Matthew 24:36-44
Taken or Left?
11-28-10
P: The Holy Gospel according to the Apostle, St.
Matthew, the 24th Chapter:
C: Glory to You, O Lord.
Jesus prepares His believers for the End.
36 [Jesus
said} “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven,
nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of
Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For
in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and
giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39
and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took
them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40
Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41
Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other
left.
42
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known
at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would
not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be
ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
P: This is the Gospel of the
Lord.
C: Praise to You, O
Christ.
I.
Introduction:
Fear of not being prepared
I have recurring dreams where I come to Church on Sunday
mornings and I am not prepared for my sermon. In the nightmare I either forgot
my manuscript or something delays the start of the worship service. People
become impatient and agitated. It’s a horrible feeling not to be prepared.
Have you had similar dreams?
Or sometimes I think back to my college days and
remember taking tests that I thought I would pass with flying colors, but as I
am taking the test I realize I didn’t do a really good job of preparing. And
the subsequent grade reflects that.
There’s no worse feeling than not being prepared.
Being caught off guard.
Perhaps you’ve had similar experiences at school, at
work, or at home. Maybe you’ve even prepared for one thing and something else
caught you off guard.
Now you’ve caught the flavor of this morning’s
Gospel reading.
II.
Keep preparing
like Noah and his family
Just a few days before He had been crucified, Jesus
was preparing His Disciples for His return at the End of time. He did not want
them to get caught off guard. He wanted them to keep watch.
In this text, Christ establishes that He is coming
back someday in the flesh to end time. There will be signs of His return: wars,
troubles, tribulations. He doesn’t want His followers to be scared but keep
preparing. To keep looking for the signs…like leaves changing on trees to alert
us summer is coming to an end.
So to help them and us understand what the world
will be like before His return He congers up the images of the Earth in Noah’s day,
before he, his wife, three sons and their wives entered the Ark, before the
Great Flood.
God had chosen to save Noah and his family while He
pronounced judgment on the rest of the world. Noah and his family, 8 in all,
had faith in the Lord; the rest of the world rejected Him. The
The rest of the world was oblivious to God’s
judgment, because they didn’t believe in Him. So it would be that way at the
End before Christ’s return in the flesh.
To Noah the Day was coming and they needed to keep
preparing, building the
And the rest of the world in Noah’s Day went on its
business like everything was normal, maybe even laughing at Noah and his
family. They looked like fools to them. They didn’t believe they needed to
prepare, they had fallen so far away from the Lord. And that would be the case
for the unbelievers at the End of time.
In Noah’s case, the flood came and killed the
unbelievers while Noah and his family were saved. The
III.
Jesus compared
Noah’s
Advent is a time of preparation. God told His Son to
prepare for the incarnation…to be one of us, but perfect. And when the time was
right Galatians 4:4 tells that Jesus was born of a woman, born under the Law to
redeem those under the Law…so that we might be adopted as God’s children as
Marlene was through baptism here this morning.
That’s why Jesus died on the Cross to save us from
eternal destruction, to save us from Hell, to give us Heaven, so we would not
end up like the condemned of Noah’s day.
Jesus builds us an
And Jesus
promises He is coming back to Earth someday in the flesh where He will take you
and me from this Ark and we will live in a new Paradise…a physical and
spiritual world that will be absent of sin, death and the Devil.
Do we see the signs of the End today? While the rest
of the world goes on with life as normal…just a few weeks ago over 50
Christians were brutally slaughtered during Sunday worship in
We live in a world of unstable economies, uncertain
futures, and increasing wars, terrorism, diseases, and ongoing destruction to
our environment, all of which is breeding hopelessness. And yet Jesus is saying
to you today….don’t be scared. Keep preparing. Keep watch. Keep trusting in
Him. The End will come. You will be safe. Stay in the
He will be back so you can fully realize what He
completed at the Cross for you; what He victoriously showed from the grave for
you. And God has never broken His promises. He promised the Messiah in the
Garden of Eden, and He fulfilled it in Jesus. He promised to take care of us
and our life, and His Providence, His Word and Sacraments fulfill those
promises. And if Christ Jesus said in Revelation 22 that He is coming back
soon, we, by faith, take Him at His Word.
He could come back at any time to End time. We plan
our lives as though we will live a long here on Earth but we prepare for life
to end at any moment…ours alone or all of creation.
And the final crescendo to the completion of all
these promises will be that on the Last Day when He will collect His believers
from the four corners of the Earth. His believers will be raptured from their
location to be gathered by His right side.
And that brings us to the envelopes you have in your
bulletins. Please stand. Take out the envelopes and open them. If your paper
says taken I want you to come up to
the front of the church. You have been raptured to Jesus. If it says left, then stay right where you are.
This is how it will be on the Last Day…according to
this text. It will be a Day like today. Two people watching a Patriots game or Dancing with the Stars…one will be left;
the other taken. Two people will be at work…one taken and the other left. Two
people will be out shopping…one left; the other taken. Beamed out of there like on Star Trek or something. If you are
taken, you are saved. If you are left…not a good eternity for you. Once
unbelievers realize it is the real End…it will be too late for them, just like
it was for the people in Noah’s Day when the floodwaters came.
The ones left behind either
rejected Christ or used to believe in Him. The ones taken still had the faith
they were given by the power of God’s Word.
IV.
Be prepared not scared
Those who were taken…how
does it feel to be up here? Pretty good.
For you in the pews, how does it feel to be left behind? Not so good.
The ones left behind want to
be up here. And if you are up here we want the ones left behind to be up here
with us.
Jesus is warning so that no
one will be caught off guard. He does not want things to end up tragically as
it did for those who didn’t make it on the
We don’t want people to be
eternally condemned or spend forever in Hell. We want you (the left behind) to
be with us and Jesus in the New Heavens and New Earth to come.
Everyone please return to your seats.
Jesus’ goal that day and
with His Word proclaimed today was to make sure that no one is left behind, and
all are gathered to be with Him forever. According to Ephesians 1 it is God’s
will all be saved. In John 3:16 and John 14:6, Jesus said that it is only
through Him that any are saved. And various verses in Scripture point out that
it is only through the power of His Spirit working through Word and the Sacraments
of Holy Baptism and Communion that we can know for sure we are saved…so we can
be raptured to Him on the Last Day.
So how do we keep preparing
for the End?
First, God prepares us for
the End like He did with Marlene this morning, starting with our baptism.
Second, we keep preparing
for the End…making sure our children and adults learn more about Jesus and how
we are to live His Commandments like our Epistle Reading from Romans 13:8-14
explained. We live our lives as a testimony of our faith in Him, not being
selfish as I talked to children about his morning. That’s treasuring our baptism.
Third, we keep preparing for the End…staying close
to His Church…knowing Satan wants us to walk away from this
Fourth, we keep preparing for the End by inviting
others to join us so they are not left behind.
V.
Conclusion
You know our end, and many other people’s end may
come before the End. But again we don’t want people to be scared of death we
want them to keep preparing for it. So we can look forward to it with
anticipation.
I was talking to a friend of mine back in
Anyway, her son Roger said her lungs filled up, she
had congested heart failure, and died of a massive stroke. But he said she died
with a smile on her face. She was prepared, not scared. And Marie was not left
behind, but was taken to the Lord to return with Him on the Last Day. This is
where we will celebrate the End of all bad and the eternal dwelling of only
good through Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.