"This Is Not the End"
Luke 21:5-19
Rev. Katy Pass, Westmoreland UCC
Nov. 16, 2025
So that’s a fun text, right? Very inspiring, very encouraging, what a great message to take into our week. Boldly entitled “the destruction of the temple foretold,” the rest of the passage reads as a continuation of that foretelling, a prophecy of things to come. And those things – they're not looking good. The destruction of a sacred building, wars, famine, earthquakes, and let’s not forget betrayal by those we trust that will end in jailing, persecution, and/or death. But don’t be afraid! Jesus says. Ok yeah sure I mean I’m a bit too distracted by all the death and destruction to really take that part to heart but thanks, I'll do my best.
This is how this text reads through a modern lens of us here today. The thing about Scripture, though, is that we are not its original audience. The gospel of Luke, especially, takes into account its intended readers and the world they live in. So, how might they have read this text? The book of Luke was written sometime between 85 and 95 CE. Something particular to note is that the destruction of the temple that Jesus is talking about happened in 70 CE. That means that this text predicting the destruction of the temple was written at least 15 years after it had already happened. But that’s not all. The commentary Feasting on the Word takes each of the events listed in this passage- the wars, famine, earthquakes- and ties them to an event which happened in the recent history of the writing of the book of Luke.
All of these things that Jesus is foretelling, they had already happened. So, the point of this text isn’t that these things are going to happen. These people knew that; they had lived it. They were still living through persecution and betrayal. Luke didn’t want to tell his audience what was going to happen, he wanted to tell them what to do now that it had. They are told not to fear. These people do not need to be afraid of their current or coming circumstances, because Jesus knew that they would happen. Jesus told them that it would all be ok. Readers are told that “not a hair of their head will perish,” a reference to divine protection from the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, even as people are dying. Because Jesus defeated death, so it holds no final power over them. And yet, this was their current reality.
It must have felt like the end of the world to them. I mean- how could it not? Natural disasters were occurring, they lived in fear for their lives because of the faith that they had come to profess, and their temple, the holy space where they went to encounter God, was gone. But, they are told “the end will not come immediately.” The end will not come immediately. This is not the end. And since it is not the end, there is work to be done. Luke says that they will be handed over to synagogues and prisons, arrested, interrogated, and maybe even killed because of the name of Jesus. But, this is not the end. All these events give an opportunity to testify to that name of Jesus which they are clinging to even in the midst of all the chaos. Furthermore, they don’t have to worry about what they will say. They are not alone when they go through this; God will give them wisdom greater than their enemies. This is not the end; their message is worth sharing.
We today have unfortunately been living in “unprecedented times” for a while now. We know a thing or two about surviving through chaos, right? And these words ring true for us today, too. This is not the end. We’ve got work to do. The wars, the insurrections, the destruction of things we hold sacred are opportunities to testify to the name of Jesus. To share with the world who God is to us. This passage tells us that God is the one who knows everything that is going to happen and still says it will be ok. The rest of Scripture points to the fact that God is love. The world NEEDS that message right now.
I got the opportunity to attend a youth policy forum put on by the Children’s Defense Fund a few weeks ago, and it was an incredible experience. It was a group of people all devoted to child and youth advocacy coming together to share ideas. It was a holy experience, an opportunity to pause and recharge before heading back into the mayhem that is the real world. I’d like to say that we solved all issues of child poverty and injustice, but that would be untrue. What we did do was share stories with one another. Those stories gave strength of solidarity and hope. We were reminded that we are not alone in our work, and that it is possible to do good even when it feels like everything is falling apart. Stories have power.
These stories served as fuel in multiple ways. They gave hope, but they also reminded us that there is work to be done. Stories make people have to get close to an issue; it is much harder to ignore something when it is dealing with real people. Stories yield empathy. When we don’t know what to do, how to make people listen, telling a story is a great place to start. Stories are just one part of a Biblical testimony, though. The Greek word translated testimony in our Scripture today is martyrion. This is where we get the word martyr, as well, because testifying in this way involves not just saying, but doing. Living as if the things that you are saying are true. Continuing to proclaim who God is to the world.
As Mary the mother of Jesus sings in another chapter of Luke, “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.” We know who holds the ultimate power. We know how this story ends, and it is not like this. If we believe that God is love, that God is present in all the general falling apart going on around us and is working through it, ultimately bending the arc of the moral universe towards justice as Martin Luther King Jr. put it, we must live accordingly. We must love one another, help who we can, forgive who we can. Act as if what we are doing matters, that the words we say are important. That change is possible. Because this is not the end. We have time, and it matters what we do now.
We have to keep going, keep trying, no matter how many times we get knocked down. And that is so hard. I know, I feel it too. Just existing in this world is hard enough, much less continuing to stand up for justice and love those around us. It makes sense that our testimony would waver. But this passage reminds us that people have been experiencing pandemonium for centuries, and God is still in control, working everything for good. God is with us. God has given us the words to say, because our own story, our own encounter with the God of love is something that cannot be contradicted. It is ours. Lean on these truths in hard times, and on the stories of one another, because this is not the end. May our lives be a testimony to that truth.
Amen.
