The Destruction of Jerusalem

(Lk. 21.25-33)

Have you ever set off on a journey, and ended up somewhere different to what you expected?

Unlike my wife, I pride myself on having a rather good sense of direction. When Jan is driving somewhere new, as far as possible she will stick to roads that she knows, even if they take her miles out of the way!

But I enjoy taking a risk of a short cut, and I will sometimes say to myself, "I've never been down that road, but I've got a feeling it will bring me out at such and such a place, which will be much quicker".

And nine times out of ten I'm right, but occasionally I'm taken by surprise, ...and I find myself somewhere totally different.

I find the same is true when preparing sermons. I can often read a passage from the Bible and have a good idea where the sermon is going to go, ...but occasionally I set off down that route and find myself somewhere very different, which is quite exciting, ...And this is one of those sermons.

But let's begin with where I thought I was going. I'm sure that you couldn't have failed to realize that the theme for today is The Advent Hope.

Advent is a time of getting ready. Most people use it to get ready for Christmas, ...they do the Christmas shopping, make their Christmas puddings, and so on.

But for Christians, Advent is much more important than that, ...it's a time of thinking about how Jesus came to Earth the first time, ...getting ready for the time when he will come again.

And when I first read our gospel reading, I thought to myself, I know what this is all about, ...Jesus is describing what will happen when he comes again. Let me read a couple of verses again:

"There will be strange things happening to the sun, the moon, and the stars. On earth whole countries will be in despair, afraid of the roar of the sea and the raging tides. ...Then the Son of Man will appear, coming in a cloud of great power and glory. When these things begin to happen, stand up and raise your heads, because your salvation is near."

But the more I got into preparing this sermon, I began to be persuaded that this passage is not describing the second coming of Jesus at all, its describing something different.

I ended up with a sermon that I wasn't expecting, which is quite an uncomfortable feeling, ...but I'm convinced that it's got much to teach us about our Advent Hope.

Now before I let the cat out of the bag, and tell you what I think this passage is all about, I want us to go back to the beginning of the chapter so that we can take a running jump at it.

Give an outline of verses 1-24

And then we come to the verses we read earlier.

"There will be strange things happening to the sun, the moon, and the stars. On earth whole countries will be in despair, afraid of the roar of the sea and the raging tides. People will faint from fear as they wait for what is coming over the whole earth, for the powers in space will be driven from their courses."

Now to us, that sounds like a graphic description of the end of the world. But I doubt that Jesus original hearers would have heard it that way. Instead they would have recognized that Jesus was speaking metaphorically.

In the first century such language was quite common, not for describing natural disasters, but rather social and political turmoil.

Such language was highly symbolic, (and incidentally we find a lot more of this kind of writing in the book of Revelation) ...where certain images often had the same meaning.

For example,

the image of a raging sea was often used to describe the powers of evil;

and the sun and moon were often used to describe political kingdoms.

We don't make much use of such symbolism in the English language, but we do a little. We do talk about 'earth-shattering' events.

If you read in the paper of an earth-shattering event in Parliament, I doubt you would think there had been an earthquake. ...It's more likely that something amazing had happened, like Margaret Thatcher joining the Labour Party.

And so these verse are a metaphorical way of emphasising that when Jerusalem is surrounded by armies there will be social and political turmoil.

And then we read that:

"...the Son of Man will appear, coming in a cloud of great power and glory"

Now scholars disagree about this, but I believe that this verse makes most sense if once again we don't take it literally, but metaphorically.

You see, Jesus here is quoting a verse from the Old Testament, (if you want to look it up when you get home you can find it in Daniel chapter 7).

It's part of a vision that Daniel had. And when Daniel asked for an explanation of this vision he was told that God's people were going to face much oppression, but in the end they would be vindicated.

By quoting this verse Jesus was reassuring the first disciples that even though Jerusalem was going to be destroyed, God's true people would be vindicated.

Now I don't know if you know much about the destruction of Jerusalem, but it's a fascinating story.

About 40 years after Jesus spoke these words they came true in an amazing way.

For a start, the first Christians did indeed face much persecution, ...and just as Jesus had foretold they were hated, and some of them were put to death.

Much of this persecution arose because of the conflict with other Jews.

You see there were now two groups of people who were claiming to be the true people of God.

On the one hand you had the Jews, who said that the people of God were those born into the Jewish nation, ...and on the other hand you had Christians who said, "NO! ...the true people of God are those who believe in Jesus."

(pause)

The Jews said that you could be put right with God by sacrificing animals at the Temple, ...but the Christians said "NO! ...we don't need sacrifices any more, because Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was big enough for us all."

And so the Jews hated the first Christians, and persecuted them. ...But in AD 70, the Christians were vindicated just as Jesus had said. The city of Jerusalem was destroyed, ...but more importantly, the great Temple was destroyed, and it has never been rebuilt.

And historians tell us that it happened like this. The Roman army surrounded the city of Jerusalem for a while, but then they withdrew. And the Christians in Jerusalem remembered the warning that Jesus had given, and fled from the city.

After a little while the Roman army returned, but this time they stayed, and utterly destroyed the whole city. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed. And just as Jesus said, every stone in the Temple was pulled down.

So what's this got to do with Advent? ...Well I finish with two short points.

First, when we see how accurately Jesus predicted the Destruction of Jerusalem, it gives us confidence to trust his other promises to come again.

But there is a difference, when talking about the Destruction of Jerusalem, Jesus told his disciples to watch out for certain signs.

But when talking about his second coming he said that it would happen when we least expect him. He said that we should be continually on our guard, for he would come like a thief in the night.

People sometimes say to me, ..."But we've been waiting nearly 2000 years, ...surely if he was going to come he would have done so by now". But they forget that from the time of Abraham, God's people waited 2000 years for Jesus to come the first time, ...so it doesn't surprise me in the least that we've waited this long.

And my second point, is that our Advent Hope is set within the context of difficulties and suffering.

I don't know about you, but I think that most people find it easy to be hopeful when things are going well in their lives, ...but when things go wrong, they tend to despair.

But when talking about the Destruction of Jerusalem, in effect Jesus was saying, "When everything is going wrong, stand up and raise your heads, because your salvation is near."

So, how are things with you this Advent? Perhaps you can join in whole-heartedly with the Christmas celebrations this year, ...or perhaps you are going through a rough time. And when everyone else is celebrating such times can be even more painful.

Jesus never promised us an easy life, and he never promised to cocoon us from difficult situations, ...but he did promise to be with us through them, and our Advent Hope is that in the end God's kingdom will come, and as Christians we will share in that.