Creekside Church Sermon of November 19, 2000 "The Stone of Hope" Mark 13:1-8	Rev. David Bibbee
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I would not ask Jesus. He didn't appreciate fine architecture, maybe because he was born in a stable and didn't haven't a place to lay his head during the last three years of his life. The disciples knew a fine structure when they saw one, though. Jesus took them into the temple. Herod's reconstruction of the temple was nearly complete. 50 years in the making, it was an incredible sight to behold. It was built on a platform the size of 24 football fields. Stone blocks forming the foundation walls were 18' high, 40' long, and 12' wide. There was a colonnade of 38' high double Corinthian columns cut from solid marble. A retaining stone in a tunnel measured 45' long and weighed an estimated 570 tons. Perched atop Mount Moriah, the massive white stone structure made the mountain appear covered in snow. The façade of the temple itself was gilded with gold plates. When the rays of the sun reflected off it, onlookers had to turn their gaze away.

It's no wonder as they were leaving the temple that the disciples exclaimed, "What a wonderful building!" Had I been with them, I also would have voiced my amazement at the splendor and scale of this monument to human achievement. But the temple was to be the meeting place between God and his people, a place of instruction, worship, and atonement, but it failed on all counts. "See this magnificent building?" Jesus said. "One day it will be no more. The devastation will be so complete, not a pebble will rest upon another."

We could stop right here and have a valuable piece of instruction. Unless the church is feeding his sheep, teaching the Word, healing the broken, and making disciples, architectural splendor is nothing but spiritual sham.

But verses one and two are transitional. They mark the end of Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem and point to his impending death. These verses also mark the end of the temple as the point of connection between humanity and God. From that moment on the bridge between humanity and God was Jesus... not a building, not a belief, but a person in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

We know that in 70 A.D., Jesus' words about the temple's demise came to pass. But Jesus also refers to himself as a temple that would be destroyed and raised on the third day. From then on, the best way to see God and know God's intention for history, was to look to Jesus... not just when he walked the earth, but in the future... in a time of God's own choosing when Jesus would return and everything would come under his authority. But here is where it gets sticky.

Looking at the temple from the Mount of Olives, the disciples grilled Jesus for answers. "When will it be? What are the signs?" Jesus told them to be suspicious of those who had all the answers... so called teachers who pointed to wars, famines, and disasters as sure signs the end was in sight. Jesus anticipated this. This was precisely what was happening a generation after he departed, and is a problem which persists to the present.

The doctrine of Jesus' second coming, which is intended to be a cause for great hope, has been used in a way which has given Christianity a bad name.

In 1971, my friend Steve and I bought a car together because we were commuting to school in Columbus, Ohio for a year. This was during the height of the Jesus movement. Steve had grown up a nominal Catholic. That fall Steve became involved with some folks who were given the derogatory label, "Jesus Freaks." He started reading the Bible. In fact, he read it straight through four times in succession. His conversations were punctuated with the expression, "Praise the Lord!" He put a bumper sticker on our car that read, "Honk if you love Jesus!" This was okay, but then he put on another that said, "Jesus is coming soon! Are you ready?" Then came another, "In case of Rapture, this car will self destruct." He started singing a depressive, minor key song called, "I Wish We'd All Been Ready", with a dreary chorus that went, "There's no time to change your mind, the son has come and you have been left behind."

When chrome was no longer visible on the bumper, Steve started sticking stuff on the dashboard. He filled the glove compartment with religious tract detailing the impending return of Jesus and the destruction of the world. When I reminded him that it was my car, too, and that I didn't want another message stuck on it, he replied, "If you are really a Christian, it wouldn't bother you."

This was the first time I had encountered such thinking. It was upsetting, and I didn't know how to respond to it. I took my faith seriously, but I couldn't fit this stuff he was talking about into a constructive way. It's the problem that has been present ever since Jesus told the church to watch for his return.

I have a file in which I have kept literature from those who have figured out God's timetable and say that current events were predicted by scriptures, and that the final curtain is about to fall.

The following year I received another book from the same author. In the first chapter he acknowledged he had made a mistake in his computations for 1988. He revised his prediction. On September 1, 1989 the Rapture would occur. On September 22, Syria would invade Israel starting World War III. Syria would be destroyed. On the 23rd, Russia, led by Gorbachev would attack Israel, then the United States and Russia would launch simultaneous nuclear attacks...and so on and so forth. I did not receive another book the next year explaining what went wrong with this prediction.

"Take heed that no one leads you astray," Jesus said. "When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, don't be alarmed." Last Sunday I spoke about living in an anxious age. Our world is beset with problems which give is good reason to be anxious. But the biblical response is not to cash in our chips and check out, waiting for Jesus to pull the plug on the miserable planet. When Jesus said, "Watch, for you don't know when the hour will come," he didn't mean that looking for the end should be concern number one. When someone shouts, 'Look, here he is! There he is,' don't believe it!" When it comes to establishing times, I suggest that we take Jesus at his word when he said that not even he knew the hour.

I am not concerned, however, that we are susceptible to this error as much as we are prone to err in the opposite direction. Perhaps because we have had painful, distasteful exposure from preachers who used frightening images of Jesus" return to control us, we want nothing to do with it. Maybe we feel it has no place in our Christian lives. I understand because I have had these feelings as well. But if we dismiss the hope altogether of a time when the world is subject to the rule of Jesus, we will have little hope for the future.

Jesus' disciples were awed by the magnificence of the Temple. But what inspires us? What is our source of hope for the future? Is it science and technology? Are you excited about the possibilities of the human genome project and the infinite possibilities for good through genetic engineering? As you lay in bed each night waiting for sleep to come, do you say to yourselves, "Every day in every way, things are getting better."? We live in an age of technological marvels and are at the threshold of even greater discoveries, while the world's moral climate grows even colder and humanity grows more inhumane.

What does it say about how advanced society is, knowing that every man, woman, and child on this planet could be fed for one year with the money we spend in America each year for dog and cat food? What does it say when the amount spent each year on cosmetics in the United States and Europe would provide money for basic education for all the world's children?

When all the political and legal wrangling has finally produced a president, will your faith in the ability of government to solve the problems of the day be restored? This is to be expected when the world's relationship with God is out of kilter.

So what is our foundation of hope for the future? A strong stock market? A robust economy? Better technology? Faster computers? More efficient government? More institutionalized religion? "Lord, look at all these wonderful things we have made! Aren't they impressive?" And Jesus will answer, "There won't be one stone left upon another when the NASDAC, the Dow Jones Industrials, Microsoft, the Pentagon, and Parliaments and governments fall."

"But Lord, when will this happen and how?" There are lots of prophets telling us how to prepare ourselves for the future. "Get yourself saved. Buy a generator. Store lots of canned goods. Buy plenty of ammunition." But Jesus has told us not to be led astray by dime-a-dozen voices. He gives us a bigger picture. "When is not your concern. How is not yours to know. What concerns you is how to be my disciples in the meantime." Jesus' teachings concerning the future were not given to frighten us, or given as a reason to abandon the world, nor given to us to focus upon to the neglect of the rest of the Gospel. It is given to help us be honest about conditions in our world. Kathleen Norris says, "It's a wake up call to sharpen our awareness of God's presence in and God's promise for the world."

During my years in ministry I have seen this played out when individuals and families face crises. Often, people learn to love best when they are most broken. Some sickness or circumstance comes along and crushes plans for your life. Not one stone lies upon another. You are made aware that you are not self- sufficient, nor are you in control of your life. You are shocked to your senses, but in the midst of your pain, brokenness, and uncertainty, you discover a certainty. You learn what really matters. You experience the grace of God and discover that a new life can be built from the rubble of the old one.

Days before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr. preached a Palm Sunday sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. In it he said, "We shall overcome because the arc of a moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. We shall overcome because no lie can live forever. We shall overcome because truth crushed to earth will rise again. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair the stone of hope."

There will come a day, perhaps in our time, or in a distant time when things we assumed would always be present will be no more.

When or how that time will come only God knows. But when it comes as Jesus promised it will, there will remain a place for us to stand...a stone of home , the rock of ages. Jesus Christ the rock of our salvation.

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