Last Sunday of the Year (Proper 29B)
November 24, 2024
In Repentance We Are Alert to the Coming of Christ
The signs of the end are all around us, constant reminders that “heaven and earth will pass away.” But all of these signs are centered in the cross of Christ, whereby He has conquered sin and death, that we might be raised with Him in righteousness through His Word of the Gospel, which “will not pass away” (Mark 13:31). He is “the firstborn of the dead,” who in His great love “has freed us from our sins by his blood” (Rev. 1:5). His salvation is certain because “his dominion is an everlasting dominion” and His Kingdom “shall not be destroyed” (Dan. 7:14). For this purpose He came into the world, to reign in love through His voice of the Gospel, which is the truth (John 18:37). So is the righteousness of Christ “a light to the peoples,” which “will never be dismayed” because it is the justice of His cross and resurrection (Is. 51:4–6). As He “is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory,” so wait upon “the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life” (Jude 20–24).
Despite its “wonderful stones” and “great buildings,” the Jerusalem temple would be torn down, with not one stone left upon another, just as this present world and its kingdoms will come to an end (Mark 13:1–8). But that temple pointed beyond itself to Christ, to His sacrifice upon the cross and to the resurrection of His body as the true Temple of God. In the midst of sin and death, by the proclamation of the Gospel, He now gathers disciples into His body, wherein “the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Mark 13:10–13). For He is “a great priest over the house of God,” who “will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” By the pure water of His Baptism, they “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith,” and by His flesh and blood, they enter the Holy of Holies (Heb. 10:17–22). Thus are His people delivered, “everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.” For by the wisdom of His Gospel, He turns “many to righteousness,” so that “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake” to everlasting life (Dan. 12:1–3).