true stories
Gospel of Luke 21: 5 - 19 ‘True stories’
Many years ago, my cousin Lori from London, Ont was coming for a visit to
Toronto to see my Mom & Dad, or Aunt Marg & Uncle Lenny. Lori was 4,
maybe 5 years old and that 2+ hour car ride was feeling mighty long. She’d
forgotten where her parents had said they were going for the weekend, so
she popped her head over the front bench seat, between Aunt Noreen &
my Dad’s brother Ernie to ask them.
“We’re going to stay with Aunt Marg & Uncle Lenny in Toronto. You
remember – we’ve been here lots of times to see your cousins.”
“Oh yah”, answers Lori, unenthused, “I remember. This is where I have to
behave.”
Little brat. She knew perfectly well the difference between good behaviour
and bad. She wasn’t a rambunctious kid who didn’t know any better → she
chose to misbehave at home where she could get away with it, and she
decided to behave at Uncle Lenny’s where she knew she could not get
away with it.
The human will for decision-making is a powerful force, enough to change
the world. One man decided the slave trade was wrong, summoned the will
to stand against it, & convinced others to join him. One man had the will,
the conviction to stand against apartheid and it became a movement
supported around the globe. God gave us free will because, I believe, He
couldn’t have a meaningful relationship with a pack of obedient robot
zombies who adored God on command. We come to God, we know our
Brother Jesus, we rely on Their divine Spirit, because ultimately, we want
to. The Trinity engages in our lives because They choose to do so out of
love. They hope we will, likewise, choose to engage with Them for the
same reason.
Jesus understands and encourages us to use the power of our mind & our
will. I love what He says in vs. 14: “make up your mind not to worry
beforehand …”. If we can decide NOT to worry, then that suggests it’s our
decision, at some level, when we DO worry. I don’t mean we actually plan
for it → ‘Oh sorry, can’t meet you for coffee today, I’m trying to squeeze in
an hour of anxious brooding.’ Specifically, Jesus is saying there’s no reason
to worry about how you’ll defend your faith against detractors and
non-believers. Jesus has got this → trust Him.
What do you worry about that you can hand off to Jesus? Anxiety &
negativity are insidious forces; they seep in and take over if we’re not
intentional in our faith practices. “Make up your mind not to worry”, says our
Saviour, but that’s really hard sometimes. For myself, I talk to God.
Technically, it’s called prayer but I’d rather just think of it as conversation
while we hang out & chat through the day. One of the best ways to deal
with worry or stress is to open the Bible. Don’t worry if you haven’t in a
while, or you don’t know where to look – you’ll be guided every time you
sincerely ask. Worry can be diminished over coffee with friends (try the
decaf), when we trust in one another’s grace to be vulnerable with our
troubles & non-judgemental in our responses.
But you know all this. Jesus had to tell them, had to instruct them in faith
practices, about relating to God, about trusting God, because nobody ever
had. The Hebrew faith had devolved into fear & judgment. The Temple was
an empty shell in which no one found meaning any longer, nor comfort nor
acceptance. So when the disciples expressed admiration for it, it may have
turned Jesus’ stomach.
Their awesome Temple, which once represented a strong, brave, enduring
faith, now represented only corruption, condemnation, & oppression by
claiming to wield the authority of God. But Jesus declared, ‘It’s coming
down!’ Some scholars believe this was Jesus’ prophetic statement of the
Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, about 40 years after the
resurrection. In light of the teaching that follows, I believe there’s far more
to it.
First, though, we should briefly talk about His list of future catastrophes.
Some folks read this & think, ‘Oh no, that’s happening now!’, a cry which
has been heard in every century for 2,000 years. In Jesus’ day, prophecies
about the end of the world were very common; SO common, in fact, that
they were expected to follow a specific formula. It was a given that all
prophecies of the future would include predictions of natural disasters &
widespread conflict. Why? Because you can’t be wrong in predicting such
things; they happen in every century. Jesus must follow the standard
prophetic conventions for the sake of credibility, or risk being called a fraud
and ignored. So yes, of course these things are bound to happen.
But what’s really going to shake the Temple, the institution of religion, the
‘establishment’, at that time built on false righteousness, self-interest &
status? It will be the followers of Christ, standing firm for God’s truth.
The disciples can’t really be blamed for being awestruck by the Temple:
massive blocks of white and green marble, some blocks as big as 67’ long
X 7’ high X 9’ thick; the entire east wall was gold-plated. But for Jesus,
‘temple’ means body, people, US together. He was saying that the entire
Temple in Jerusalem – not just the impressive building, but the leaders who
clung to it for control & self-glorification, and the hurt that it inflicted in God’s
Name – it was ALL coming down, “not one stone left on another”, nothing
left for them to stand on, or run to, or hide inside. But another Body will rise,
a flesh & bone Church of believers, people made glorious & strong &
immovable by their genuine faith.
How do we explain faith to anyone looking for a reasonable, rational
definition? There’s virtually nothing about God’s love & grace that’s
reasonable → we don’t deserve it, we don’t earn it, and God never asks us
to. And the miracles! There’s nothing logical about those – the blind see,
the lame walk, the storms cease – and those are just the scriptural
miracles. What have you seen and experienced in your own life?
In a terrible panic, my Mom & Dad rushed to her sister’s side in Stratford
because the doctor’s said she had but hours, that the cancer was taking
over. She whispered to my Mom that she was so scared, while the family
stood around the bed in prayers for peace. The next morning, my Aunt was
sitting up in bed, asking for food. The day after that, she was out of bed; 4
months later, I saw a woman literally glowing with health at my Grandma’s
90th birthday party. The tumours along her spine, in her brain & in her liver
had vanished, retreated somehow. The experts, the oncologists, the lab
technicians looking for cancer in her tests – no one could offer any medical
explanation. Yes, the tumours did return and she passed onto glory about 9
months later. But in the gift of that remission, she was no longer afraid, she
came to a place of complete, uplifting gratitude for her life, and she passed
in perfect peace, which was, in turn, a great blessing of peace for her
husband & children.
We must be witnesses to them, says Jesus, to tell our stories. In the
shadow of violent Roman control & oppressive Temple Law, it was a dark
time for society in Jesus’ day. Yet Jesus promises to support His followers
with “words and wisdom” so that no one “will be able to resist or contradict”
the truth. He’ll do the same for us.
Do you talk about your faith, why it matters to you, what you believe and
why, about the works of God that you have witnessed? People need to
know, need to be encouraged to find the good in this world, and to
recognize God in this world. And we need to share our stories among
ourselves, to inspire & to comfort one another when we fear & wonder at
our own dark times.
If Christians had spoken up for the meaning of sabbath in busy lives, would
Sunday have become just another Saturday, as it has? Would prayer be
outlawed in public & in our schools if Christians had stood up the value of
prayer?
No, it’s not easy. We’re not promised easy. But Our Lord asks us to stand
firm so we may experience real life in His Name – a life of irrational hope &
courage, of unreasonable gratitude & contentment. Thanks be to God for
this gift & goal. Amen.