The Consummation of Hope
This sermon was preached by Pastor Ted Carnahan for the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, November 9, 2025.
Grace, mercy, and peace be with all of you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.
It is certainly true that the earliest followers of Jesus, his original apostles, and those who came to know Christ through their teaching and ministry, earnestly believed that Jesus Christ would likely return in their lifetime. They believed that the end of the world was truly near, and this was good because it gave them the impulse, the motivation, the encouragement to take risks, to bear suffering, and to carry the message of Christ to many people.
The early followers of Jesus believed that Jesus would return in his lifetime, but Jesus also recognized that it would be easy for somebody to take advantage of that belief in order to manipulate people. To that end, he warns us throughout the Gospels both to "be not afraid" at the end of the age, but also to keep watch for it. And to not believe someone besides Jesus himself when he returns.
St. Paul also tells us in his letter to the church at Thessalonica today, to be careful, yes, to keep watch, but not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed that perhaps Jesus has already returned and somehow you have missed out.
Yes, Jesus Christ is coming soon, but don't jump the gun.
The Millerites
Now I'll confess that having preached through all of the readings of the three-year lectionary cycle, having been your pastor here for over three years, sometimes I will come around to recycle stories and not even realize it. I know that I have told you this story before, but that's not going to stop me from telling it again because it's good!
I want to tell you about the Millerites. In the mid-1800s, actually starting kind of around 1820s, leading into the 1840s, there was a Baptist lay preacher by the name of Miller. He was consumed with the idea that if he were just to study the Scriptures carefully enough, not only could he determine with some vague notion of when it was that Jesus Christ would return bodily to earth to judge the living and the dead, but that if he did his math right, that he could calculate the exact date that Jesus would return to earth.
He began teaching them that the day of the Lord was upon them and it was time to get ready.
The first time he gave kind of a date range of about a year wide and from 1843 to mid-1844. The time came and went and he kind of explained that away by saying that he was mistaken in his calculations, but only slightly because later in that year, 1844, Jesus would in fact come.
They got ready and he didn't show up again.
The third time he said, we really need to be fully prepared. You guys are not fully prepared. You don't trust this enough. Sell all your possessions. Sell your land and your houses. Put on white clothing. Give your possessions away to the poor. On October 22nd, 1844, Jesus will return on this particular hill in Kansas!
This date is now known as the "Great Disappointment" because the day came and went and Jesus was nowhere to be seen.
Paul's Warning Against Deception
St. Paul tells us:
Let no one deceive you in any way for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction.
You may have noticed in the last couple of weeks, but now especially in the month of November, that our readings sound like the end of the world. A feature of the way that we worship in our church, following the schedule of readings and the church year, is that as we come to the end of the church year at the end of November and we turn the corner on the beginning of a new church year with the first Sunday of Advent in December, that with the end of the year comes readings that point us to the End of Days.
First, we will have the new Advent. Jesus is coming at the end of the age, at the end of the world, at the end of the church year. And that is our hope. We have nothing to worry about.
Then we'll get to the season of Advent where we talk about Jesus coming and coming again at Christmas.
No Fear in the End Times
It's easy for us to be distracted by some of the frightening things that we read in the Scriptures about the end of the world. Especially when we consider books that are difficult sometimes for us to understand, like the book of Revelation. We see images of monsters and animals and terrible things happening. And the moon is turned to blood and all these kinds of things.
It's easy for us to think that the day of the Lord when He returns will be a day of fear and trembling for those who are in Christ. I'm reminding you as St. Paul reminded his church in Thessalonica that we don't have anything to worry about.
Yes, there will be a lawless one who comes at the end of the age. One destined for destruction. But we need not be afraid for the Lord is with us.
Yes, there are enemies arrayed against us in our Christian walk, but these enemies need not define us.
The Three Enemies of Faith
In fact, Martin Luther, as he taught about the great enemies of the Christian faith, gave us three to consider. I'll give them to you in reverse order of their difficulty for us.
Number 3: The world.
The world hates us and our faith in Christ. And in fact, the world that we live in is so upside down with respect to God, so corrupted by our own sin and the systems that are arrayed against God, that oftentimes when we hear the preaching of Jesus, we think that it's Jesus who's got things upside down and not us.
Consider our reading last week when Jesus is saying things like, "love your enemies" and "pray for those who persecute you" and "give to people who ask of you without expecting in return." And we hear these commands of forgiveness, and generosity, and faithfulness to God. And we think, gosh, Jesus' way of being in the world is upside down, it's very weird, it's unusual! But it's the world's influence which convinces us of that.
It is not the teachings of Jesus Christ that are upside down, but rather it is the world in which we live which is twisted against the things of God. No, it is you and I who are strange compared to the truth of God and what it means to be truly human.
The world will not affirm your faith in Christ. If you turn to the world and its priorities and prerogatives for confirmation that you are on the right track, you will be led away from our Savior. So the great enemy of our faith in third place is the world.
Number two is the devil.
What about the evil one, the evil enemy, the accuser? I put him in second place because we know that he is a terrible tempter, that he will try to corrupt us and to mess with our faith. He will take God's word and he won't deny it entirely, but rather he will twist it in subtle ways so that we are easily led astray. He will whisper in our hearts that sin is not really such a bad thing or that perhaps Jesus doesn't really love us.
But our reading today promises us that Jesus will return and all people will see him. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, "annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming."
It's interesting that Jesus will destroy him not with power of arms, not with weapons, but with the breath of his mouth. The breath, the spirit of his mouth! The word of his mouth.
Jesus will subdue the evil one and he has such power to do it that he will subdue him and destroy him, annihilating him, making him nothing by the power of his word. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the word.
John chapter 1 says:
In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God, and this word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth.
Jesus is the incarnation of the word, and by a word the evil one will be destroyed. Or as A Mighty Fortress is our God, that famous hymn from a couple weeks ago we sung at Reformation Day says, "one little word subdues him."
Enemy Number 1: Our Flesh
But of course, the first enemy of the Christian faith is not the world, nor is it the devil. It's our own flesh.
And yet, in this situation, St. Paul writes to remind his church that we have been claimed by God, chosen by God, that we have been set apart by God, that we have been given sanctification, that we have been made holy.
How? Through the washing of water and the word in holy baptism.
In Holy Baptism, you have been called to be a part of his church, that you have been made a member of the body of Christ, that you have been included in God's family, that you have been grafted onto the Tree of Life.
He has called you through the proclamation of his Good News, that you might be encouraged and strengthened and sustained to trust in God. So hold fast to the teaching of Scripture, to what, as St. Paul describes, what you have received from me, both St. Paul and the evangelists and the other apostles. Hear the preaching of the Word, for it is not by our own power, our own might, or the will of our own flesh that we can effectively stand against those things which can separate us from God, but only by God's power, God's Word.
That starts at Holy Baptism for each one of us, where we are made members of the Body of Christ and co-inheritors of life. So that we can stand firm, even as we face in this world, temptation and suffering and death. We can be confident and have hope that the end of the world for us is not something to be feared, but something we can look forward to with anticipation. Even though we may suffer in this life and even die, we can have confident hope that Jesus Christ will return.
When things seem lawless and evil and we feel as if we are about to be overcome by the sin and death of this world, Jesus Christ will arrive again in glory and victory, and with a word he will annihilate the evil one and usher in his new and coming kingdom.
Cling to Christian Hope
People of God, return to your baptism. Return to that which makes you God's own child. And trust the Lord Jesus Christ. Because death is not the end of us. In the resurrection to eternal life, we will rise.
The return of Jesus Christ is not a frightening thing, but rather it is the consummation of our hope.
The Christian hope, which we speak of week after week, month after month, as we revolve through the church year, from year to year, as we look ahead to the return of Jesus Christ, we cling to it in Christian hope.
We cling to that hope because it will not disappoint us. Though this world may be arrayed against us, though the devil may tempt us, though our own flesh may betray us, Jesus Christ will remain faithful.
So in the meantime, we will stand in that faith. We will gather to hear the Lord's word. We will receive the body and blood of the Lord in Holy Communion. We will trust that one day, God will return in the flesh to right every wrong and to make us His children in a renewed and restored creation.
Until that day, may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds strong in Christ Jesus, our Lord, to life everlasting. Amen.
