Sermon prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church

—8:30 contemporary service—

11/19/00 

by Gregory S. Kaurin, Associate Pastor for Spiritual Care and Development

 

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Text: Daniel 12:1-3

 

The Sermon--

AMEN!

 

Ah-men.  Or the Americanized: Ay-men.  Let all God’s people say: “Amen!”  Last Sunday, after we ended the service with that call and response, someone came up to me and said, “Pastor Greg, you sure seem to enjoy that!”

I do!  And each time we do it, it means more and more to me.  “Amen” is a powerful, deep and ancient word.  It means, “So be it!”  It is international, shared by all God’s people around the world.  It comes from the Latin, which came from the Greek, which came from the Hebrew, which came from languages still older.  “Amen” may be the oldest and most universal word that exists.

Say, “Amen.” [Amen.]  You have just joined the cry of God’s people, living and dead, and all creation since before history.  Way back at the very start God said, “Let there be light!”  There was.  It came into existence like a great “Amen…So be it!”

 

The word, “Amen,” speaks of the past.  It accepts all that has lead up to this point.  The past is done and cannot be altered.  Amen.  So be it.

“Amen” speaks of the present.  God is with us in the present.  God is the Great Amen.  He is.  Nothing else exists in this moment, except by the presence of God.  If god were not, then all of this would fly apart and all history and present would not be.  Amen.  So be it.  And so it is.

“Amen” speaks of the future.  It is not just, “So be it,” but also, “Let it be!”  “Thy kingdom come; let it be!”  I often end my prayers with words something like: Into your hands, O Lord, we commend all for whom we pray, trusting in your mercy, and knowing that your will shall be done, and that it shall be good.  Amen.”  So be it!  Let it be!

 

I know that English teachers sometimes tell us that the B-verbs are weak and passive.  “A-men” is a B-verb, but it is eternally strong.  It speaks of creation, existence and destiny.  It leads, finally, to a fully revealed and eternal “Amen.”  I think it summarizes our reading this morning from the Old Testament book of Daniel, which speaks of a day/time of salvation, what we sometimes call the “Apocalypse.”

There are few images more diverse and dividing than the Apocalypse.  Some Christian denominations base their whole theology around it; determine whether you’re “in” or “out” on how you view the Apocalypse.

I think we all get distracted.  Some say too much.  They suggest that they know what steps follow which, counting and calculating the day, determining when, how and where.  They will tell you emphatically which Biblical images are symbolic and which are literal—as if God cannot move and act except in the ways we have interpreted.

“These are the signs to look for,” Jesus once said, “the signs.”  But he added, “You will not know the day or hour.  No one will know.”  There is an old rabbinical proverb that gives wise advice.  It says, “Learn to say, ‘I do not know.’”

But then some of us say too little, nearly avoiding all talk of the Final Victory, of the Last Judgment, or the Apocalypse.  We Christians can and should speak of the Apocalypse.  It is not a day to dread.  It is a day we anticipate, rejoice and take confidence in.  We are a people with destiny!

So, with such a variety in religion and Christianity, I would offer this advice: be careful and suspicious of anyone who tells you that they can interpret the end time from their interpretation of the present time and scripture.  We are not in some game of magic or fortune telling.  Our main purpose in Christianity and Bible reading is not to determine when the stars will be in the right alignment.

Kevin Spacey was recently interviewed on the TV show Inside the Actor’s Studio.  One of the acting students in the audience asked him if he could give a word of advice on how actors can deal and cope with “these lean years before we make it to the big times.” 

Kevin Spacey answered that, if you so focus on the reward out there in the future when you “make it to the big times,” then you are missing all the true rewards of acting.  The reward has to be simply from doing what you are doing right now, doing what you were meant to do.  It is not the final accolades or the paycheck.  The reward of acting is acting.

I think what he said is true for all of us.  We Christians need to find rewards in the moment, in the challenge and even the struggles we find ourselves in right now. 

When it comes to the Apocalypse, our purpose is to trust both the warnings and promises of the End Time (which is coming) and apply them to our lives now.  The lesson of Daniel’s prophecy, and others like the Book of Revelation, is much easier than we make it.  The lesson is that it is in God’s hand from beginning to end.  The victory is established; the results cannot be avoided…no matter how many butterfly ballots may come our way.  Heaven doesn’t need a recount.  (Sorry, I just had to fit that in somehow.) 

The Apocalypse is not about what may happen.  It uncovers what God has already done through Jesus Christ.  The Apocalypse uncovers.  You might say that the opposite of the word, “apocalypse” is the word “eclipse.”*  If an “eclipse” describes the covering up of the sun, then what might be the “apocalypse” of the sun?  It would be the revealing, or uncovering, of the sun.  It’s not the sun ever stopped existing before or after being covered.  An “Apocalypse” is an uncovering of the eternal Amen that has always existed since creation.

 

So, I’ll say it again: Our purpose is to trust both the warnings and promises of the End Time and apply them to our lives now.  Scripture, like Daniel and others, asks you to imagine that suddenly the roof above our heads here is torn off.  We look up, and there he is: God Almighty, the Judge looks down on us.  He looks and sees into your heart, sees what your life and attitude is right now. 

I believe that the Judgment is real, that we do and will go through it.  Once in a while, we need to be presented with the Almighty God, the Creator of galaxies and beta particles.

But at the very same time, that untouchable, unknowable God has been, is, and will always be standing among us as Jesus Christ.  He says, like a broken record, “Father, forgive them.  Once and for all, I died for this one, and this one, and this one…”  The purpose of the Apocalypse written in scripture uncovers what God has intended for us before all time: Salvation, Forgiveness!  Amen!  So be it.

Amen.  Say it: [Amen.]  What God wants is for us to rest in his eternal Amen.  What does that take?  What does it take to know that your name is written in the Book of Life that Daniel mentions, to rest in that eternal Amen?  It means trusting God at his own word.

Here at the font, these words were said: [dip hand in water three times] “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Child of God, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.”  And then God and all the host of heaven answered: “Amen!  So be it!”

Grab hold of that promise.  Don’t let go and don’t doubt it.  It shows, it uncovers, that your name is in the Book of Life.

 

Jesus once said from the cross, “It is finished.” 

God answered, “Amen.  So be it.”

Ever since then, God has been uncovering that “Amen” in baptism after baptism.  We are in the Age of the Great Uncovering.  This is the Age of the Apocalypse, the revealing of God’s Will through Jesus Christ.  God’s Will was, is, and shall always be: to embrace us!  So be it.  Amen.  Let it be!

 

Let all God’s people say, [A-MEN!]  Amen.

 

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