Proper 28C 2007 Luke 31:5-19

This gospel text for today presents us with several challenges in coming to grips with what is going on inside of what is happening.

The first is the problem of predictions of any kind, whether from Jesus himself or others. Have you ever tried to make a prediction? Here are some predictions from the past. All from people who were trusted individuals:

Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, in 1943 said, "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." And Ken Olson, President of Digital Equipment Corporation, in 1977: “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.”

Popular Mechanics magazine in 1949: "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons."

The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall Publishers in 1957, turning down a manuscript on data processing: “I have traveled the length and breadth of this country, and have talked with the best people in business administration. I an assure you on the highest authority that data processing is a fad and won’t last out the year.”

An inventor by the name of Lee DeForest claimed that "While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility."

The Decca Recording Co. made a big mistake when they made this prediction in 1962 "We don't like their sound. Groups of guitar music are on the way out." Their prediction in 1962 concerning a group called the Beatles. And this: “You ain’t goin’ nowhere son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.” The manager of the Grand Ole Opry to a young man just out of the Army named Elvis Presley. (1)

When Jesus and the disciples were leaving the Temple in Jerusalem Jesus stopped them, looked back at the complex and predicted, "Do you see all these great buildings. Not one stone will be left on another."

To the disciples this was impossible. The smallest stones in the structure weighed 2 to 3 tons. Many of them weighed 50 tons. The largest stone still existing is over 36 feet long and over 9 feet high, weighing hundreds of tons. The stones were so immense that neither mortar nor any other binding material was used between the stones. The structure was stabilized by the great weight of the stones. The walls towered over Jerusalem, over 400 feet in one area. Inside the walls were 45 acres of bedrock shaved flat. In Jesus' day a quarter of a million people could fit comfortably inside the walls. (2)

Forty years later Jesus' prediction came true. In 70 AD the Romans, with their superb military engineers, destroyed the Temple. What do we do with all this? It tells us that predictions are problematical. That most likely Luke wrote his gospel after 70 AD -- around 80-85 AD -- and either put these words in Jesus’ mouth or was recording an oral tradition in the early Christian communities.

The second thing is that such predictions are in the prophetic tradition of apocalypticism. The most famous versions of this are Daniel in the Old Testament and Revelation in the New. Such prophecies focus on future events -- the destruction of the Temple, for example – and have a supernatural or divine aura about them. Apocalypticism was a not uncommon mode of expression in Palestine in Jesus day.

Certainly Revelation has had a lasting impact, especially the 6th Chapter with its descriptions of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War on his bloody red horse, representing the nature of the antichrist kingdom, sweeping his sword of maiming and destruction; Famine, carrying a set of scales of judgement on his emaciated black horse, spreading starvation; Pestilence or Plague, the antichrist on his white horse, the white color of vermin; and Death, the pale horse with the pale rider, the symbol of Hell and damnation. (3) Together the Four Horsemen symbolize what must be endured at the beginning of the end of times.

It is hard for us here to imagine the kinds of things Jesus was telling his disciples they had to endure for their faith. We are protected in our faith by the Constitution and laws of nation and commonwealth. But it is not true elsewhere in the world. In those places Jesus’ words have power and meaning. It is our task to support, and pray and work for those who must endure war, famine, pestilence, and death because they are Christians. Or for any reason any where.

AMEN

1. From The Experts Speak, pp 182-183, 207-209
2. eSermons Resources for November 18, 2007
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Apocalypse