“Stand Fast”
November 16, 2025
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
We are coming to the end of the church year, the end of our journey through the gospel of Luke. We know what the disciples, what Jesus had to go through before arriving at Easter morning. So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that our readings start to take on a somber tone, with depressing images. I always find it hard to be a lectionary preacher as we wind down one year and start another. The outside world is usually joyful, cranking up for the “holidays” with lights and presents and family meals and Christmas music. Meanwhile, here in church, we end up reading a lot of what might be called apocalyptic material. It can be jarring.
But this year, I’m seeing a different side. This year, I know that there are so many in our country, in our world, who are not feeling very “holly or jolly.” Maybe they have been working without any pay because of the government shutdown. Maybe they are worried that they won’t be able to get to loved ones easily because of the insanity happening at our airports. Maybe they have had to skimp a little on meals because there just wasn’t enough money for food. Maybe they have gotten a diagnosis that rocks their world. Maybe they continue to miss someone who completed their circle. There are so many other “maybes” I haven’t spoken aloud.
So when Jesus talks about horrible things happening—nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and earthquakes and famine and plague, and BEFORE that, arrest, prosecution, trial, betrayal by those closest, and even death—there are some in our world who are experiencing those very things. One commentator about this passage even remarked that maybe what we should get out of this was that no one gets through life unscathed.
But before we process this vision any more, let’s just take a moment to say that Jesus is not acting as Nostradamus here—we do not believe he thought he was predicting an immediate fall of the temple. (Although the person who wrote Luke was writing after the fall and so the image of the temple stones being thrown down would have made an impression to those listening). I think Jesus was talking about the long term. That the institution of the temple, the hierarchy of the chief priests and temple workers, would not stay in ascendance, could not stand forever, because he thought they were acting against what God had intended.
Jesus is echoing sentiments he probably heard from the time he was small—because Mary, his mother, was continually singing about the lowly being lifted up, about the proud being brought low, about God’s justice and God’s reign coming to live here on the earth. You know, what we call the Magnificat. You can’t be fed with and raised up on those ideas and not have them become part of your very being. That’s why the Jewish people (and Christians after them) were to steep themselves in Torah, the stories of the people of God. Why they were to hear the prophets of old talking about how God’s people dealt with terrible happenings in the past. Why they were to have on their lips the words of the psalms, the words of wisdom, the words of faithful people from other times and places.
Apocalypse is not an arithmetic number game of when and where and how the end of our world is going to happen. It’s not a horror flic. It is a method of shaking people awake, of magnifying the stakes, and of emphasizing how important the way we live our lives really is. That’s what Jesus was doing in this passage. Using the fall of the temple as a symbol of the breaking apart of the old world, as God enters into our space. The fact that it is total annihilation, for everyone—individuals, nations, even the world, means that no one is spared trials and tribulations. The question is, how do you respond? How should you respond? Some have put it this way, “Life isn’t about the cards you are dealt, but the way that you play them.”
And one could be excused for missing out on Jesus’ suggestions about how to respond. I mean, we’ve just had everything that could go wrong, go wrong. Jesus has painted a picture where you can’t trust anyone, where you can’t escape what is coming. Who can blame us for having shut off our brains—or traveled down some rabbit hole about how we are going to survive this!
So what is Jesus suggesting? Not that we moan and groan about how this could be happening to me, on my watch, in our nation. Not that we circle the wagons and make sure we and our own are as okay as possible, damn all the others. Not that we find some opium—sex, drugs, alcohol, social media, something to take our minds off of what is out there and disappear into that neverland!
No, Jesus isn’t sugar coating the future. He is warning us that the worst might happen. But, even if it does, we are to stay in the world. We are to live in the world. We are to Stand firm, Be strong, Cling to our convictions. We are to trust that the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice. I ran into a quote by Congresswoman Shontel Brown from Jan. 17, 2022—from the journal “The Hill.” She said, in part, ““Is progress toward freedom, equality, and –indeed- justice inevitable? The arc of the moral universe is anything but. It does not bend towards justice on its own, no, it only does so because people pull it towards justice. It is an active exercise, not a passive one.”
I think Jesus would have agreed, as long as we acknowledge that God is the one who leans most heavily on that arc—we are just following in God’s wake. Think about the images that we will hear in the next few weeks. Don’t be the bridesmaid who falls asleep. Don’t be the ones who don’t have enough oil to trim their lamps. Keep watch, Stay awake. Hold onto hope. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”
Why? How can we act this way? Because we believe in God’s promises. Because perseverance is a needed trait for a Christian, for any faithful person.
It’s interesting that the prophet Malachi (writing in a different situation--after the exile, after the rebuilding of the temple, but during a period of spiritual complacency and decline in faithfulness) also imagines the end time. But he isn’t focused on all the bad things that will happen to the faithful. No, he’s talking about God’s vengeance on the unrighteous. “See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all the evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.” Woo boy. Maybe that’s why Malachi was placed last in our version of Scripture (along with the fact that it is probably the latest chronologically of the Old Testament).
And for the faithful? “the sun of righteousness will rise, with healing in its wings.” What are the faithful to do in Jesus’ version? They aren’t supposed to wallow, but to face whatever comes. They aren’t to shy away, but to see any difficulty as a chance to witness to their faith, to testify to God’s continuing love and justice, to speak out boldly. Don’t be afraid, says Jesus. God will give you the words to say. God will give you the strength to be resolute. And remember, there is another world, one that God controls. And so whatever they do to you in this world, not a hair on your head will perish. “By your endurance you will gain your souls.”
This is a message for times like these. This is the blueprint for how to be faithful in a trying era. It is not an invitation to think about pie in the sky by and by. It is a way to battle our impulse to lose ourselves in violence, or retribution. It is an antidote to cowering in the corner against a foe much greater than ourselves. It is the path that so many followers have taken before us, following in Jesus’ footsteps. This image that seems a nasty portrayal of the future, is really a gift, a present, for us. It calls us to say, alongside of the Apostle Paul, we know “nothing, in all of creation, will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Today, I see signs that people are taking this road. I give thanks for the West Orange community and how it has responded to the food crisis for some. We stand fast, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, with those in need. I give thanks for the way we in UPC show up for one another. We stand fast, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, with those in pain, in grief, in confusion. I give thanks for the way this place has made itself a safe space. We stand fast, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, with those who feel unseen, who feel vulnerable, who think they are not loved—especially by the church. I give thanks for those who have been willing to have difficult conversations, eye-opening and mind-bending conversations, on race, on sexual orientation, in the minefield of politics. We stand fast, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, even with those who are different from ourselves. With one caveat—as James Baldwin put it, “We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”
Yes, I give thanks for all the instances, in so many places in our world, where faithful people, good people, are trying their hardest to pull that moral arc just a little bit more towards justice. That’s why we pray, “your kin-dom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” That is why Jesus insists that the kin-dom of God has come near. Look around. Make sure you are right there, putting your piece of the puzzle on the board. That’s what we are called to do.
May it be so, Alleluia, Amen.