32nd Sunday - Look what he's already done

Growing up in the 1980s, If there was a movie that defined that era, it was probably the movie "wargames."  In the movie, a teenage boy hacked into a millitary supercomputer thinking he's playing a game, a war simulation between the US and Soviet Russia.  Without realizing he was doing it, he had unwittingly convinced the millitary supercomputer that Russia was going to launch an attack.  Ultimately, just as the computer is about to launch missiles and start World War 3, he convinces the computer to actual calculate the outcome.  When the computer realizes that no matter what it does, everything would be destroyed, no one wins in nuclear war, it decides to stand down.

If there's one thing that's new and present to us in the modern world, even if we don't always think about it, it's the clear and present reality that as a human race, we've come very close, far too many times in the last century to wiping ourselves off the planet, to bringing an end to civilization.  No, it hasn't happened yet, but from the Cuban Missile Crisis of the 60's to the cold war of the 80s, to the modern biological warfare that inspires all the zombie movies we now see.  I think, as much as we may not like to think about it, our world has brought us a new sense of urgency.  If we actually stop to look, we've come closer to ending the world than most of the rest of history…

Yet, if we keep that idea of panic in mind, we might have some sense of just what it must have sounded like to the Jews in Jerusalem when Jesus proclaimed that all that they see in the temple would be gone, when there would not be a single stone left on another stone.  The Jewish temple was the center of their life.  Everything revolved around the temple.  It was the very place where God dwelt among his people for the Jews.  To say the temple would be destroyed would basically amount to the end of the world.  So for our Lord to stand up and proclaim, the temple will be destroyed, there had to be those who thought he was crazy, but there also were many who said…but what if he's right?

Now for us, with two thousand years of history behind us, we can look back and see that our Lord really was right.  All life on earth didn't come to an end, but then again that wasn't what he said.  Life for the Jews in Jerusalem though, really did come to an abrubt halt.  In the year 70 AD, the Romans really did invade Jerusalem, and destroyed it, temple and all.  To the people of the time, it really must have seemed like the world was coming to an end, like everything they had always known was gone.

Yet it's a funny thing, when we look at our history.  Our Lord promised us that we would be handed over before synogogues and prisons, kings and governors because of him, be hated by all, but yet we will not be destroyed.  It really is an amazing thing when we look back at history, at the evidence our Lord has really given us.  After Christ's death, his apostles, the Church that we are now a part of lived on.

At a Church, we were hunted out by the Jews, thrown out of the synagogues, yet we survived.

We were persecuted by the Romans, led to the coliseums, fed to the lions, yet we survived.

The Roman empire became Christan, and was invaded, sacked, and burnt by barbarians, yet we survived.

The Church spread to northern Europe, where it was persecuted, by the goths.  Rome was pilliged by the huns, yet we survived.

Missionaries went all over the globe, and were often tortured and killed, yet still the faith spread.

Famines, plagues, and all sorts of calamities struck Europe, and still people kept the faith.

Dictators, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, marched us before trials in kangaroo courts, yet we survived.

Even now, when our Religious Freedom is threatened, when we're told that if we don’t "accept" the modern state of things…we'll be fined, jailed, rejected, punished, but then again, haven't we seen all of that before?  When it comes to standing up for our faith, what are we really worried about?

When we really stop to look at our history, how can we really doubt our Lord's words…he's proven them to us so many times, again and again and again.  Nations will rise against nations, kingdoms against kingdoms.  Even wars and insurrections, Just like our Lord has said.  Time after time, even today, in many places throughout the world, people are sent to Jail for believing in our Lord Jesus Christ, yet we are still here.

Will there be an end of the world someday, of course, but for now, we can take a lot of encouragement in our faith, that already our Lord has done so much, already he's demonstrated to us that we really do have nothing to fear.  He's already shown us that he will take care of us. 

Sometimes in our Lives, we can think, perhaps God has forgotten me…we can ask ourselves, does God really care?  Why doesn't he do something?  Yet, When we take into perspective all of the hardships and all of the suffering of all the Christains in all of the world all over history, it suddenly becomes rather difficult for us to imagine ours as all that severe.  After all, God never promised it would be easy.  If anything he promised just the opposite, he promised to walk with us, to never leave us alone, and to make sure we are not destroyed no matter what comes against us.

So when we think of the end of the world, when we feel like everything is falling apart, sometimes we have to realize, we really might be wrong, but then again, even if we're right, in the end either way it's not something for us to fear.  As long as we stand with our Lord, as long as we keep close to Jesus, he will be with us, and there is a certain peace in knowing that even if our world should come to an end, our Lord has promised us that we will be safe, that he will protect us, and that we have no reason to be afraid.