Some people were talking about the temple and the beauty of its fine stones and ornaments. Jesus said, ‘These things you are gazing at—the time will come when not one stone will be left upon another; they will all be thrown down.’ ‘Teacher,’ they asked, ‘when will that be? What will be the sign that these things are about to happen?’
He said, ‘Take care that you are not misled. For many will come claiming my name and saying, “I am he,” and, “The time has come.” Do not follow them. And when you hear of wars and insurrections, do not panic. These things are bound to happen first; but the end does not follow at once.’ Then he added, ‘Nation will go to war against nation, kingdom against kingdom; there will be severe earthquakes, famines and plagues in many places, and in the sky terrors and great portents.
‘But before all this happens they will seize you and persecute you. You will be handed over to synagogues and put in prison; you will be haled before kings and governors for your allegiance to me. This will be your opportunity to testify. So resolve not to prepare your defence beforehand, because I myself will give you such words and wisdom as no opponent can resist or refute. Even your parents and brothers, your relations and friends, will betray you. Some of you will be put to death; and everyone will hate you for your allegiance to me. But not a hair of your head will be lost. By standing firm you will win yourselves life.’
Let me begin with a prayer appointed for this Sunday: “Heavenly Father, whose blessed Son was revealed to destroy the works of the devil and to make us the children of God and heirs of eternal life: grant that we, having this hope, may purify ourselves even as he is pure; that when he shall appear in power and great glory we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where he is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”
Yesterday I was taking part in a funeral service at the Methodist Chapel in Snailbeach, on the edge of the Stiperstones, and, despite the sadness of the occasion, also quite enjoying the chance to revisit a chapel in which I took services regularly over quite a few years. Building on the side of a hill is never easy, and I couldn’t help but notice some scaffolding in place. Without constant care and attention even the most solid-looking building will become weak; and when any weakness is discovered, it’s important to get on with the job without delay and put things right. Some of the churches in which I’ve ministered and served have of course stood far longer than the chapel at Snailbeach; in two, one of which is the parish church at Llandrinio, the stonework in part at least goes back to a time before the Norman Conquest. For a millennium and more a church has stood in that place to testify to the reality of faith, and to the continual offering of prayer.
I was also of course a canon of the cathedral for a while, sharing with my colleagues in those days a responsibility for the maintenance of that ancient house of God. Even in this secular age cathedrals are much visited; across the country in fact cathedrals in general are I’m told receiving more visitors through the week, and more worshippers on a Sunday, year on year. And I think that even those who arrive in such a place with a camera but without a faith come to sense the sanctity of an ancient cathedral or for that matter a small and ancient shrine, the church at Pennant Melangell for example: a place of prayer, in which the visitor feel, perhaps to their surprise, that they are somehow drawn closer to God.
A friend who does some summer chaplaincy work on odd days at a cathedral not far from here told me of the many conversations he has with people who’ve just come for a day out but have found more than they expected. Some of them have left with a real sense that their lives have been in some way transformed. People I suppose approached the temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Gospel with the same awe as people today show towards our great cathedrals. The disciples of Jesus, we read, marvelled at the size of the stone blocks with which it was built.
But Jesus told them that not one stone would be left standing on another. Perhaps he was specifically predicting the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple that in fact took place some thirty years later. Or perhaps he was saying that however grand and beautiful a building, it will not stand unless the faith of those who build it is real. Our great cathedrals look so solid, as though they could stand for ever. But on Remembrance Sunday especially we know how quickly the madness of human conflict can lay waste the work of centuries of human endeavour; I’ve visited both Coventry and Dresden and stood prayerfully in the ruined shells of great churches.
The great temple in Jerusalem was not of course the temple of Solomon - that was long gone, but the temple of Herod. Herod, called Herod the Great, began building his temple a few years before the birth of Jesus, and in fact building would still have been going on at the time that Jesus was there. People really did believe that this temple would last for ever, and that it could never be destroyed; but by 70 AD it lay in ruins, and the city at the heart of Israel’s relationship with her God had been razed to the ground.
In today’s reading, from St Luke’s Gospel, it was the comments people were making on the beauty of the temple's stones and dedication gifts that gave Jesus the cue to say the harsh words he did, words designed to undermine any confidence in the buildings. Certainly those of us who like myself love church buildings may well be challenged here. I am again and again inspired when I visit holy places, and stand within stones that have faithfully borne witness to the gospel over many centuries.
Those verses I also read from the prophecy of Malachi provide a response for this. The prophet challenges any over-confidence we may place in our own abilities, and in the works of our own hands. We may stand within a precious building, whether a small chapel or a mighty temple; but we must put our trust not in stone and stained glass, but in God - in God for whose worship and to whose glory these places were built.
And this is surely true - that, just as we need to be swiftly attentive to any weakness in the building, the stone and the timber and the glass, so too we need to be swiftly and regularly attentive to any weakness in the spiritual building, in the community of faith, and in the individual Christian self. I know just how true this can be, and how often it’s true that just when I’m looking good and feeling strong, I’m in fact often more at risk than ever of tripping up and falling. We need to regularly examine our buildings; we need also to regularly examine ourselves - and in both cases we need to look deeper than the surface. Paul tells us that we must never weary of doing right; in fact I almost lose count of the places in the letters of Paul where he speaks of the necessity of perseverance and of self-awareness before God.
Those hard words of Jesus challenge us to be faithful to God through thick and thin, to be wise and not misled. And it will, he promises his hearers, be a tough time, a time when even the closest of friends, even one’s own family, may turn against us. Let’s not forget that for some of our sisters and brothers across the Christian world today, this is what it is like. Persecution is real and harsh, and they would identify in a very personal way with the words of Malachi the prophet about staying true to God's name in a time of burning trial.
But those words from St Luke’s Gospel, though they speak of hard times, they’re also rich with promise. If we stay with our Lord, he will stay with us. Buildings may be destroyed, possessions may be lost, but our faith is in the God whose love is eternal, and the sign of that love is the cross on which our Lord Jesus Christ lost everything, laid down everything, laid down even his own life, in order that he might open the gate to eternal life to all his people, and so that he himself might be crowned High King of Heaven. We need have no fear of worldly destruction - even such terrible things as the destruction of Jerusalem and her temple, which I suppose would still have been fresh in the memory of those who first read St Luke’s Gospel and the words of Jesus he recorded there.
Worldly destruction is never the end, never the final curtain, when viewed in the light of heaven - though we, still pilgrims passing, as Psalm 23 reminds us, through the valley of the shadow of death, will still need a persevering faith, which will require us to examine ourselves and to encourage one another. And problems and troubles and attacks on the faith are also opportunities, or perhaps I should say these events provide opportunities to testify to our Lord. Jesus tells us that we will be called on to bear witness in unexpected places; he tells us also that if we trust and persevere and stand firm in faith, when the time comes God will provide us with the words we need.
Today this might chime in with memories of conflict and war, and of times when the whole world has felt dark and dangerous, and tomorrow was by no means guaranteed. It might also chime in with our prayers for Christians who are suffering today: perhaps in Syria, Iraq or Egypt, perhaps in Pakistan or in parts of India, perhaps in northern Nigeria. We read of the destruction of church buildings; let us pray they may stand firm in faith. I find an immense contrast in those verses from St Luke’s Gospel: on the one hand, the temple will be destroyed so completely that not one stone will be left standing on another, and this will bring in a time of hopeless confusion, of dangers and trials; yet on the other hand Jesus promises those who stand firm that not one hair of their heads would perish.
This story has been repeated throughout the history of the Church, as one of our hymns reminds us: “Through many a day of conflict, through many a scene of strife, the faithful few fought bravely to guard the nation’s life”. Perhaps in some places today those words will be sung, and people will think on the few who fought in the cause of freedom seventy years ago, and the names read out by war memorials this morning. We honour them, and shall do in our prayers; but the hymn is really about the times when the Church has seemed in great danger of certain destruction, and the revival the begins with, and depends on, the perseverance of the few, those who stand firm in the faith. Those who will not be knocked down, even when not one stone stands on another. May we stand with them, and may the light of Christ shine within us and shine out from us into the world he died to save. Amen.
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