Luke 21:5-19
November 16, 2025
When some were speaking about the temple,
how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he
said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one
stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”
They asked him, “Teacher, when will this
be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” And
he said, “Beware that you are not led astray, for many will come in my name and
say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them.”
“When you hear of wars and insurrections,
do not be terrified, for these things must take place first, but the end will
not follow immediately.” Then he said to them,
“Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; there will be
great earthquakes and in various places famines and plagues, and there will be
dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.”
“But before all this occurs, they will
arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and
prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This
will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up
your minds not to prepare your defense in advance, for I
will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able
to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed
even by parents and siblings, by relatives and friends, and they will put some
of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my
name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you
will gain your souls.”
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There’s
something contradictory in Jesus’ words to his disciples about being ready for
the troubles that they would face in the days ahead of them, days that would
involve war and persecution and arrest and even martyrdom. He told them to be ready, but not to be
overly prepared. When the time came, it
would be his Spirit speaking through them that would carry the day.
“So make up your minds not to prepare your
defense in advance, for I will give you words and a wisdom that none
of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.” [Luke
21:14-15]
That
got me thinking about how important last words can be to us. Some people of achievement are best known for
their dying words than for anything else.
General John Sedgwick was a Union commander who fought his way through
the Civil War. He was wounded three
times at Antietam, fought at Fredericksburg, and led a minor skirmish that was
part of Gettysburg. Yet what he is best
known for happened at Spotsylvania Courthouse on May 9, 1864 when he was lining
up his troops before a Confederate attack and said, “They couldn’t hit an
elephant at this distance,” then took a bullet to the eye and fell down dead. We have a sense that what someone declares at
the end of their life, especially if it comes from them spontaneously, will be
a genuine reflection of what has been most important to them. On the scaffold with a noose around his neck,
Nathan Hale declared, “I regret I have but one life to give for my
country.”
Jesus
knew that his followers would also pass through times when they would be found
in dangerous situations and face all kinds of trials for his sake, but he
wanted them to know that even in such terrible moments there would be a chance
to let God bring good out of their suffering.
It would not be for nothing or meaningless.
“But before all this occurs, they will
arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and
prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my
name. This will give you an opportunity to
testify.” [Luke 21:12-13]
Jesus himself would face that moment of emptiness on
the cross, crying out to God, asking why he had forsaken him, but also using
his very last breath to say,
“Father, into your hands
I commend my spirit.” [Luke 23:46]
So, too, his disciples have followed in his footsteps,
when called upon, in ways that have testified to the faithfulness of the God
who raised Jesus from the dead and in whose hands their spirits, too, can
safely rest.
Many of them have done
that in ways that others have remembered, ways that have matched the individual
patterns of their lives. Some of them
may be more or less legendary. I like
the story about Lawrence, a deacon who was treasurer of the church in
Rome. The emperor demanded he turn over
the church’s riches and Lawrence was given a day to gather them together. The next morning he showed up with a crowd of
some of the poorest people in the city around him and said, “Here is what is
most precious.” The emperor didn’t
appreciate this, and ordered him to be burned to death over a slow fire so that
the pain would drag out. In the middle
of that torture, Lawrence spoke his last words, which were, “Turn me over; this
side is done.”
Or what about the story
from not all that long ago, maybe only a story, but maybe true – there are
conflicting reports – about the band on the Titanic as it was going down
playing “Nearer, My God to Thee”? Can
you imagine being one of the survivors in a lifeboat, unsure of rescue, or one
of the victims about to go under for the last time and hearing the tune to
these words:
“Nearer my God, to thee, nearer to thee!
E’en though it be a cross that raiseth me,
Still all my song shall be,
‘Nearer, my God, to thee; nearer, my God, to thee,
nearer to thee!’”
Dying, they did what they
could to share word of eternal life.
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, a German theologian and pastor imprisoned for his opposition to
Hitler, was hanged in the last days of the war as Allied troops closed in on
Berlin. He had been allowed to lead a
short service for a small group of prisoners on Easter. One of them who survived wrote:
“He had hardly finished his last prayer when the door
opened and two evil-looking men in civilian clothes came in and said:
‘Prisoner Bonhoeffer.
Get ready to come with us.’ Those
words ‘Come with us’ – for all prisoners they had come to mean one thing only –
the scaffold.
We bade him good-bye – he drew me aside – ‘This is the
end,’ he said. ‘For me the beginning of life.’”[1]
But
do not forget the many millions of others who over time have gone to the Lord
in peace who nevertheless have spoken and lived their faith at that moment. I sort of have to include John Wesley, whose
last words to the many people gathered around him as he died, were “Best of
all, God is with us.” I also have to
mention the last words I heard from my mother’s cousin Peg the day after her
100th birthday – not her last words in this world, but the last
chance we had to visit before she moved to Kansas the day after that – “I
probably won’t see you here again, but I’ll see you in heaven.”
Jesus
always comes through, and when we speak from hearts filled with his Spirit, he
says,
“I will give you
words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand
or contradict.” [Luke 21:15]
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