Sermon for Sunday Novembe 9th, 2025
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Lay Leader: Karen Bickford
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While preparing for today’s service, I read the scripture out of context first. Then I went back to read what came before and after. This passage appears in the section of Luke that covers the week between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. Jesus has just entered Jeruselem, and he isn’t happy with what he finds there. He goes into the temple and drives out the money changers and merchants and begins teaching.
In one version of The Bible written for adolescents, this passage is headed “Jesus Foretells the Future”. So, here we are about 2000 years into that future and for me that passage sounds a lot like the news stories we see on TV, and on the internet and other media sources.
It reminded me of all the hype about the destruction of Earth, most recently, December 21, 2012, when the Mayan Long Count Calendar predicted the world would end. And yet, here we still are. And who can forget Y2K when something as ordinary as writing the year with only the last 2 digits was supposed to bring down all of our technology and cripple commerce, healthcare, and travel and jus about every other aspect of our lives.
Just a few years ago we all lived through the COVID pandemic, and our grandparents experienced the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. Throughout history there have been epidemics threatening the welfare of mankind. And yet we mere humans have endured and survived.
Jesus also predicted a number of other disasters, wars, earthquakes, and famines, and we have certainly seen our share of these He even says the deciples will be persecuted for following him. And yet Jesus ends with a message of hope. By your endurance you will gain your lives
Jesus referred to the events he described as Great Signs from Heaven. I challenge each of you to think about what signs from Heaven you have witnessed in your own lives. Did they predict wars, disease, natural disasters and famines, or were they signs of hope?
I believe the signs of hope are there, we just need to take the time to recognize them. On my recent trip, my friend and I were facing a difficult situation. She realized about a week into the two week trip that she didn’t feel the money belt where she had the bulk of her cash and her passport around her waist. We ran down the possibilities… Could it have come undone and fallen off at one of the earlier stops in the day? Did she remember putting it on that morning? We realized this was the first morning of the trip that we hadn’t examined every inch of the hotel room for forgotten items before we checked out. We then ran down when each of us had seen this item in the hotel room, and she began to worry that it had been placed on top of her clothes for the next day and may have fallen behind the night stand. Later that day the tour guide phoned the hotel and when the room was again empty of guests they searched, moving furniture, but they did not find the money belt. When we got to our next hotel we both searched our luggage, thinking it may have gotten mixed in with either her or my clothing as we repacked, but it was not found. Our next stop would be Dublin, and she began the process of contacting them to make an appointment to replace the passport. Fortunately the embassy was just a half mile from our hotel. After a rainy ferry ride from Scotland to Belfast, the tour bus began the drive to Dublin. And then I looked out the window and over the lush green fields there was a rainbow. I turned to my friend and told her that was our good luck – God had sent us a rainbow to let us know it would all work our ok. Sure enough, that evening when getting out a couple items to wash out she found the money belt with the passport and cash inside the bag with her dirty clothes. She had just missed it when searching the day before.
The Signs from Heaven are there for us everywhere, in the rays of sunshine streaming through the clouds, in the beauty of Fall foliage, in the sound of children on the playground, and right here in this church.
I found it interesting in today’s scripture that Jesus mentions that nation will rise against nation as one of the signs leading up to the destruction of the temple, which to the Jews of his time was the most sacred of symbols in their lives, the destruction of the temple would be a terrible event. Many of the wars and atrocities that we have experienced throughout history have been taken up in the name of religion. Each side believing that they are in the right. What we fail to realize is that God loves our enemies just as he loves us.
This week we will observe Veteran’s Day. A day to remember the sacrifices and honor the contributions of those who have served in the past and are still serving in our military.
“Never was so much owed by so many to so few” Those were Winston Churchill’s words in a speech to parliament in 1940, recognizing the efforts of the Royal Air Force and Allied Air Crews who were defending England during the Battle of Britain. Perhaps it has a great application to all of our veterans who put their own lives in jeopardy to defend our way of life. So we say thank you to those who have served and to their families as well who have also made sacrifices while their loved ones, male and female, carried out their duties.
As we go forward this week and honor our own veterans, let us also remember that we are ONLY one nation under God, and there are also many others. Let’s look for the signs from Heaven that will help us see the value of our neighbors and their cultures and learn to live together.