"As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, 'Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!' 2Then Jesus asked him, 'Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.'
Today, these words could not come at a m ore co-incidental time for us. Today at our church’s annual meeting, after the 10:30am worship in Fellowship Hall, we will be learning about how parts of this temple to God are crumbling. The most urgent need is to repair the leaking belltower which needs significant exterior mortar repair.
Like the disciples, is can be so easy for us to look up at this grand space and say: “What large stones! What a large building!” And now easy it is for us to hear Jesus’ words and remember just how fragile this 1927 facility is. Unlike the disciples, however, we do not need Jesus to give us a sign to know when this church will crumble. It is happening! In light of the weakening stone of this building however, and in light of any loss, or of crumbling that we experience in our lives…the question we have for Jesus is, “How do we respond in such times—times when the world weighs us down, when loss exposes cracks and weaknesses all around us?”
We prefer to deny loss we see right in front of us. We avoid it…and try to hold on to our deceased loved ones…we try and hold on to a nostalgic time in our life that is gone. How much easier it would be to not have to deal with loss, or with change! But then the truth would not be in us…
Jesus, though, he has the guts to confess the hard stuff, to name the truth for the disciples that Earthly temples, Earthly kingdoms will be thrown down. Jesus does not deceive us! He does not force us to see something other than what’s plain in front of us; he does not hypocritically deny the truth to serve himself. Jesus gives an answer we can trust—he says, “I see your loss, I see your pain, I see the destruction around you. But…that is not the end. That doesn’t get the last word.”
Today is the last time we will get to hear from Mark’s Gospel until Advent 2012. We’ve been journeying with Mark’s Gospel for this past year, and I know I am going to miss it. Throughout this Gospel, Jesus is traveling on this road of truth, a road where his truth is in direct conflict with all who try to cover up the realities he sees. As he speaks these words of truth to the disciples about the Jerusalem Temple falling, he is speaking to them just a few days before his death. He knows it is eminent. He is about to reach the climax of his conflict with the authorities, the moment where he completely and utterly embraces the truth of our lives where he will in fact become the truth that will set us free—on the cross. The cross in Mark becomes the ultimate twist in God’s mission to mend our brokenness. The cross becomes that destroyed Temple, the place where “no stone [is] left upon another”, where all the veils we want to sugar-coat reality with come down. Today the destruction Jesus foretells leads us to the cross where God plays the joke no one expected—a joke that silences the power of death and loss on our lives. The cross becomes God’s final twist…that sets us free.
United Lutheran Church is crumbling. But, these are the pangs of new birth. The cracks of this place expose realities we can now face in hope, in faith and in love so that we may truly, truly live. We have some wrestling to do, but we do so because Jesus embraces us amidst our struggles and does not deny what we face.
As we move forward, we will do so following Jesus by his way of the cross. This is not a way to bring ourselves glory, but a way that seeks to bring God’s embrace of love and of justice to the world God loves so much.
The way of the cross does not make us cheery, but it does make us real and relevant. You may have heard of a song, “Our God is an Awesome God”, a song many of us may have learned at camp or at another church. The words go, “Our God is an awesome God, God reigns from heaven above, with wisdom power and love our God is an awesome God.” Now, this song might sound fun and great. We could call it the “cheery Christian anthem.” But if God is so awesome, why are our lives so imperfect, so messed up, so fragile? The truth…is that God is awesome, but God is awesome precisely because Jesus meets us in our loss and in our messed-up-ness. Jesus knows the truth: we don’t live in a black and white world, but a world where we mostly see grey, and it’s there where he brings his love and sets us free to live in giving the real and relevant Christ to all. We can admit we have faults; we can cry out against pain, violence, injustice, and the feeling of impotence in the face of what is happening around us…and Christ will continue to share that truth, and draw near to us in our truth…for his truth is love made known through our weakness.
May we have the courage to pick up our cross, the cross of Jesus’ loving embrace, the cross of Jesus’ joke that trumps loss. May we have the courage to be the church, to be a people who don’t just build temples and watch them fall, but who see loss and then build Jesus’ love and faith in the truth of God’s love. May we build a kingdom that is not bound by walls; where the streets have no name; where it’s all we can do. Christ promises to sustain such a kingdom forever. Amen.
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