By Your Endurance
Luke 21:5-19
I was reminded this past week that not everyone looks at what I do the same way that I do. I was talking with some of the children at our Christmas program rehearsal when I mentioned the flowers left in the sanctuary were from the funeral we had celebrated at the church. Their reactions reminded me that many people would never put the words “funeral” and “celebrated” in the same sentence. I tried to explain that is an honor to conduct a funeral, because they are about giving thanks to God for the life of the person who had died, but all they heard was that someone had died. I think some of them might have been stunned to think that I see this as an important ministry, and that I have done 200 funerals.
That can sound like a lot of funerals, even though they have been spread out over 30 years. There have been several times when I have had as many as three funerals in a month. I once had 3 funerals in just 4 days – with Good Friday and Easter services at the same time. When I was an associate pastor, the senior pastor was on retainer at a local funeral home, and he averaged 2 funerals a week, or around 100 funerals a year. But even that is not very impressive when compared to the number of funerals done by Martin Rinkart.
Martin Rinkart was a Lutheran minister assigned to Eilenburg, Saxony, at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War in the 1600’s. The walled city of Eilenburg became the refuge for political and military fugitives, but the result was overcrowding, which created the conditions for the spread of a deadly pestilence and famine. During the height of a severe plague in 1637, Rinkart was the only surviving pastor in the city. The number of deaths from the plague meant that he was conducting as many as 50 funerals in a day. Over the course of that year, Rinkart performed more than 4000 funerals.
And as if that were not overwhelming enough, one of the funerals he conducted that year was for his wife. Of the stress factors that psychologists use today to assess the risk a person is at for depression, Rinkart’s factors were off the chart. No one would have been surprised if he had gotten angry with God, if he had renounced his faith, if he had resigned his church, or even if he just given up on life altogether.
There weren’t any psychologists around then, and there weren’t any other ministers he could turn to for spiritual support and advice. We can’t say for sure what his mood or state of mind may have been – but he did leave us a clue. It was during this year of conducting 4000 funerals that he wrote a hymn.
You might recognize it. It begins:
Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
Would we sing “wondrous things God has done”? How about what horrible things God has done? Would we proclaim that God has “blessed us on our way”? How about how God has cursed us on our way? Countless gifts of love? How about countless gifts of pain?
These “happy-clappy” sentiments in Rinkart’s hymn are probably not the first thoughts and images that would come to mind today for someone who had to do 50 funerals yesterday, and 50 funerals today, and 50 funerals tomorrow, and who knows how many more days of funerals there will be because there is no apparent end in sight to all this death and mourning and suffering. These are probably not the first thoughts and images of someone who is mourning the loss of his wife. By almost any standard, it should be clear to Rinkart that life is not fair – at least, it isn’t fair if you are the minister who has done everything you can as the minister of this community to tend to the grieving and the dying.
But Rinkart already knew that life is not fair. He already knew that it rains on the just and the unjust alike – Jesus said that. But he also knew that Jesus said, “By your endurance you will gain your souls.”
Martin’s hymn continues:
O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!
Rinkart’s prayer in this hymn is Jesus’ promise to us: O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us. Jesus will be near us not just when life is easy, but also when life is hard. Jesus will be near us not just when life is comfortable, but also when life is stressful. Jesus will be near us not just when life is pleasurable, but also when life is trying to bury you under pain and suffering. Jesus will be near us not just when it seems we have everything we want that makes life good, but also when it seems that everything worth living for has been stripped away.
Because of this promise, we know that when everything else is stripped away, all we have left is God! That is the promise, and the good news, that Jesus declares when he says to us, “By your endurance you will gain your souls.” By continuing to walk with Jesus, to talk with Jesus, to serve with Jesus, you will deeply know that when all else fails, Jesus is still our Lord and Savior, our God.
Too often, particularly with the claims of the prosperity gospel, we think that the good news is that through Jesus we will gain our health, and our homes, and our wealth – but that is not what Jesus said. Jesus said we will gain our souls.
Rinkart knew this. He knew, as we can know, that there is a difference between a happy heart and a joyful heart. Happiness is about how we feel when we are pleased; joy is about being related to God through the grace of Jesus Christ. Rinkart knew, as we can know, that there is a difference between the peace that comes from the avoidance or lack of conflict and challenge, and the peace that knows that absolutely nothing, in heaven or on earth, can separate us from the love of God. Rinkart knew, as we can know, that there is a difference between having the form of godliness that prays and gives and serves as we are able, and having the power of godliness which loves and hopes and believes as God enables us.
The disciples, however, didn’t know all of that – at least, not at the time of our reading. The disciples are feeling pretty good about their faith, and about their relationship with God, and they are thankful for the Temple, the ultimate symbol for the form of godliness. William Barclay, in his Bible commentary, quotes Josephus who wrote: “The outward face of the Temple... wanted (for) nothing that was likely to surprise either men's minds or their eyes, for it was covered all over with plates of gold of great weight, and, at the first rising of the sun, reflected back a very fiery splendor, and made those who forced themselves to look upon it to turn their eyes away, just as they would have done at the sun's own rays. But the Temple appeared to strangers, when they were at a distance, like a mountain covered with snow, for... those parts... that were not covered in gold, they were exceeding white.” The Temple the disciples saw was a truly magnificent structure.
The disciples were thankful for the Temple and all that it represented, but Jesus wants them to be thankful even when the world is crumbling around them. This is the reality of life in this world, Jesus tells us in our reading, that there will be wars and natural disasters and betrayal and persecution of believers. The chaos of this sin is strong enough and destructive enough that even this magnificent Temple would come tumbling down. Again, Josephus, who was an eye-witness to the Temple destruction in 70 AD, wrote: “The roar of the flames streaming far and wide mingled with the groans of the falling victims; and, owing to the height of the hill and the mass of the burning pile, one would have thought that the whole city was ablaze. . . . With the cries on the hill were blended those of the multitude in the city below; and now many who were emaciated and tongue-tied from starvation, when they beheld the sanctuary on fire, gathered strength once more for lamentations and wailing.”
It is hard to be thankful when your world is crumbling around you, because all the rest of the world thinks that pain and suffering has to mean either the absence of God or a punishment from God. Yet, Jesus taught that it is often in the face of adversity and pain that we most experience the presence and grace of God. In the Beatitudes, Jesus said blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are persecuted and reviled. These are the people who know God’s presence. These are the people who know God’s grace. These are the people who know that when everything else has been stripped away, all we have left is God, the joy of our heart’s desiring.
One of the early Christian writers, Nilus of Ancyra, wrote: “In time of trial it is of great profit to us patiently to endure for God's sake, for the Lord says: By patient endurance you will win life for yourselves. He did not say by your fasting, or your solitude and silence, or your singing of psalms, although all of these are helpful in saving your soul. But he said: By patient endurance in every trial that overtakes you, and in every affliction, whether this be insolent and contemptuous treatment, or any kind of disgrace, either small or great; whether it be bodily weakness, or the belligerent attacks of Satan, or any trial whatsoever caused either by other people or by evil spirits.”
Nilus continues: “By patient endurance you will win life for yourselves, although to this must be added wholehearted thanksgiving, and prayer, and humility. For you must be ready to bless and praise your benefactor, God the Savior of the world, who disposes all things, good or otherwise, for your benefit. The apostle [Paul] writes: With patient endurance we run the race of faith set before us. For what has more power than virtue? What has more firmness or strength than patient endurance? Endurance, that is, for God's sake.”
Nilus then brings it home for us: “This is the queen of virtues, the foundation of virtue, a haven of tranquility. It is peace in time of war, calm in rough waters, safety amidst treachery and danger. It makes those who practice it stronger than steel. No weapons or brandished bows, no turbulent troops or advancing siege engines, no flying spears or arrows can shake it. Not even the host of evil spirits, not the dark array of hostile powers, nor the devil himself standing by with all his armies and devices will have power to injure the man or woman who has acquired this virtue through Christ.”
Martin’s hymn concludes with a doxology:
All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.
John Wesley was often challenged about his method of discipleship, and why he considered it so important to have Christians going on to perfection. It was never enough for John to let people have only the form of godliness. The form of godliness is when people can see that we pray, that we go to church, that we serve on committees, that we belong to a class, that we make our offerings, and that we sometimes even read our Bible. Those are all good things, unless we do them only because we choose to do these things, and not because it is our response to the grace we have received.
People with the power of godliness, however, want to love God and they want to love their neighbors with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. That power makes all the difference in the world, and in the world to come. Wesley once wrote: “Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they be clergymen or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven upon Earth.”
That’s what it means that by our enduring patience we will gain our souls. It means we are not simply the recipients of God’s grace, but we are the ones who go forth to do battle with sin and evil in order for the kingdom of God to come on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus isn’t looking for fans or admirers – he is calling us to be disciples, who will patiently endure all the world can throw at them in order to proclaim the good news!
UM Hymnal 511 “Am I A Soldier of the Cross”