Make known to me the path of Life

The Path of Life.

Prayer - Heavenly Father, we ask you this day to keep us all in your grace. We humbly ask you to always set yourself before us. Help us always to seek you in all instances of our lives. Guide our hearts and minds when we are troubled and lead us at all times to the hearing of your word and the sound of your voice. By the power of your Holy Spirit, show us the way to the path of life, which is your Son, Jesus Christ. - Amen

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I want you to imagine if you can the city of Jerusalem. When Jesus shared this teaching with his disciples, he was just outside; at this time, it would have been filled with pilgrims. Jews from all over the known ancient world came to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. The city's average population of about 125,000 would have swollen to almost 1 million. The dwellings and spaces were so tight that most pilgrims to the Temple spent their nights camped out on the hills in the countryside around Jerusalem. I have had the pleasure of visiting Jerusalem, and when the old city fills up, it gets claustrophobic.

Also, at the time of Jesus and even before, there was ongoing construction in and around the Temple. The Herod family had initiated projects to remodel the Temple and many more areas in Judea, which had been going on for more than forty years, and according to historians like Josephus, they planned to continue construction for more years to come.

I have no doubt many of the pilgrims were curious to see the new areas of the Temple complex that were under construction, and no doubt there were many discussions about what had changed since the last time they had made the pilgrimage.

Amid all this, Jesus was in town. His entry into Jerusalem at the beginning of the week had set off a shocking display with the cleansing of the temple that it nearly ended in a riot. Jesus then spent his days preaching and teaching all over the city. He preached and taught things about himself, about the law, about rendering to God what is His and to Ceasers what is Ceasers.

He taught us to observe our neighbor’s conduct with eyes of faith and how we might examine our own with that same measure of faith. He was attracting large crowds, and many people even followed him and his disciples to their campsite on the Mount of Olives at night.

This is the setting for the events recounted in today's Gospel. The parallel accounts in Mark and Matthew show that these events most likely occurred late on Tuesday of Holy Week. Jesus has finished a day of teaching, and he and his disciples are headed for their campsite on the Mount of Olives.

As they leave the Temple area, someone among the twelve remarks on the beauty of the stones and the buildings. They had probably been looking at the new construction and imagining the temple's glory.

Of course, the beauty of the Temple was about much more than its physical appearance. It was the center of Jewish culture and faith. The Temple was the place where God communicated with His people. He revealed Himself to them in His Word, and they sacrificed their offerings to Him. The Temple was where God was continually before His people.

The temple would have conveyed another meaning just by looking at it. First, it was a daily reminder that the people of Israel were in the land promised to them and that God was faithful in keeping his covenant promises. Second, it was a constant reminder that Israel was no longer slaves. After a long history of worshipping false Gods and being slaves and wanderers and free again, they were home and in the presence of the only true God. The temple was more to them than just a beautiful building; it was the earthly dwelling place of God himself where men would go up and go before the Lord.

Now imagine how shocked and dismayed people must have been when they heard Jesus talk about the Temple and say, "As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." Jesus was telling them that the center and foundation of their culture and faith would be destroyed.

None of the Gospels tell us what the disciples talked about during the rest of the trip to their camp on the Mount of Olives or if they just walked in stunned silence, but as soon as they arrived and got settled at their camp, the disciples asked Jesus for more information.

So it was that, as they sat down on the Mount of Olives and looked across the valley at Jerusalem, with the Temple complex gleaming in the light of the setting sun, Jesus warned them that it would all come to an end—pulling the proverbial rug out from underneath them!

Have you ever had that happen to you? A moment in your life when you are beaming with excitement, and everything is going just great, and then suddenly receive news that just about knocks you over? This happens sometimes in life, maybe for some of us, more than sometimes, especially when the things you feel you can count on suddenly get turned over, and because you are so entwined with them, you get turned over as well. This happens all the time!

Many of our neighbors have had to suffer sudden bad news. Perhaps it was job loss, marital problems, news of illness, or even an unexpected death. It also happens when our friends or mentors let us down.

In hard times, we can often feel powerless and not immediately come to an answer on what to do next. If these situations apply to us, we may experience temporary blindness or tunnel vision and spin anxiously in circles for a little while. We go from one place to the next, posing the question in our hearts and minds, “Why.” But ask yourselves, where do we typically turn to when our hopes and worldview are upside down? Do we turn inwards and lean on our abilities to work it out? Do we lean into our friends and benefit from their experiences? Or do we lean into God for our understanding and protection? Our anxious thoughts can deceive us, though, and when this happens, some of us may not be able to see a path forward, so we stumble, sometimes for long periods. With anxious and fearful eyes, it is easy to see the size and scope of the problem. But faith will always put before you the size and scope of God.

David gives us a great example of the only place we must go in tumultuous times. Like David, let us proclaim God as our refuge; let him be your good thing, above all things. Let the Lord be our place of safety in our times of trouble.

David was a king, yet he declared that he had nothing good apart from God—not his wealth, power, family, or even how the world would remember him. NOTHING! He knew, and we would do well to remember, that no matter what happens to us, God will be with us, even if it doesn't always seem apparent and the times seem like there is no more time on the clock.

Armies or the elements can blow down a temple of earth and wood. Jesus is our temple. He is our reminder that we are no longer wandering former slaves. We are found and washed in a baptism with Him. We wade in his waters, and we are known by name. Let us come before the Word of Christ every day and be reminded that He alone made a sacrifice for you and that He is faithful in keeping His covenant promise when he says, “Where I am, there you will also be.” (John 14:3)

Psalms can be both raw in their humanity and rich in their divinity, and they all point to Christ. We heard in the words of David today: “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence, there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

How does God make anything known to us? Through his Word and the Holy Spirit. The Word and Spirit reveal the way and the path of life to us. In John’s gospel, Jesus said to Thomas, “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

At all times in our lives, we should look to God first in faithful prayer. Remember how Jesus teaches us to pray and what we ask for: “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). Our daily bread is more than just our stuff. It is more than our cars, shoes, homes, and sustenance. It goes further than our bellies and our backsides. Our souls must be constantly fed.

As much as our bodies need food, our souls need it in equal and even greater measure. We must not starve ourselves. In times of plenty and adversity, we frequently deprive ourselves of spiritual nourishment by neglecting the Word of God and instead indulging in worldly distractions that provide no sustenance.

We need this spiritual nourishment to be strong and endure hardships. We know they come and will come, and we ought not to be worried or anxious about them even when we read a scripture like Daniel's!

In the reading from Daniel, he writes: “And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time” (Daniel 12:1). Again, we must be cautious and not quickly fall into anxious minds and hearts.

We must build ourselves up with the word of God here and listen to what the prophet is saying. “But at that time, your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book” (Daniel 12:1). This Old Testament promise speaks of one to come, who will deliver his people, all whose name is written in the book.

He is talking about the coming of Jesus, making way for all of you! All of us who believe and are baptized, whom He justifies “by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). You and I will see what Daniel has written here one way or another. As Lutherans, we confess in the Apostle's creed that we believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting, and we take comfort in this with a big Amen at the end of reciting it.

Daniel is essentially talking about the same thing, that even if you are in the grave or alive on the earth when it happens, those who put their faith in God, those who take refuge in him, and those who place their trust in His charge shall be delivered. For Daniel, that time was still to come.

The disciples on the Mount of Olives with Jesus looked at what they saw as God's dwelling place, somehow missing that God was dwelling among them. They saw with their earthly eyes and thought earthly thoughts, but Jesus took this moment to teach them something that requires faithful eyes and thoughts. Like Daniel, he paints an ominous glimpse of the things to come. Wars and rumors of wars among nations and kingdoms, families, earthquakes, and people claiming to be him, and many will be misled.

What does Jesus instruct concerning this news? DO NOT BE ALARMED! This must take place, but the end is not yet.

He tells them the gospel must be proclaimed to all nations. He warns the disciples that they will be put to trial, beaten up in synagogues, and the powers of their present world will come against them on account of Christ.

Do you ever feel like the powers of this present world have come up against you? That you have been put to trial because you are a Christian. I guarantee there are places in many parts of this world where persecution of God’s people is alive and well, but amid all this, there is hope. The gospel, the truth, and the fullness of God are still at work in these places.

Every day, baptisms happen in rivers, creeks, pools, or buckets of water if necessary.

The Holy Meal is distributed daily in the most impoverished places imaginable where food is lacking.

Amid the threat of violence and death, the Word is proclaimed in basements, houses, apartments, streets, barns, and prisons in this world. Even here in our neighborhoods, we might feel a sense of anxiety in a world that is growing more hostile to the truth and God.

We can rest assured that troubles will come to us in many ways. When we feel the tendency to fall into the pit of worry and anxiety, let us pivot and fall into the arms of God first. Let us keep the words of St. Paul in his last letter to Timothy on our lips so that we may know for ourselves and encourage each other: “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”(2 Timothy 1:7)

We have in Christ a temple that is eternal!

We have in Christ a gospel that is eternal!

We have in Christ a Salvation that is eternal!

We have in Christ the path of life!

Let us pray

Help us, O Lord, to seek the path of life in your word, which is always before us, so that we may be fed and made strong. Help us trust by making you our refuge at all times so that we might grow faithfully in the confines of your house and recognize the breadth and height of your love and protection.

When our understanding is tested, guide us to call upon the Holy Spirit to counsel us and lead us to the Way, the Truth, and the Life that is Christ Jesus. - Amen