Isaiah 65.17-25
The Song of Isaiah
2 Thessalonians 3.6-13
Luke 21.5-19
Sunday 16 November 2025
©Suzanne Grimmett
You know we are almost at the close of the Church year when we arrive at our readings and hear what is often called “The little apocalypse.” It is a part found in all three synoptic Gospels- that is, Matthew, Mark and Luke- and they all use similar prophetic language about the sufferings to come and what many would refer to as ‘the end times’. Yet Jesus seems to be making it clear that there is a lot that will happen before the end. He says in Luke;
‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.’
Matthew and Mark make it even more clear that this is not the end by adding the statement, ‘All these things mark the beginning of the birth pangs.’
So simply seeing wars and cataclysmic events does not mean that the end is now upon us. Indeed, in two thousand years of Christian history, there has never been a time when wars were not fought and terrible tragedy did not happen as a result of natural disasters of various kinds along with horrors of human creation. There were indeed horrors to follow these words of Jesus with the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE and the destruction of the temple. The historian Josephus describes “the lanes of the city full of the dead bodies of the aged…” in a military strike which would kill the one million people who had taken refuge in the city.[1] These are scenes which sadly look and sound familiar to modern audiences watching global news. Likely though, such a scene would have been unimaginable to the disciples who gazed upon the temple’s scale and grandeur and all that it represented as God’s living presence and the heart of God’s people and worship.
To the early Jesus’ communities hearing Luke’s Gospel (which is believed to be written after 70 CE) these words would have spoken directly into their lived experience of violence, persecution and and uncertain future. But they speak just as potently today. I am sure many of us listening to the Gospel read this morning would have flown in our minds to places like Sudan, Gaza and Ukraine, or perhaps to rising ocean temperatures or wild weather events. These words of Jesus still speak to us today and they still sound a knell of judgement as they did then. We might hear that framing more strongly when we consider the direction of Jesus’ teaching just before he says these prophetic words. He has called out the lawyers who take the houses of widows in the name of piety and then sees an example of just such a poor widow put in a small copper coin into the temple treasury- everything she had. The point of this story is not generosity but a system that required everything from those who had the least to give, while others retained great wealth. As Jesus looks at the grandness of the temple with its beautiful stones and many expensive gifts, he begins to speak the prophetic words of destruction of so much of what has seemed reliable and enduring. This text in Luke was written down after the destruction of Jerusalem, but it is no stretch to imagine that Jesus in his wisdom would have seen the direction that the abuses of power and the forces of greed were leading. He looks at his disciples and sees how they would be persecuted by the same political forces which would soon crush him in their grip.
In the same way, I think we too, can read the signs of the times when it comes to the abuses of money and power. This year a report from Oxfam says we are on track to have five new trillionaires by the end of this decade.[2] It is hard to understand a figure like one trillion, but to get some scale, it is useful to compare using the metric of time.
- 1 million seconds is about 11.5 days.
- 1 billion seconds is about 32 years.
- 1 trillion seconds is about 32,000 years.
We are talking about a hitherto unimaginable level of private wealth. Add to that the fact that more billionaires are now being created through inheritance than through entrepreneurial enterprise, and we have a new emerging economic pattern. This is one face of change in amongst others of political alliances and structures, the destabilisation of institutions and of course climate change. We are called to stay awake, but some may be feeling the overwhelming levels of change and uncertainty.
But… we are not called to listen to these prophetic words in fear or be excited into doomsday prepping. Neither should we fall the other way of some theologies which confidently assert that we have a heavenly destination and do not need to be concerned about threats to the earth. We are to be resurrection people now, working for the flourishing of God’s kingdom in this life on earth as well as looking for the fulfilment of the age to come. We are to know that, like the disciples, we live in between the times and are summoned to pay attention. We need to attend to all that undoes creation in wars and threats of wars, to the way power is wielded to benefit some groups and oppress others and the way money is channelled into the hands of a few. We need to attend to how we steward the resources of the earth. We may not be seated around a political peacemaking table or have the power to change major global economic or climate decisions, but there are always things we can do that expand the life, light and love around us.
Into these challenges, Jesus speaks as freshly to us today as he did then. He gives the astonishing promise, “Not a hair on your head will perish”. Taken out of context this line would seem to encourage a gospel of prosperity where those who believe the right things will be blessed with health, safety and security. But to think this would be to ignore the rest of the text as well as the fate of Jesus’ most beloved disciples.
You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death.
So many of Jesus’ disciples were to learn the truth of that statement. This may not be our fate, but we are never promised a life free of suffering or struggle. What we are promised is Christ himself and summoned to persevere in love and faithfulness- ‘by your endurance you will gain your souls’. The journey of faith is step by step, a long obedience in the same direction, to borrow a phrase of Eugene Petersen. Whatever may change around us, whatever foundations we thought were fixed that are now moving beneath our feet, Jesus speaks a word of assurance that the Spirit will be with us through it all, helping us to navigate whatever events befall us as they happen. The promise is one which is for our past, present and future, stretching to an eternal horizon.
Jesus says all these things as he nears the time of his own betrayal and crucifixion. He says these things after his years proclaiming the good news that the Son of Man has come not to condemn the world but to save the world. The incarnation meant a drawing close of God to us in a new way…a way that did not rely on the temple, or on any other fixed certainty. A way that when faced with suffering or tribulations of any kind, that presence would never leave us or forsake us.
We have not just been left with inspired teachings or wise sayings to guide us through difficult times, but we have been given the very life of the Helper, living in us and through us. Let us together attend to the signs of the times and to the voices that cry out for justice and compassion. May the Spirit of God help us respond to the challenges of each day, working to care for this good earth and renew the life of God’s peaceable kingdom.
+Amen
[1] Ched Myers, https://bcmonline.org/2025/11/14/jesus-final-warning-the-rich-bring-hell-upon-the-world\
[2] https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/how-are-billionaire-and-corporate-power-intensifying-global-inequality/