To See You Face to Face

Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-10; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36

“There will be signs in the heavens and on the earth,” Jesus says, “and people will faint from fear and foreboding. But you, when you see these things take place, you stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Each year with the beginning of Advent, we start taking our gospel readings from another of the first three gospels, and so we begin today a year of readings mostly from the gospel according to Luke. But our first passage from Luke picks up right where we left off with Mark two weeks ago – with Jesus, having left the Temple for the final time, speaking with his disciples about the frightful events that he foresaw in their future.

These sayings of Jesus have provoked a lot of “fear and foreboding” down through the centuries. On one level, Jesus is speaking about events that would take place within the lifetimes of some of his listeners – “Truly I tell you,” he says in today’s reading, “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” It is generally assumed that Jesus was speaking of the great war between Rome and the Jewish people that would begin in the year 66 and end with the burning of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 – so about 40 years after he spoke.

These events were not just catastrophic for those who lived through them – as all wars are – for those who died and for their families and friends, for those who faced hunger and disease and loss of homes and sexual violence as armies ravaged the land, for those who became refugees and had to make new lives as strangers in new lands. But in addition, for a people whose national and spiritual life was centered on the Temple, it was earth-shaking for all that to be taken away. No doubt people were faint with fear and foreboding as they saw the armies approaching.

But even a generation before all of these events, Jesus saw a people filled with hate for their enemies, a people divided from one another, a people where many were treated unjustly and robbed of their dignity and ability to support themselves and their families, a people who had come to believe that God was OK with and even encouraged violence against the bad guys as a way to solve problems – Jesus saw where it was all going, and he told his disciples: It’s like when you see leaves appearing on the trees and you know summer is coming, you can see all the signs for yourself. And Luke tells us that when Jesus came to Jerusalem for the last time, as he saw the city from a hill on final approach he weeps for it – for he knows people will reject his way of love for enemies rather than hate, his way of communion and mutual service, especially for the poor and needy, his way of renouncing divinely sanctioned violence, and he sees what that rejection is going to mean. And it makes him profoundly sad.

And to the extent that we can see many of those same signs in our own time and place – how many people today feel a righteous hatred for their political enemies, how many ways in which we are divided from one another, how many people in our own society are robbed of their dignity and economic opportunity and even their lives, how many people think it is right to use violence against whomever they think are the “bad guys” and to celebrate such violence when it happens – we also might be filled with fear and foreboding about what lies ahead for us, for this generation and the ones to come. The generation that heard the words of Jesus rejected his way and chose a path that led to destruction, and there’s no guarantee that our generation will be any different.

I see many of those signs today, and sometimes it fills me with fear and foreboding, and I talk to many people, even many of you, who see and feel the same things. Jesus saw those signs in Jerusalem around the year 30, and he told his disciples – People are going to faint with fear and foreboding as they come to see these signs. But not you. When you see these signs, stand up, hold up your heads, and know your salvation is coming near. Because if you are my disciples, if you are following my way, my way of loving enemies and living at peace with your neighbors, and practicing service to the least among us, seeking reconciliation and forgiveness and leaving vengeance to God – if you are following this way, you have the antidote. You have the vaccination against the madness that will overtake the world. And no matter what happens – even if it’s the cross, even then, God is faithful and God has promised to bring you into the kingdom. No matter what.

So there’s no need to be overcome with fear and foreboding, Jesus tells his disciples. I’m not Pollyanna, I can see the signs as well as you. Maybe even better. But I know that God is faithful, and if the cross comes, so be it. I will not waver from the way, I will seek love and forgiveness and reconciliation and forswear violence and retribution, even to the end, and God will be with me. Because that’s the way that leads to life. Even when the world is falling apart around you, stand up, hold up your heads, and trust that God’s way is the way to security, the way to life, the way of salvation.

This is advice that is not just for the generation that would live to see the Roman army attack and destroy Jerusalem. This is advice for all Christians of every time and place. What generation has not lived in a world of injustice and violence and hate and vengeance? In what generation has it ever been the norm to practice love and forgiveness and service? Hasn’t it always been possible to see signs that could fill one with fear and foreboding, if one didn’t have faith in the better way of Jesus?

More than a century ago William Butler Yeats wrote his famous poem called “The Second Coming” – you’ve probably heard its famous lines, “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.” You may not know that he wrote the poem in 1919, in the middle of the influenza pandemic; just weeks after his pregnant wife contracted the influenza virus in the pandemic and nearly died. “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,” Yeats wrote. “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; surely the Second Coming is at hand.” That was not written yesterday, although it might have been; that was written in 1919, when Yeats saw signs that filled him with fear and foreboding. And the century to follow certainly had more than its share of tragedies and catastrophes. But we’re still here, and who knows? Maybe the human race will muddle through again.

Luke almost certainly wrote his gospel after the fall of Jerusalem and the Temple. There’s no copyright date on the title page, but scholars who’ve pored over the evidence are fairly sure that the text of Luke, as we have it, was written after the words of Jesus about the coming calamity in Jerusalem had been fulfilled.  Our second reading today, however, comes from scholars say is probably the earliest New Testament text we have, Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. This letter was probably written some time during the 40s, when the same sense of fear and foreboding that Jesus spoke about was still in the air and indeed building up even more.

Unlike some of Paul’s later letters, there is no drama or tension going on in the community of the Thessalonians, as there is among the Corinthians and the Romans and the Galatians. Paul’s words to the Thessalonians are all positive, full of encouragement, and they testify to his love and affection for the community and its members. But his journeys have taken him elsewhere, and Paul cannot be there in person to remind them that they have been vaccinated against their fear and foreboding through their faith in Jesus. So Paul tries something new – if he can’t be there in person, maybe the technology is the next best thing. Ink and parchment. So he writes them a letter to be read aloud in their congregational meetings.

In the section of the letter we read today, Paul prays that the congregation in Thessalonica will increase its love for each other and for everyone, so that they will be ready for what is coming. What is coming, for people of faith, is not to be feared, but to be welcomed. It is the salvation that will be apparent when the resurrection of Jesus is everywhere, and no matter what happens between now and then, Paul says, let your hearts be strengthened in holiness, let your love for one another and for everyone increase and abound. Keep living the way of Jesus more and more, grow in your love and in your faith, and you’ll be fine, no matter what. Even if the worst happens, even if the cross comes, even then – your salvation is close, just keep on following the way of Jesus.

And in his desire to help the congregation at Thessalonica to grow in faith and hope and love despite their gnawing sense of fear and foreboding, Paul writes, “Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again face to face.” There is nothing like being able to see one another face to face, is there? To be able to help each other to live together in love, to strengthen our faith, to remind each other where our hope comes from. Paul wanted desperately to see the Thessalonians face to face, because he believed this would help them stand up and lift up their heads and not be overcome by their fear and foreboding – if only they could be together again face to face.

Sometimes we just can’t be together face to face – and we have to use technology instead. Paul did, we’re doing it now, sometimes it’s what we have to do. But if we ever took for granted what it means to see one another and to encourage one another face to face, we sure don’t anymore.

Because when we’re isolated and alone, sitting home on the couch with the blinds drawn watching the cable news channel of our choice, it’s really easy to be overcome with fear and foreboding. To forget that we have been shown the better way, the way that leads not to earth-shaking catastrophe but to earth-shaking resurrection. To forget the words of Jesus, who saw all same signs of distress in his day that we see in ours, but who told his disciples that if they are following in his way, these are the signs that it’s time to stand up and lift up our heads, because the day of life is at hand. To remember these words, Paul knew, we need to come together in community, to see one another face to face – and if we can’t be together face to face, to use whatever technology we have. To strengthen and encourage one another. Because together, connected to one another in faith and in love for each other and for everyone, we can stand up and lift up our heads no matter what may happen around us, for the day of our salvation is close at hand.