“POPULUS ZION 2023”
Saint Luke 21: 25-36
Populus Zion: 10 December Anno Domini 2023
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
There have always been “signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars.” The sun was made during the six days of creation (day 4). What a sight.
The moon (blood moons, super moons, harvest moons) waxing and waning. Both great lights subject to hundreds of eclipses. Think of the shooting stars and comets that Adam and his children beheld. The first rainbow in the sky after the flood must have over-awed Noah and his family.
The sun’s shadow going back on Hezekiah’s sun-dial; the sun “standing” in the sky for Joshua and his army.
The Christ is not wrong when He speaks about celestial signs which are coming on the earth. It was always this way; it is this way; and it always will be this way…till He comes again at the end. He comes as a thief in the night. No one knows the hour. Hence, you, Advent Christians, are always on full alert, not Defcon 1 but Eschaton 1.
But The Faith which informs your individual faith; The Christ Grace—His suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension for you, which is given you as free gift; would be meagre and almost “beside-the-point” if it was all calculable, measurable, and quantifiable by astronomy and geological barometers and charts. In the second half of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus makes it as simple as new growth on a fig tree which simply comes forth on one of those magical days between late winter and early spring. “Ye see these things come to pass; summer is now nigh at hand; know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.” Do you? You must! That is now. Right now. The Advent of Christ is at hand.
All these predictions of The Lord HAVE happened, are happening, and will happen. He is The same Lord, yesterday, today, and forever!
So, you today react to this text, i.e., believe, teach, and confess, with it, the same way your Christian fathers did when they saw Jerusalem darken between noon and 3:00 pm on Good Friday, when they observed the destruction and burning of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. When word came to them, or they saw, Vesuvius erupt, the Visigoths sacking Eternal Rome, the fall of Constantinople and all other powers (Sacred and Profane) being “shaken.”
The distress of nations came when Cain slew Abel; when God flooded the earth; when fire and brimstone rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah; when The Lord’s nation (His chosen people) were held in slavery first to Egypt and then later to Babylon—when Solomon’s Temple and the Holy city were burned and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar.
The “powers of heaven” are God’s powers of forgiving and absolving. They were located, attached by The Lord, to the Ark of The Covenant and to His Holy Altar—the things of His actual, true, and real Presence in the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies in the Temple. When Rome destroyed all this in 70, this was the greatest shaking that could be. The Israelites, the Hebrews, the Old Testament covenantal people were no more. What has remained ever since—the so-called “Jews” are simply a pagan golem like race of Talmudic, Gnostic, Kabalistic, usurer, and atheistic mystics and bankers.
Like Christ’s first audience, the “12,” your own hearts fail you—daily in thought, word, and deed. But Christians need to be, and indeed are, fearless and indomitable IN CHRIST Who is your victory and salvation.
They saw the Son of Man, not yet incarnate, and then incarnate, “coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” Then. Now. Forever.
The Hebrews and Moses, saw the cloud descend upon Mt. Sinai. The Word of God was given in Law, but also: “then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: and they saw The God of Israel: and there was under His feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in His clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also, they saw God, and did eat and drink” [Ex. 24. 9-11].
And then, during the Exodus: “a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of The Lord filled the tabernacle” [Ex. 40. 34-35]. An ordinary cloud? No. God’s cloud—usually associated with the 1st Person of The Trinity, but The Lord in His fullness always. Just a cloud? Well, plenty of incense as well, no doubt. God is a fierce and awesome God. You are to fear Him and Love Him—that is true Law and Gospel. This also happened in the presence of Solomon at the Temple’s completion: “so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of The Lord had filled the house of The Lord” [1 Ki. 8.11].
There was a cloud when Christ was Transfigured and when He Ascended, to be enveloped by that cloud—The Loving Father embracing His not prodigal Son, but Only-Begotten Son!
These signs happened, happen, and will happen. Paul to the Corinthians: “and [they] were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea” [1 Cor. 10.2].
First Jesus to the Sanhedrin about His Final Advent: “then shall they see The Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” [Lk. 21. 27].
Which is reiterated by Paul to you Thessalonians so that you grieve not as do the pagans at the death of the Saints: “then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet The Lord in the air” [1 Thes. 4. 17].
And now. Today. You see The Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Through a thick cloud of incense, or, of the incense of prayers and His Words spoken and sung back to Him—rising with the prayers of The Angels and Saints: “seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses” [He.12.1a].
“Then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” Esaias saw the vision of Seraphim flanking The Crucified God/Man while the smoke/incense…cloud filled The Temple. An angel took the coal from the altar and touched his lips; he was cleansed. Come now to The Supper. Come now to The Crucified Savior—He Who forgives you by His obedience and His suffering and death; all on your behalf. “These things…come to pass…stand before The Son of man.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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