“TRINITY 25”
Saint Matthew 24: 15-28
3rd Last Sunday: 12 November Anno Domini 2023
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
The day is surely drawing near. Believe it. Start living your life like you confess your faith—The Faith. He stands at the door and knocks.
What is the “abomination of desolation?” It was spoken of prophetically by the Prophet Daniel. But prophecies can have both proleptic (in the nearer time; intermediary) and ultimate fulfillment. Just as there are many anti-Christs [1 Jn. 2.18] so too there are many abominations. Events, sins, blasphemies, so great that they lead to desolation. The great desolation is not death but damnation.
Adam eating that which he had been commanded not to eat; Cain murdering his younger brother—the shepherd; Saul murdering the prophets of Nob and consorting with a witch; David committing adultery with Basheba and then murdering her brave husband; these are all abominable. It is not really what Daniel was speaking to. Ahithophel and Absalom betraying David; Herod the Great murdering the young babes of Bethlehem; Herod murdering the greatest of the Prophets—John the Baptist; Judas betraying The Christ, are all acts of abomination.
Everyone of you lying, self-justifying, being hateful, gossiping, hoarding, and coveting constantly, are also sins which left unrepented and absolved will lead you to desolation. The mirror of God’s Holy Law, His Holy and Perfect will for all of you, shows a hideous, deformed, abomination. If you do not see it; see that; then mores the pity. Only Jesus can cover your deformed monstrosity with His good, true, and beautiful Image!
Yes, scholars, exegetes, seminary professors, Church Fathers, and pastors will try and give you the exact interpretation of what Daniel was talking about. Matthew’s hearers (and subsequently his readers) seemed to have known: “whoso readeth, let him understand.”
The more easily defined abomination is the one that The Lord talks about when His Disciples ask Him about the end. Jesus talks first about the year AD 70 and then about the end of time—His coming in Glory at the final Advent—the Eschaton and Parousia. So, first Christ is talking about the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of The Living God by the Romans. Before the iron siege was irrevocably set, all Christians being forewarned by their Lord were to flee Judea to the hills. They were to make such haste to escape Jerusalem that they were to go without packing supplies and clothes.
Some Americans have “bug-out” bags in their homes and vehicles. Many have months of extra food in their pantries, back-up generators, alternate water supplies, and guns & ammo. Maybe. But it is better to trust in The Lord for the final end times and not to princes or mammon. Even as the Jerusalemites could not fight and withstand the Roman Legions, so too we will not, in a physical sense, be able to triumph over armies sent against us; or mobs; or demons—not on our own.
But we gather today, as we will gather if and when things get demonstrably worse. We gather as family and as a band of warrior brothers. We will not have to fight to defeat the enemy—our Captain fights for us. We will be required to fight to defend our families and friends.
So, was the “abomination of desolation” which “[stood] in the Holy place” the Imperial Eagle of Rome atop the banners of their columns; the labarum of a gentile army planted in the ruins, the smoldering rubble of a Temple no more? Yes, probably.
And there were many Christians, Jews who were converted by The Holy Ghost to be The Way, The Church, who were still alive in the months leading up to 70 AD. They knew Jesus’ warning via Matthew’s Evangel. They knew the prophecy of Daniel.
But…
The greater, the ultimate, the cleaving of flesh from bone by The Law—THE abomination was your sins, and your sin, nailed into the precious and pure and immaculately sinless Body of dear sweet Jesus.
Protestants, well, some of them (many) are upset, critical, and even scandalized that Lutherans (i.e., Christians) adorn their sanctuaries and chancels and classrooms with Crucifixes. Ah yes, the cross of Christ, the singular atoning propitiatory sacrifice (monergism) of The God/Man in Whom is found salvation—AND NO OTHER—that is a scandal (Greek: scandalon/stumbling stone). But that Crucifix is both Law and Gospel because it represents and symbolizes Christ Himself. Jesus is The Word of God—the whole and undiluted full counsel of The Trinity. In Christ’s Person and Work is both killing Law and life-giving Gospel.
To your old man and to your re-born New Man it serves first as THE abomination of YOUR desolate and darkened heart—a damning self apart from Jesus. Look to that symbol, read the Passion Narratives, and know just how abominable you were apart from your Lord’s intercession. And then…
And then be lifted up by the pierced Hand of The Redeemer and look again to Mercy Incarnate—"Oh sacred Head now wounded” for you! That crucifix and the event it portrays is the most peace giving and refreshing, and fortifying event and Event Giver, there is. Hence, Saint Pual’s admonition and command to the Corinthians (sinners as foul as us) “we preach Christ Crucified!”
That cross, that crucifix is gone and is no more. But The Word remains… “but the word of our God shall stand for ever” [Esaias 40.8b]. Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum!
For you He became abominable. For you He suffered desolation—the pains of hell. For you His Holy Body became a carcase—a dead corpse. And for you He rose again victorious to give you the victory over sin, death, and the power of Satan. For you this morning his formerly dead carcase becomes again His living Flesh. And where the body—His Body is, there you my fellow eagles are gathered together to eat and drink.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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