Which brings us to what likely seems to be a strange choice of a reading for the first day of a new year, what with all its talk of end-times, but perhaps this is a method to the madness – you can let me know later.

Jesus is speaking to his followers. He is in Jerusalem, it is his final week of life, and he is in the Temple. At the time Luke wrote down his gospel, Jesus’ prediction, made just before this passage, that the Temple would be destroyed was an actual reality, the Romans having torn it down after an unsuccessful rebellion in the year 70.

As you listen to this passage, you might be put off by all the talk of impeding destruction, but with effort you might see that between the lines and undergirding all is a message of hope….

Of course, we cannot enjoy endings, or even beginnings for that matter, if we don’t like change. Which brings to mind that old joke, “How many Congregationalists does it take to change a light bulb?” “Change?! We don’t do change!”

And yet Jesus is talking about the biggest change of them all, the transformation of everything when we will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud: with power and great glory.”

And with that change the people will be tempted to give in to fear. And why not?, we might ask. Jesus has just told us that the Temple will be devastated by the Roman legions, but this will make even that pale by comparison. The stars and the moon will fall out of their place, the seas will be in an uproar, everything will be in an uproar. Picture the scene as only Hollywood can portray it, as it did in the recently released disaster film “2012”, where a surge in sunspot activity allegedly causes the earth’s core to get all riled up, leading to world-wide tsunamis, earthquakes, and lava flows, ending life on the planet as we know it.

Okay, time out, what is going on here? Well, what is going on here is pretty much the same thing which our Bible Study group has been grappling with all Fall long, as we have been meeting to read and discuss the last book in the Bible, the Revelation to John. What we have here, as well as in Revelation, is apocalyptic talk. It is a genre of writing typical of oppressed, small minority groups that feel as if they are being so persecuted, on such a wide scale, that the only thing which might be done to change their situation would be a dramatic deliverance by God. For the readers of Luke’s gospel, for the readers of the Revelation to John of Patmos, the oppressor was imperial Rome. How else was Rome, the mightiest power in the known world, to be brought low, other than by an event so big that even that stars and the sun and moon would fall from the skies? When we remember that Rome was represented in its iconography as the sun, and its clients states as stars and moon clustered around it, we can see that in a way Jesus is speaking in code. It is not the end of the universe he is talking about, it is the end of the oppressive reign of the dominant empire, of the earthly principalities and powers that exploit and dominate God’s people.

Viewed this way, we can see that what Jesus is talking about here is not some sort of cosmic “hissy fit” by God, arbitrarily brought on by God “just because.” No, Jesus is saying that God is on the side of justice and peace, and that God will fulfill God’s promises, and will set a limit on injustice and sin and oppression and violence and tyranny. The bad stuff that we endure will not prevail, will not last forever, and will not be victorious.

Part of our problem with texts like this is that our social context is so far removed from that of those to whom Jesus preached, and for whom Luke wrote. Luke was writing in a world where the great masses of the people were peasants constantly living on the edge, just one crop away from famine, one illness away from ruin, one invasion by marauding conquerors from losing it all. John of Patmos, author of Revelation, persecuted for his Christian faith, was an impoverished exile on the tiny island of Patmos on the outskirts of civilization. By contrast, we live in a manner beyond the wildest imaginings of any of these folk, with secure and comfortable housing, abundant food, remarkable healthcare, and security from invasion and crime. Talk of change, on one level, is not very appealing to us.

The Rev. Will Willimon writes of being on a mission trip to Honduras, the second poorest nation in the Americas. One evening he gathered together with local villagers around a fire for some singing. After awhile, someone suggested that everyone take turns telling what was their favorite verse from the Bible, the verse from which they drew the most comfort. Someone mentioned the 23rd Psalm, another the familiar John 3:16 (“God so loved the world”), someone mentioned the Sermon on the Mount. Finally they got to a small Honduran women, who through a translator mentioned this passage, with its reference to the stones of the Temple being thrown down, the cosmos being in an uproar, war and revolutions in the offering. “That is comforting?”, Willimon wondered – until a local nurse whispered in his ear that she had spoken to the woman at the clinic that morning, and she had had four children – three of whom died of hunger before their fifth birthday. Change – of course this woman found comfort in the idea that the world would be turned upside down.

We don’t share her world view, but I submit that many of us do feel that all is not right in the world, that things are just not as they should be. As one of my daughters’ favorite children’s books, Madeleine, puts it, “’Something is not right’, said Miss Clavell in the middle of the night.” Even amid our comparative comfort, we can see that something in this world is just not right. Not right when we read that the polar ice caps are melting at rates that surpass even the worst case predictions made only a decade ago; not right when we find ourselves in the eighth year of a war in Afghanistan with no end in sight and to date not even an announced goal for the occupation beyond the support of a corrupt, drug-dealing government; not right when we find ourselves unable to extricate ourselves from the occupation of Iraq; not right when almost everyone agrees that our health care system is broken and needs fixed, but partisan bickering and sloganeering is used to derail a concerted effort to come up with a solution; not right when the economy is in the worst shape since the Great Depression and Wall Street executives continue to skim off obscene pay days and we spend $43 billion a year in Afghanistan; not right when cancer and autism continue to strike our loved ones at alarming rates.

Something in the world is not right, and so we, even in our day of comparative wealth and comfort, find ourselves longing for a new day to come, a day when we and our communities and our world will be transformed. Even as we might be reluctant to embrace change, deep down it is change that we long for.

And so, Jesus tells us, do not cower in fear, do not slouch along in despair, but stand up and raise your heads. Stand up and raise you heads, but not to search for dramatic things like earthquakes and sun spots and meteor storms, but to gaze at a sprouting tree, a tree in full bud.

Yes, I know in this season of late fall, as the trees stand stripped bare of their clothing, that we can be tempted to imagine that things will always be this way, that the coming winter’s chill portends the end of all things living. And yet, we know that soon – not decades away, not year from now, but in only the matter of a few months – a mere tick in the clock of this planet – buds will form and new life will spring forth.

In the same way, perhaps, in this season of shortening days and creeping chill and temptation to give up hope and give in to despair, we might stand up and raise our heads and look for the signs of new growth which most assuredly are coming to us. To those who despair about the bickering over health care reform in the nation’s capital, let us take heart that at least we are talking about an issue that impacts us all; to those who shrink in fear from every new announcement of global warming, let us be encouraged by new initiatives to become a greener planet; to those who struggle with illness or disease, let us be open to the new life that can come to us each day through the gift of a visit from a friend, a good day even in the middle of a treatment cycle, the enjoyment of memories of special times with loved ones.

Let us look for the sprouting of new life, for even as we long for new days to come, God’s reign is near, and the days are surely coming, the days are surely coming, the days, they are surely coming. Amen.