St. Luke 17:20–37 (Alternate Gospel)
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come. This comes as really no surprise since we know the Pharisees were always looking for an outward, visible kingdom. They wanted a new king to restore the ancient throne of David, to throw off the Romans, their Gentile overlords, and to reestablish the visible dominion of the Jewish people. This is one of the reasons why the Pharisees refused to accept Jesus as their Messiah. He just wasn’t the kind of king they wanted.
Jesus disappoints them in this Gospel reading too. He answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed.” It won’t be a visible, earthly kingdom. It won’t have boundaries on the map or wage war over territory. It won’t have a capital city or any kind of human government. Jesus goes on, “Nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” The kingdom of God cannot be seen by the eye, or arrived at by travel, or entered by any outward, human work. The kingdom of God is hidden, and it’s right here. The Pharisees wanted to see the glorious kingdom of God that will be revealed on Judgment Day. But Jesus redirects our attention. The kingdom of God is already here. And if we don’t pay attention to His kingdom now, then we will never see it on the Last Day.
Behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. The kingdom of God is wherever its King is. Jesus was right in front of them: teaching, preaching, doing miracles. The kingdom of God was there in their midst. And that’s still the case: the kingdom of God is wherever its King is. The kingdom cannot be observed in an outward manner because Jesus does not rule in an outward manner. Jesus speaks of an inward, spiritual kingdom. It’s a kingdom created by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Word. It’s a kingdom of faith, and the only way into this kingdom, the only way to have the kingdom of God in your midst, is to have faith in its King. This is precisely what Luther teaches us in the Small Catechism, on the Second Petition of the Lord’s Prayer: Thy Kingdom come… God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity. This is also what we heard last week, All Saints’ Day: you are in the kingdom of God now. The Church is God’s kingdom, and by Baptism and faith you have already begun the new life of that kingdom: here in time and there in eternity.
Yet, Jesus knows that we would really like to see this kingdom. And He turns to His disciples and says, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.” We desire to see Jesus, the Son of Man, come in His glory. We are tired of living by faith, because it is not easy.We grow weary of listening to God’s Word when everyone around us tells us it’s a lie. We struggle to keep patient, waiting for Jesus’ return, while everyone else tells us to give up. It is a good desire that we want to see Jesus coming in all His power and glory. But it can also be a temptation to turn away from God’s Word and to look for comfort in what our eyes can see, what our hands can touch, what our hearts can feel. It is a temptation that we would look for answers or salvation in anything besides the kingdom that comes by the Holy Spirit.
So, false teachers will play on that good desire to see Jesus, and they will try to deceive you. They will try to mislead you so you take your attention off God’s Word and put it on something or someone else: on them, on your family, your money, your life, on the thoughts and feelings of your own heart. Jesus warns us, “They will say to you, ‘Look, there!’ or ‘Look, here!’ Do not go out or follow them.” Don’t go looking for God’s kingdom, don’t go looking for answers to your trouble anywhere but in God’s Word. For now, that’s where you find the kingdom and life and everything else. And one day, you will see the Son of Man and His kingdom come. But you won’t have to be told on that Day. It will be obvious: no missing it, and also no escaping it. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. Don’t let anyone shake your confidence in God’s Word. You just stick to that, and when it’s time for the kingdom to be revealed, you’ll know it.
Make no mistake, the kingdom of God will not always remain invisible or hidden. But first, Jesus told the disciples, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. Now, that has happened. Everything that was written about the Son of Man by the prophets was accomplished. For He was delivered over to the Gentiles and mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging Him, they killed Him, and on the third day He rose again (Luke 18:31–33). Now, we wait for the Son of Man to return.
But knowing what has already happened to Him is actually how you enter His kingdom now so that you will be in it at His return. The King of this kingdom laid down His life so that criminals, liars, and idolaters—and you!—could enter and enjoy His kingdom. He wants you in it, even though you in no way deserve it. He bled and died and suffered the worst rejection imaginable, so that you can be raised, and live, and be welcomed into His own palace.
You can only enter this kingdom here in time and there in eternity, if you know this suffering King as your one and only Savior. Remember, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. By faith in the King you enter it, by faith in His blood you safely remain in it, and by faith in His forgiveness you will be revealed as one of this kingdom’s glorious citizens.
But after teaching the true nature of His kingdom, Jesus goes on to describe the last days of this world. Here is one of the passages where some people get the false teaching of the Rapture. The Rapture is this wrong idea that before Jesus returns in visible glory on the Last Day, He will first return secretly, invisibly, and suddenly take all the true believers out of this world. This means that all the other people on the earth are “left behind.” They get this idea from these verses: “I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding at the mill together. One will be taken and the other left.”
But context is always important, and the context of these verses is the Old Testament stories that Jesus is using to illustrate the End Times. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Who was taken and who was left? The Flood swept away the unbelievers, but Noah and his family were left behind—they were saved from the destruction. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all. Again, who was taken and who was left behind? The evil sinners of Sodom were taken into death and hell, but Lot and his daughters survived. So will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. You want to be one of the people left behind! When Jesus returns, it won’t be a secret, and it’s the unbelievers who will be taken away by the destruction, while the believers will be left to live in God’s kingdom.
This is also what we are taught in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4: For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. Living believers will not be spirited out of this world before the resurrection of the dead. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. No secret coming of Jesus—it’s loud. There is no way you won’t know what’s going on. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. The End Times are simple. No need to confuse things with a secret rapture that’s not in the Bible. Jesus will return. The dead will be raised, we will be changed. All believers will be given their immortal bodies, and so we will always be with the Lord.
Jesus is coming, and this is good news for us. But we don’t know when that Day will come. So, do not cling to this world. Remember Lot’s wife. She turned back to her ruined city and she was destroyed along with it, turned into a pillar of salt. Don’t let your mind and your life be so filled with the goods in your house, or the fields you work, or the games you play, or the position and security you have made for yourself. Be ready to leave it all, whether that happens on the day of your death or the day Jesus returns. This world is coming to an end, including all the good things we have in it.
Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. So, be in God’s Kingdom now by losing your life for Christ’s sake, by denying yourself and choosing the things of God. Live now in the kingdom that is in your midst by confessing your sin and receiving the King’s declaration of forgiveness. It’s true that we desire to see His days, we long to see His kingdom. Yet our Lord knows how best to take care of us, and He will do just that in His Church.
So then, why should cross and trial grieve me? Why should the end of this world make me sad? Why should my death cause me fear? The King is reigning and I am in His Kingdom. In this Christian Church our Lord daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers. On the Last Day He will raise me and all the dead, and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true (SC, Creed, Third Article).
Come quickly + Lord Jesus. Amen.
