November 17, 2019

Job 19:23-27a, Isaiah 65:17-25, and Luke 20:27-38

Does it feel like “Ordinary Times” to you? The dictionary tells us that the word “ordinary” means “with no special or distinctive features; normal, uninteresting; commonplace.” As you look around, the times we’re living in don’t seem very ordinary. It seems like there are things happening every day which are out of the ordinary, unprecedented, downright extra-ordinary.

I recently had lunch with a friend who I hadn’t seen in a long time. Knowing that I’m a pastor, she asked me if I thought we are living in the end times. She wondered if all the extraordinary things that are happening around us are indications that the end is near.

She asked, “Are ancient prophecies being fulfilled before us?”

I told her, “It may seem that way, but throughout history people have tried to figure out when the world would come to an end and when Christ would return. Try as they might, people have never gotten this right.”

I reminded her that even Jesus said he didn’t know the time, that this is up to God and God alone. We just need to always be ready (Mathew 24:36 & 44).

Although it may seem we are living in extraordinary times, according to the liturgical year we are living in “Ordinary Time.” What does that mean?

The church year is built around a series of Holy Days. The church year starts with Advent, a season of waiting where we prepare our hearts for the coming of the Lord; then Christmas, followed by Epiphany, a few weeks of Ordinary Time, and then we begin the seasons of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost, and we’re back into a long stretch of Ordinary Time.

The official color of Ordinary Time is green – a symbol of growth and hope. Ordinary Time is the longest season of the church year. Today is known in the liturgical year as “Ordinary 33” – the 33rd and last Sunday this year of Ordinary Time. Next Sunday we’ll celebrate Christ the King Sunday, a holy day, as we wrap up this liturgical year and get ready for Advent.

This “Ordinary Time” that we are in is time to think about Jesus’ life and ministry and how it relates to our life and faith and our discipleship. Through Ordinary Time, we focus on Jesus’ teachings to forgive, and treat others in loving ways, to seek peace, to live humbly, to serve graciously, to give generously, to pray, and trust in his care for us.

As we are wrapping up this season of Ordinary Time today, our scriptures are anything but ordinary. They focus on resurrection, the afterlife, and eternity. They raise some unsettling questions even as they also provide hope and reassurance.

Our first lesson is from Job. You may have heard someone described as having “the patience of Job.” As you think about Job’s story you can see why patience is needed. You may remember Job experienced of one calamity after the next – losing all his livestock, and his ten children, and then then getting a terrible skin rash. Despite all these hardships, and despite his wife and friends telling him he was cursed by God, Job kept the faith. In our lesson for today Job faithfully proclaims, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth” (Job 19:25). What a faithful proclamation! What a voice of hope in the midst of hardship.

Long before Jesus came to redeem the world, Job took heart in knowing the Messiah would come and he would one day redeem him and all humankind. Job did not lose faith in a loving God despite all the tragedies he faced. Job kept the faith in the midst of calamity and looked to the promised Messiah to redeem him, so that he might one day see God. What an extraordinary example of faithfulness Job is as we face hardships in our lives!

Our Second Lesson for today is from the Prophet Isaiah. It describes a hopeful vision of a new heaven and a new earth – a New Jerusalem. It is a world where people will live long, full lives; where they can enjoy the fruits of their labor. Natural enemies such as predator and prey will lie down in peacefulness and safety with one another; In Isaiah’s vision all is well with the world.

Yesterday we celebrated my mother-in-law’s 90th birthday. Some of you have met Bernie, Randy’s mom. She was here recently for the Almelund Sampler and has come here number of times. She is a great mother-in-law. A fun person with a keen sense of humor. She loves life and is living it well. She has traveled the world – visited 28 countries. She’s raised two successful kids and has four grandchildren and two great grandchildren all of which are doing well. At 90 she is still healthy, living in her own home, driving, and enjoying good times with family and friends.

In some ways it seems like she is the embodiment of what Isaiah talked about when he said: “No more shall there be… an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth” (Isaiah 65:20b). Life spans have been extended significantly since Isaiah’s days. Many of the hardships and dangers people struggled with in Isaiah’s day have been eliminated or made easier. And yet as we look around, we know that God’s plan to make all things new isn’t finished yet.

The vision Isaiah lays out in chapter 65 has been described as the reversal of what happened in the Garden of Eden. The toil and hard labor that was Adam and Eve’s punishment, have given way to fulfilling and fruitful work. In Isaiah’s prophecy the relationship between men and women that had been disrupted by sin is restored as all people live peacefully and respectfully with one another. The earth itself is renewed, as wild animals and domesticated animals live in harmony with one another. This New Jerusalem is a place of joy and delight with no more weeping or distress.

Sounds pretty good, huh? The one creature who still remains cursed, in this blessed place, is the serpent – the one who tempted our first grandparents. Even in this peaceable kingdom, the serpent is cursed with eating dust! It doesn’t say he is banished, but sin and temptation will not have the upper hand in the New Jerusalem as they have had for so much of human history.

Our final scripture for today is our gospel lesson. It is set in Jerusalem, and takes place on the Tuesday of Holy Week, after Jesus has made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and before he has been betrayed by Judas. The religious and civic leaders are unsettled by this rabbi who people welcomed as a king. So, they try to discredit him in front of the crowds by asking him impossible questions.

In our gospel for today some Sadducees ask Jesus about the afterlife. Sadducees were a group of Jews who didn’t believe in resurrection, so they ask him a question intended to show how impossible the resurrection is. They present a long and convoluted hypothetical situation where a couple is married, and the husband dies and they have not had any children. According to Jewish law, when a woman is widowed, childless, it is the duty of one of the brothers of the dead man to marry her. This was a way of providing for her financial support and ensuring that the family lineage continued. Well, in the hypothetical situation the Sadducees brought to Jesus, this woman was married and widowed seven times without bearing children with any of these brothers. The question that is raised is whose wife will she be in eternity?

Jesus responds that things are different in the afterlife. People don’t marry. He added that in the afterlife people cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God. And he goes on to talk about Moses and Abraham calling them ‘children of the resurrection’ and saying “He is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive” (Luke 20:38). In other words, Moses and Abraham, are alive, because they have been resurrected.

This is one of the few places Jesus directly speaks about what eternity will be like. Wouldn’t it be interesting to continue that conversation? Jesus’ answer so surprised those who were questioning him, that they didn’t know what else to say, so they didn’t dare to ask any more questions.

We all probably have a lot of questions about what life after death will be like, but Jesus’ message for us is a message of hope for here and now. “God is God of of the living, for to him all are alive.”

God has good plans for us for eternity. The curses of sin will be reversed. The hardship of this life will give way to joy and fruitfulness, to peace and life everlasting. Thanks to the redeeming work of Jesus, our sins have been forgiven. Sin will no longer have a hold on us.

With this promise of hope for the future we are to live good lives here and now. We are to be God’s faithful people today. We are to live in love and service of God and of our neighbor. We are to practice discipleship in this ordinary time, knowing that it is not really ordinary because we have an extraordinary future to look forward to. We can be confident that this is not all there is – that because our redeemer lives, we too, like Job, will see God.

The life we are given today is a gift. Despite all the hardships and challenges of daily life, this is also a time of blessing. It is a time in which God is at work bringing us toward that hope-filled future with him. So make the most of it!

Let us seek to live today to the fullest. Let us walk with Christ, in faith and love and service to God and our neighbor. Let us trust that as we live well today, tomorrow will take care of itself. As we live in this Ordinary Time we walk minute-by-minute into the extraordinary future that God has planned for us. Amen!