CLICK HERE for a worship video for November 16
Sermon for the Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost – November 16, 2025
Luke 21:5-19
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the most vivid memories I have from my childhood is the time my dad took me to my first Mariners game. It was their first or maybe second season as a new franchise. They played in the Kingdom, which had just been completed a year or two before. I don’t remember who they played or whether they won or what we ate. What is vivid about this memory is walking up those big ramps around the perimeter of the Kingdom, looking up at the massive concrete pillars and beams, several feet thick. It was the hugest building I’d ever been in. It was like being inside a mountain. That enormous concrete structure made a big impression on me as a seven or eight-year-old kid. It seemed like it was built to last forever.
When they demolished the Kingdome only a mere twenty-three years later, I had to watch. I tuned in from our parsonage in Montana and watched the controlled demolition live. It only took a few seconds for a few well-placed explosives to do their work and poof, that entire massive concrete structure collapsed into a cloud of dust and a pile of rubble. What loomed so large both in the Seattle skyline and in my childhood memories was gone in an instant.
Things are never as permanent as we think they are.
We’re getting close to the end of Luke’s gospel now in our lectionary readings, and Jesus is in Jerusalem. We hear in our gospel reading for today that people were talking about the temple. They were admiring that spectacular structure which dominated the Jerusalem skyline. The temple was an architectural wonder of the ancient world. It was built on an enormous foundation with stones weighing as much as 40 tons each. There were massive walls covered in plated gold and towering columns of white marble. One set of doors was 75 feet high and 60 feet wide and made of solid Corinthian bronze. It seemed like it was built to last forever.
Jesus heard people talking about the temple, and he said to them, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” It was no doubt an unwelcome comment. It was a bummer of a thing to have inserted into someone’s casual conversation. It probably seemed absurd.
But Jesus was right. Eventually, the entire temple structure would be leveled. In 70AD, the Romans completely destroyed it, burning it down in a fire so hot that it cracked those massive stones, causing the structure to collapse in a heap of dust and rubble. There was not one stone left upon another.
Things are never as permanent as we think they are.
When those who had been talking about the temple asked Jesus when this would happen, Jesus didn’t tell them. He warned them that people would come along claiming to know, but that they shouldn’t listen to them. (This is still good advice today, by the way.)
Jesus then went on to describe all sorts of other things that aren’t as permanent as we think they are. He said that nations and kingdoms will be shaken by wars. He said that the ground beneath our feet, those enormous tectonic plates upon which we literally build our lives, will be shaken by earthquakes. He said that there will be times when economic structures are shaken and people will struggle to put food on the table. He said there will be times when our physical health will be shaken by disease. He said that our religious communities and even our families will be shaken by change, by conflict, by fracturing. These structures upon which we build our lives, these foundations which usually seem so firm, so sure, so certain, so strong, so permanent, will be shaken. They aren’t as permanent as we think they are.
That’s the bad news. And we need to hear this bad news, actually. We need a Lord who tells us the truth. We need a Lord who is honest with us about how things will be before his kingdom comes. That way, when we look at the world unraveling around us in so many different ways, we can say, “Ah, Jesus said there would be days like these.” Whether we’re looking at world history or current events or our own shaky lives we can be confident that none of what we see, none of what we experience, is unknown or unexpected to our Lord Jesus. He literally said there would be days like these!
There’s plenty of bad news in what Jesus says, and we need to hear it. But sprinkled in among the bad news is good news. It is easy to miss it, but it is there.
First, Jesus tells us that when we hear of these things happening, when we observe the collapse of these things we think are so permanent, we shouldn’t be afraid. “Do not be terrified,” Jesus says.
By itself, this may not be so helpful. Usually when someone tells me not to be afraid, it has the opposite effect! It has the effect of making me aware that there is a situation at hand which has prompted someone to try and talk me out of my anxiety, which then turns my anxiety up even higher!
Fear cannot be driven out by command. It can only be nudged out with a promise. We need a reason not to be afraid. And Jesus gives us a reason. He tells us that those shaky situations are not the end. They won’t have the last word. He tells us that the collapse of those things we thought were so permanent, as devastating and as final as they seem, are not the end. When our world seems to be unraveling or cracks start to show up in the foundations of our lives, it isn’t the end. God isn’t done yet!
As we deal with the fracturing of our world and our lives, Jesus also promises to help us. He tells us to not prepare ahead of time what we will say when we are attacked or maligned or ridiculed or threatened. “For I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict,” Jesus says. This doesn’t necessarily mean Jesus will whisper an awesome speech or sermon into our ears at just the right moment. It doesn’t mean he will slip us a note with the perfect comeback or argument to use against our adversaries. What Jesus is promising here is that he will be with us in every moment of trial or difficulty. He will be with us with his Word, assuring us that he is Lord and that we belong to him. It means that his Word will be the strong foundation upon which we will stand, leaving us unshaken even when everything else is collapsing. It means that our testimony before the world will be so simple and so ingrained in us that we don’t need to rehearse it. It will be part of us, part of our lives. The first Christian creed was simply, “Jesus is Lord.” These three words are so simple, and yet they say so much. They are so powerful. And we can only say them and mean it with Jesus’ help, which he promises to give us.
Jesus makes another promise, too. He promises that even though the world itself might collapse around us, not a hair on our heads will perish. This isn’t really about hair care, of course. Bald or balding Christians, take heart! This is a metaphor! This is about being known and loved so completely by God that there is no part of us that God will not redeem. This is about entrusting every last fiber of our being into God’s merciful care, even when parts of our lives seem to be falling away like hairs down the drain. It is about having every last dead cell being animated with new life through Jesus Christ.
“By your endurance you will gain your souls,” Jesus says. This is not an endurance that comes from our strength, but from his. It is the endurance of faith. It is the endurance of holding fast to what our Lord Jesus is promising to do for us here.
Jesus promises us that the future is in his hands, and so we don’t need to be afraid. It isn’t the end of things until he has the last word, so do not be terrified by what you see. Jesus promises to help us along the way, giving us words and a wisdom that the world cannot withstand or contradict. Jesus promises us that the entirety of our lives are in his powerful hands, down to the last strand of hair, and so even when everything else is collapsing, we will not perish. We will have life with him, now and forever.
Things are never as permanent as we think they are, but in our Lord Jesus and his Word we have a strong foundation which will never be shaken or destroyed. The Word of the Lord endures forever. His promises are permanent. When things get shaky, stand there.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church