We have all known hardship and sorrow and loss, I am sure. Although we might not have known it the way Israel did.
The Old Testament book of Isaiah tells us of the trials that Israel endured during the 6th century BCE when they were invaded by a powerful enemy – the Babylonians. The city of Jerusalem was protected by strong walls, but the Babylonian army was big enough, powerful enough to wear them down.
They laid siege to the city, surrounded it, trapping the Israelites inside. No one could go in or out. The enemy waited. The people inside the walls went through all their food stores, and the Babylonians waited. They waited until the people inside were starving, and then they waited a little more.
Finally, they attacked. They trampled, they killed, they set fires. They destroyed the holy temple. The temple that Israel had built with the idea that it would last forever. But now it was no more. It did not last.
The Babylonians took the Israelites as prisoners and marched them off to Babylon.
Which is where they stayed for around 50 years. And the painful memory of that time can still be seen in some of the scriptures that came out of that period.
But empires do not last forever; they come and go, and eventually the Babylonian empire was weakened and destroyed by a more powerful ruler. This ruler had a different plan for dealing with its captive Israel.
The plan was to let them go back home. To make them rebuild what had been torn down. And so they did, some of them, 50 years after they have been forced out, return to Israel. They are sent back to rebuild Jerusalem.
The work of rebuilding is arduous, more difficult than anyone could have imagined. Conditions were harsh in every way. The people were still not free of oppression – it was just a different kind of oppression.
Some decades passed, very little progress was made, and the people’s resolve was waning. They fought amongst themselves, and they turned away from God. The rebuilding they had accomplished seemed so much less than what they remembered from the glory days of Jerusalem, before the Babylonian invasion. What they had now was a mere shadow of its former self.
And in the midst of this the prophet offers them hope. Isaiah speaks to them of how God will set to right all things, and it will happen imminently. The deliverance of Israel and judgment on their oppressors. Things so glorious they…well, some might say the prophet went a bit too far, because these things he speaks of, they defy credibility.
He is speaking to them about things that last. And after all they have been through, that might have been hard to imagine. But he gave them hope – hope enough to carry on.
The temple was rebuilt. The religious life of Israel was restored.
Several hundred years later, there is another new oppressor – the Roman Empire now. This oppressor had taken an interest in the temple – they saw it as a fixer-upper. King Herod was keen on rebuilding and refurbishing the temple for his own glory, rather than for the glory of God. But it was indeed beautiful, and the people of Israel appreciated it. Worship, study, sacrifices of all kinds still took place there; it was still the center of religious life for the people of Israel.
But they clearly had a sense now of how things could fall apart. And so they handled their relationship with Rome delicately – treading carefully with the oppressor, so that they might not interfere with their rituals and traditions. The priests, the scribes, the Pharisees and Sadducees went to tremendous pains to maintain a peaceable relationship with the Romans. If they manage it right, they thought, this accommodation, this truce, it might just last forever.
And then Jesus steps up and tells them it will not. This temple, it will not last forever either. The day will come when not one stone will be left upon another. Once again, it will be left in ruins. All thrown down.
But a people who have lost so much, so many times, are alarmed when they hear this. No, they think. This cannot be. “When?” they ask him, “How? What will be the sign?” Can they prepare for it? Can they possibly avoid the calamity this time?
When Luke was writing, these things had already happened. Those things that Jesus described – the destruction of the temple – were already in the past. This beautiful temple, like the ones before it, did not last.
As many times as we build glorious monuments and as many times as we see them go down – in flames or in dust – we persist in imagining that they should last forever. But they don’t. I have seen churches die – not from enemy attacks, though. What happens now is that people drift away. Members grow older and eventually die. New people don’t join. And one day there are two or three people left, and they begin to wonder if this is the end.
We may find it unbearable, the idea that a church could die, because we believe in eternal things. But sometimes we confuse our forms with God’s everlasting promises.
Nothing made by human hands lasts, no matter how good it is. Temples are destroyed, our church buildings might be emptied, sold, and even torn down to make room for something else.
Nothing of human creation lasts forever. Our steeples and bells, our stained-glass windows. Our pews. Someday they will be gone.
None of our human ideas or preferences last forever. Our orders of worship, our musical styles, the things about which we say “we have always done it that way” – even these things will fade.
The church of Jesus Christ is not immune to loss and hardship. Jesus warned his disciples that it would not be easy, and if anyone tried to tell them otherwise, they had better run away. They best not be led astray by anyone who comes along with false promises. But do not be terrified, he says to us. All things on earth will come to an end, but this will not be the end because God’s promises are everlasting.
Not a hair on your head will perish, he says. By your endurance you will gain your souls, he says. For God is making a new heaven and a new earth, and it will be filled with things of life and light and joy, with good things to eat and drink, with peace, with love.
We see things end…we sometimes are called upon to rebuild, to make something new, like Israel did after their Babylonian exile. Like Jesus’ disciples did after his crucifixion and the empty tomb. Things come and they go, and the Presbyterian Church USA will not last forever, either, I assure you. But that is alright, because God’s promises are everlasting.
Our church year is about to end. A new Advent is about to dawn, with all its anticipation and hope. The vision of the prophet, the promises of Jesus, these are our hope for all eternity.
Love…peace…joy…hope. These are the things that last. Do not be terrified, because no matter what happens to all our stuff, all our ways of doing things – we know: God’s promises are the things that last.
Forever and ever. Amen.
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Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash
