Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
November 24, 2024
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras

Last Sunday of the Church Year
Setting The Record Straight

But in those days after said tribulation the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give off her light. and the stars will fall out of the sky, and the powers of the universe will be shaken! (by redemption). Then they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds with power and great glory. Then he will send out the angels to gather his elect from the four winds, and from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens. Mark 13:24-27

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The church of Jesus Christ has always been plagued by error. The earliest one concerned the Person of our Lord Himself. Upon calming the storm his awestruck disciples kept asking one another, “Who is this that even the wind and the waters obey him?” (Mark 4:41) Is he God or Man, or both or neither; is he flesh and blood or just a phantom? This was the first of many, many miscalculations the church has been plagued with, but were settled by the Nicene Creed.

But on this Last Sunday of the Church Year the assigned readings afford us the opportunity to set the record straight regarding another persistent error regarding “eschatology,” a theological term that means “The Last Things.” Or in common parlance “the End of the World,” or “the Last Days.” People still ask the question that the Twelve disciples asked in Mark 13:2) “When will these things happen, and what will be the sign of their coming.” (Mark 13:2) But the answers are invariably wrong.

If you skim TV channels or surf the internet, sooner or later you will be exposed to eschatology. If you ever find yourself driving through the Bible-belt you will find that every other station broadcasts religious content, and almost all of it concern. Eschatology. You will hear Millenialists, a-Millenialists, post and pre-Millenialists talk about the “Millennium,” the “Rapture,” and the Restoration of the State of Israel in 1948.

But their version of “eschatology” comes from a serious mis-understanding of today’s gospel, combined with alleged “end time prophecies” in Matthew & Luke’s gospels, in Daniel and especially in Revelation. It is an error that has gone on for so long, and runs so deep, that it has captured the imagination of many – and is now considered a theological fact in those circles.

But today let us set the record straight.

The Millenialists are not 100% wrong!

Just mostly!

They are right to assert that this world will come to an end, to put it mildly. It will, in fact, come to a sudden and screeching halt such has never been seen or even wildly imagined. But beyond that they have it all wrong.

The biggest problem in their theological system is that they mistake the subject of today’s gospel which says: “But in those days after said tribulation the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give off her light, the stars will fall out of the sky, and the powers of the cosmos will be shaken! Then they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds with power and great glory …”

To set the record straight the subject of these verses is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself! In them Jesus speaks about his impending death on the cross which IS the End of the World. Let us hear that again: The Lord’s death on the cross is the End of the Word. The End of the Old World, that is, and the beginning of the New.

He is the New Song of Psalm 98.

The New Thing of Isaiah 43:19.

The New Covenant of Jeremiah 31.

And when the LORD says through Isaiah:

“Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”

He is speaking of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. (John 1:29). And when He asks, “Do you not perceive it” we must answer in the negative: No! Many do not perceive it.

And so again the prophets of doom, are right in perceiving the End of the World, Only they don't know what world they are talking about.

Failing to recognize that Scripture is about Christ crucified … about the Blood of Jesus poured out for our sins, with which we are sprinkled in Baptism, and which we drink in His Supper … they have composed any number of sci-fi-type scenarios where Christ will return, and lock the devil in hell for 1,000 years, and that for that 1,000 years He along with his church will set up a peaceful and prosperous reign. But after the 1,000 the devil, in their scenarios, would be unchained and then the “Great Tribulation” or the “Abomination of Desolation” would occur.

But if we understand that our Lord is the subject of this gospel then we will know that his death on the cross was “the Great Tribulation.” Tribulation “such as never been seen from the foundation of the world, nor would ever again.”

And we would understand that the “Abomination of Desolation” is the spotless Lamb of God covered from thorny head, to bleeding feet, with our sins – inside and out – on the cruel cross. Painted with every wrong ever perpetrated against God and against one another. The deadly sins that we toy with, which can be compared to tossing live hand grenades back and forth to one another.

Talk about: man’s cruelty to man!

Talk about: senseless violence.

Talk about wars, rumors of war, famines, and earthquakes that kill, maim and leave all things in ruin.

These were the content of the Cup that the Son of Man drank for us! The Cup so bitter and deadly that it momentarily gave even the God-Man pause! So that he prayed “if it be possible let his cup pass from me.”

But if from him, then to whom, but each of us? A whole world filled with judgment, suffering and crosses, one for every sinner.

But the momentary pause he experienced was immediately resolved when our Lord offered the most important prayer ever offered, the single prayer we should pray all day, every day, “Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done.”

Yes, the Millenialists are right in one thing that the heavens and the earth will experience a crack-up boom. One that will come as suddenly and unpredictably as a “thief in the night.”

But that said … no one will miss it.

It will be a cataclysm of “Biblical Proportion” (to coin a phrase). And the single best summary of it comes from St. Peter in his golden 2nd Epistle (3:10 FF)

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed … the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”

So again, on this Last Sunday of the church year, the church’s “December 31st”, let us set the record straight that the cosmos is quickly hurling to its conclusion. One that will be as climactic as the death of the Lord of Glory on the cross. The powers of the heavens will be shaken! There will be a final judgment of all men! Then the Prince of Peace and King of Righteousness will reign supreme, with his Saints in a world without end. We are those saints. Amen.