will be with the Lord forever. The dead in Christ are not lost, and neither will we be. Behold, I am coming soon!, Jesus says. It can’t be long now, because the tribulation is truly great for the elect throughout the world. Lift up your heads! Your redemption is drawing near! Amen.
