This week's sermon

 

There is good news and bad news in today’s lessons.

And the good news is ‘very good’ and the bad news is ‘very bad’.

        Let’s start with the good news.

        The reading from Isaiah, God promises to create “new heavens and a new earth”.

        We are told to “be glad and rejoice forever” about the new creation.

        And it does sound fabulous.

        No infant will die too soon and everyone will live to a ripe old age.

        Everyone will have a house to live in and fields to plant.

        There off-springs will be blessed.

        God will answer prayers before they are prayed.

        Even the wolf and the lamb will feed together and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

        Sounds pretty wonderful, don’t you think?

        And Canticle 9 continues the good news.

        God will save us and make us safe so we can trust in God and not be afraid.

        God is our ‘sure defense’.

        We will draw water from the springs of salvation and rejoice.

        We will sing praises to the Lord for his good things and ring out our joy.

        Thessalonians is not very joyous—not full of ‘good news’.

        We are commanded to “keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the traditions they received”.

        “Anyone who is unwilling to work should not eat,” Paul warns them.

        But the news gets really dire when Jesus addresses those who are talking about the Temple.

        He predicts the destruction of the Temple and the coming of the End Days. “As for these things you see,” he tells them, “the days will come when not one stone is left upon another and all will be thrown down.”

        Then it gets worse.

        “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately. Nations will rise against nations, and kingdom against kingdom, there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.”

        But it gets even worse and more personal.

        “But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you…because of my name.”

        In fact, he says, “you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death.”

        Jesus is accurately describing what went on against the early church. His predictions were accurate.

        However, he ends with a promise: “But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

        Pretty brutal stuff!

        And what are we, sitting here in Milton today, to make of all this?

        Well, we already know and know fair well that there is always good news and bad news.

        It’s the way life is.

        Many of the people in this nation were sorely disappointed by how the elections went last Tuesday.

But many were also pleased.

        Good news and bad news come together and, in fact, cohabitate in our world.

        What we must do is cling to the promise of God to bring a new heaven and a new earth. We must cling to the promise of Jesus that by endurance we will gain our souls.

        In a time of silence let us cling to God’s promise and Jesus’ promise in this time of good news and bad news.

(Amen and amen.)