St Matthew 24:15-28/1 Thessalonians 4:13-18/Exodus 32:1-20
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
When you see the abomination of sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the lector understand) – Flee! The problem, dear Christians, is that we do not understand. We neither know the Scriptures nor the power therein.
Many have tried to interpret the signs of the times; ignorantly seeking to divine the Deus obsconditus, the hidden will of the Lord. But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only (Mk 13:32). To what does the “abomination of sacrilege” refer?
The end-time antichrist? It is written, Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour (1 Jn 2:18).
The horrendous destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans? Concerning that dreadful ordeal, Josephus records:
For those unable to leave the city lost all hope of survival. The famine became worse, devouring house after house, family after family. The homes where filled with women and children thus destroyed, the alleys with corpses of men. Young men and boys, swelling with hunger haunted the marketplace like ghosts and fell dead in their tracks. The sick could not bury their relatives, many fell dead while burying others, and others set out for their own graves while they were still able. Deep silence and a lethal darkness shrouded the city.” (Eusebius, 84)
Or perhaps something more current? More geo-political? The establishment of the free state of Israel in 1948? Jesus answered, “My Kingdom is not of this world” (Jn 18:26). The recent re-election? It is written, Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation (Ps 148:3).
We are just as guilty of this senseless speculation. We search the Scriptures because we think that in them we have eternal life; but, Jesus says, I tell you the truth, they are these that bear witness about Me (Jn 5:39). All of Holy Scripture preaches Christ. The prophets, such as Daniel, spoke of Christ. They do not predict tomorrow’s newspaper headlines!
Our hope of salvation is not in deciphering the times and the seasons; pinpointing the wars and rumors of wars. Our salvation is in God alone; in the Deus revelatus, God’s revealed will. Jesus said, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father, except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him” (Mt 11:27). Christ Jesus is the revelation of the Father. In Him His will is made known. And all that is written in Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms testify of Christ!
So once again, what is the abomination of sacrilege standing in the Holy Place, of which Jesus speaks? A clue to this apocalyptic prophecy is given in the last line: Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. Aetoi, the word for “vulture” is more commonly translated in the New Testament as “eagle.” Thus, Wherever the corpse is, there the eagles gather. The eagle was the insignia of the Roman military standard, which would have surrounded Jesus’ corpse at His crucifixion and death. His execution was an official act of the Roman government. Our Lord is describing His own death scene!
Now consider Jesus’ own words regarding the Temple, the Holy Place, The Jews said to Him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” He answered them, “Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple and will you raise it up in three days?” But He was speaking about the Temple of His Body. When therefore He was raised up from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken (Jn 2:18-22).
He referred to the Temple as “a den or robbers,” and not “a house of prayer” (Mt 21:13). He Himself is the Temple. The Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us (Jn 1:14). In Him the whole fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Col 2:9). With the coming of Christ the Temple is obsolete. The old has passed the new has come. True worship no longer occurs in the Temple. True worship is in Christ, in spirit and truth.
And the abomination of sacrilege is the very Cross of our Lord Christ. He is the abomination and He is the Holy Place! It is written, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us (Gal 3:13); and For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21). Christ is not one sinner among others. Rather, in the eyes of the Father He is the only sinner, a sacrilege to God.
He is the sacrilege and the Holy Place. His Cross is both folly and wisdom. And the Stone that the builders rejected has become the Chief Stone (Mt 21:42). Not only is the fullness of the deity present and revealed in the ignominy the Cross, it is the only there that the sinner can find God, the Deus revelatus – His perfect and holy will, revealed in the suffering and death of His Son.
Everything hinges on the Cross. Life. The universe. The totality of Scripture. Everything. Heaven and earth and all that is in them, all of creation, and your life, too, depend on the Cross.
You have been taught to love and adore the Cross of Christ, and rightly so. For it is the true sign of God; not the idolatry of the golden calf, but the revelation from heaven given among men.
Yet it remains an abomination of sacrilege in the Holy Place. For it is the full realization of the curse of sin and death, and of God’s righteous wrath and judgment. The fierce anger and hot wrath from which God relented in the days of Moses and Israel, was visited upon His only begotten Son. He drank the cup of sorrow, sprinkled with your iniquity and transgression. The Psalm is His cry to the Father: I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with My drink, because of Your indignation and anger; for You have taken Me up and thrown Me down.
But I do not want you to be uniformed. We believe that Jesus died and rose again. It is in the Cross that He desecrates the old and establishes the new. This is the paradox of Christianity – of God Himself – the abomination of the Cross is the Holy Place. Foolishness is wisdom. And it makes no sense at all to you apart from the preaching of the Gospel, which is the forgiveness of sins by the Word and Spirit of Christ Jesus.
That is why Christ sends His messengers now – to gather His elect from the four winds, to call disciples from all the nations, by the ways and means of the Cross; by the Word of the Cross, which is the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
There is a host of false christs and false prophets, who go out into all the world preaching a false “gospel.” One that is not defined and shaped by the Cross, which has no need of glorying in the crucified Lord, but is enthralled with wonders and impressive signs. Do not listen to them. Do not be misled.
Moreover, do not horde or grasp or cling to any of the wealth and wisdom of this world. Even the Lord’s good gifts and blessings of your home and family must finally give way and be let go. Indeed all of nature, the heavens and earth, the sun, moon, and stars, all of it will pass away.
Repent of your misplaced fear, love, and trust in whatever is not God. Repent of whatever is not Christ. For only Christ and His Word of the Cross will remain forever.
And remember, it is His Cross. He has laid it upon you in Holy Baptism. Not to crush and destroy you, but to save you, to give you life. For it is He who carries you, in Himself, through death and the grave, and into the resurrection of all flesh. Even as St Paul reminded you of those who have gone before you. They died in Christ, meaning they died as part of the one, holy, Christian, and apostolic Church. They died believing that in Jesus they had received the one Baptism for the remission of sins, they trusted in Christ’s merits and not their own, and so they died looking for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world of come.
Have no fear of the coming judgment, beloved. For you are God’s elect, chosen in Christ Jesus from before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4). He has told you in His marvelous Word: “you have been chosen for eternal life in Christ out of sheer grace, without any merit of your own; no one can tear you from His hand” (FC Ep XI). For your sake He shortens the days of tribulation.
And He has sealed His promise with an oath, by giving you His Holy Sacrament. Here you gather not as vultures or eagles, but as the Holy Bride, adorned in splendor, to feast on Christ the crucified and living Bread from heaven. In the midst of our greatest trials an tribulations, receive the comfort of this promise, “Take eat; take drink; this is My Body, My Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”
The Lord has arisen and had pity on Zion; it is the time of your favor, the appointed time has come. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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