Populus Zion – Sunday 10 December A✠D 2023
✠ Psalmody: Isaiah 62:11;30:30, 29;Psalm 80: 1, 3, 14, 17;50:2-3, 5;St. Luke 21:26b-27
✠ Lection: Song of Songs 2:8b-14;Romans 15:4-13;St. Luke 21:25-33
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Behold, your King is coming to you and He brings with Him the Kingdom of Heaven. He has come to draw near to us who have distanced ourselves from Him, but He has yet brought the Kingdom in its full measure or else it would have been of no use for us to confess our sins this morning. When the Kingdom comes at the King’s Return on the Last Day, all sin and causes thereof will be wonderfully purged from creation. The Devil will be cast into the lake of fire, the world and all of creation will be purified by fire, and all sin and the desire to commit it will be purified from us as dross. It shall be a glorious day, at least for the righteous.
On the First Sunday in Advent, we looked at one end of the First Advent of Our King. On this Populus Zion, the daughter, the people of Zion are comforted with the words, “Behold, thy salvation cometh,” as we look to that other end, His Second Advent But a considerable amount of our Gospel text paints a grim picture, does it not?
First, consider The Beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth. There was nothing, and God spoke and created everything. He did this over the course of six literal days, and by Genesis’ account, we have a faithful insight into what He did and when. It was on the first day that He made the heavens and the earth, as well as light. He saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
Three days later, after making the firmaments, the gathered waters, land, and vegetation upon the earth, God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day (the sun), and the lesser light to rule the night (the moon). He made the stars also. For over six thousand years and counting, that same sun, moon, and stars have inspired wonder, imagination, and awe in man. They have been signs and they have served the earth, and those who dwell upon it, according to their purpose. Yes, they were all placed there for us; for our enjoyment, for our life, for us to follow them for signs and seasons, and for days and years. They have been gifts to men, created light by which the Light of the World shows mercy on the just and unjust alike.
But because of that latter group, the sun, moon, and stars will not remain as they are. Because of sin’s saturation of the entire creation, every distant star all the way down to every blade of grass, every fallen leaf, every breath of man, every cell and thought in our bodies, because sin has pervaded the entirety of what God created once as very good, there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars. The signs will not be kind ones as they have been for millennia, nor will they be as mild as the worst of sunburns or melanoma. The signs in them of the Last Day, the signs that will be beheld in the deep heavens themselves will be the most frightening thing ever seen by all that have eyes. The distressing signs will not remain above, but on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring. The effects of the Second Coming of the King will not be lowly. He will not come humbly mounted upon a colt, but in full glory and power to judge both the living and the dead and even the earth itself will have no choice but to tremble and shake along with the heavens in the face of the King’s glory and might.
This sight, which every eye will behold, will drive all doubts of Who God is and what He comes to do out of the mind and heart of every person. There will be no escape. We will all stand before Him and there will be men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens themselves will be shaken. There will be no more banal signs to be seen in those bodies above, but only the heavens themselves being peeled back. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
But all of this fear, all of this failing of heart, is not for the Bride of Christ, His Church. Such a reaction is only to be had by those who lived under this sun, moon, and stars while denying Jesus, through Whom all things were spoken into existence and by Whose might have been upheld in their places. This is the judgement of the dead, the spiritually dead. Those who live in unbelief of the King Who has come, comes, and is coming again, will not be able to deny Him for all eternity. The Day of Reckoning will come like a thief in the night and it will strike immeasurable fear into all the hearts that have no faith.
This is the glorious news for you, beloved of the Lord, for not even the literal shaking of the heavens, not even the crashing of stars one after another upon the earth, not even the greatest natural disasters as the seas roar will you have fear in your heart. These signs in this creation coming to an end at His return are signs unto unbelievers to begin the eternal trembling and loathing that will come in their judgement, but the very same signs are ones of the greatest wonder for your eyes, for they are the very process by which your eternal inheritance in Christ is being dispersed.
We will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to happen, as your salvation begins to come to its full fruition in body and soul, look up, lift up your eyes to Him Who is High and lifted up, the Most High. Look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.
Christ, the coming, eternal, Almighty King, has redeemed you, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won you from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood, and with His innocent suffering and death, that you may be His own. He has done this. You are redeemed now, for He has indeed come and accomplished your eternal salvation for you. Your redemption draws near on the Last Day in that the full reward of Christ will be poured out upon all His people. It is that for which we long. It is in that sure hope in which we rejoice. It is in Jesus’ Second Coming that creation and all in it will be purified. On the unbelieving side, that means they will be swept away into the everlasting flame as all wickedness is done away with forever. On the believing side, where you find yourself by faith in Jesus, a gift enacted in you by His doing through His unshakeable words, those will by no means pass away, you will have boundless bliss and joy at what you see coming. Live every second in hopeful godliness as if your Mighty King could arrive at any moment, because He can. Expect Him. Live for Him. Rejoice in the signs when He does return. They are good news for you. Look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near!
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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