Proper 28/C (11/13/2022): Ps. 98; Malachi 4:1-6; 2 Thess. 3:1-13; Luke 21:5-36

Tradition

[W]e command you … keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not according to the tradition that you received from us (v. 6).

Tradition is the Church’s apostolic teaching and practice preparatory for the new creation. Paul urges the Tradition diligently engaged, avoiding idle attitudes toward Word and Sacrament.

Today Jesus relates two prospective events of 70 A.D.; Rome’s utter destruction of the 2nd temple and the rape of Jerusalem, formerly God’s Holy City; both events occurred on account of Jesus’ passion, death, resurrection, and coming again.

Paul’s 2nd letter to the Thessalonian congregation was written at a time of an aggressive temple cultus in Jerusalem, flush at ridding itself of Jesus, its “meddlesome” Messiah.

In the 40-years between Jesus’ crucifixion and Jerusalem’s destruction, tension existed between synagogue and NT house church; the crux was belief or denial of the Son of Man’s once for all atonement for sin and Resurrection to the power of God.

The Thessaloniki congregation had been catechized of the early disciples’ awe at “the temple’s noble stones and votive offerings” (Lk. 21:5; cf. Mk. 13:1; Mt. 24:1). Herod’s 2nd temple was a “wonder of the ancient world”; its demise unthinkable.

Some twenty years after Jesus’ resurrection, the magnificent temple still stood, in seeming contradiction to Jesus’ prophesy, “there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Lk. 21:6). As with Jesus’ early disciples Paul’s congregations made similar inquiries about temple demise, “when and what signs?” (v. 7); but neither Jesus nor Paul were constrained to satisfy date picker’s idle curiosity.

Rather Jesus taught Last Day preparedness in assurance of his word; and Paul urged fidelity to the things of the Assembly, warning against laxity in the apostolic Tradition: teaching and Word and Sacrament.

Jesus calls, these end days following temple and Jerusalem’s devastation “the times of the Gentiles” (v. 24). But our situation is a bit different; after all, those destructions are long past. Still, we ask; “why should temple demise and the ravage of Jerusalem concern us today?”

In Thessalonica some Christians had become “idle” toward the Church’s tradition; even today some are lax toward Word, Sacrament and teaching; thus, in these “times of the Gentiles” winding down, Paul’s call to fidelity as increasingly imperative.

God’s plan of salvation unfolds over millennia. Graciously he does not surprise us. By his word men are amply warned of events that otherwise would disorient and terrify, causing loss of faith.

Noah witnessed to the Antediluvians; Sodom was warned by Lot and angels; Moses commanded Pharaoh by a multiplicity of signs to let the People go. Israel on entering the Land was warned to choose the way that leads to life or risk God’s abandon; Elijah and JB, prophets of Jesus’ passion for repentant conversion to an “eternal gospel”, heralded Messiah and a New Covenant.

So, what does Jesus’ warning of Jerusalem’s destruction betoken? More than 2,000 years have passed; still, given our “busybody” inclination and “idle” natures toward things of the Church, we importantly assess Jerusalem and temple significance. Their destruction was portent of universal judgment; that we too are warned of the prophesied end.

Jerusalem, having rejected its Messiah, was no longer “Holy City” but God’s “City of wrath”, the City was now archetype of judgment on world unbelief. Judgment Day will come suddenly; and for the unprepared, idly holding Jesus’ word at naught, a terrible revelation.

On this 2nd Last Sunday of the Church Year, Lutheran congregations traditionally read the account from Josephus’ sack of Jerusalem: mass starvation, wasting and bloated deaths, thirst, unhygienic stench, communal madness, family betrayal, suicide, and mothers consuming children. The Romans reduced the temple to rubble one final time, “not one noble stone left upon another and every sacred offering profaned”, thus began “the appointed times of the Gentiles”.

The Church comprehends Jesus’ cross apex of time and eternity manifesting God’s character by law and gospel for his new creation. Jesus is “the Stone the builders rejected” (20:17) in whom God dwells. Rejecting so great a Salvation confers judgment.

Today’s Gospel describes God’s moving-day. Jesus’ last temple words were of judgment; by identifying himself with an impoverished widow who had donated all she possessed to God’s temple dwelling. The woman’s offering was excelled only by Jesus’ zeal for his Father’s new residence (Ps. 69:9).

On arriving in Jerusalem, Jesus cleansed the temple before abandon, about to establish God’s new Temple in his crucified body. After self-donation on the cross for the sin of the world, there remained only one condemning sin: impenitent unbelief.

Before Jerusalem and temple destruction the signs experienced by the Church were those of crucifixion: torn temple curtain, shaking earth, risings from the grave, persecutions, synagogue inquisitions, and betrayals by family and friends (Mt. 27:51 ff.).

The first sign given to Caiaphas promised by Jesus, was he would “see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Mt. 26:64). This was not the “Parousia”, rather Jesus revealing “the appointed times of the Gentiles” to the deposed Jewish High Priest.

40 years after Jesus’ Resurrection, the Baptized modeled their lives on a sacrificial life according to the “Tradition of the Apostles”. They endured assaults, marauding nations, earthquakes, famines, disease, persecutions, imprisonments, terrors, in witness of heaven’s great signs against the world’s culture (Lk. 21:10-12).

The Church, in 70 A.D. discerned the end time sign of God’s end time vengeance, “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near” (Lk. 21:20). At that, Christ’s church separated itself from synagogue and temple. Christ’s new Israel fled (vv. 21, 22), an exodus under the protection of apostolic teaching, Word and Sacrament.

The Church’s moving-day came amid violence (Mt. 11:12); which is how the Kingdom draws near her remnant people. During this “time of the church” the Holy Spirit restrains the full intensity of devilish violence. Vengeance is disorienting, heartbreaking, and painful, especially on account of old attachments from which we are being weaned.

JB and Jesus were killed for giving notice of “an eternal gospel”, a New Covenant that evicted the old cultus; so also, we expect abuse on account of our new begetting. Throughout assaults on the Church, Jesus in our midst assures and urges perseverance, that we put aside idleness toward the Church’s things in preparation of 70 A.D.’s prophesy.

On the “appointed day” there will be a final, violent ingathering and exodus out of this dying world. Unlike the old temple, our new residence cannot be dismantled. Our home consists of in-Spirited stones founded on Christ for forgiveness and holiness before God. We reside within the pale of a Mighty Fortress.

New birth comes to pregnant women in tribulation; so also, in these last days we attend our preparation without fear by God’s forgiving Word in the Tradition of the Apostles. Amen.

pem.