Good News: Where the Corpse Is, There the Eagles Will Gather - Sermon for the 25th Sunday after Trinity

Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Trinity
November 17, A+D 2024
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Good News:  Where the Corpse Is, 
               There the Eagles Will Gather
Matthew 24:15-28

Sermon Audio is available HERE. 

   “Let the reader understand.”  St. Matthew says, “Let the reader understand.”  Really?  Do you understand what it means when Jesus says, “the abomination of desolation”?  How about, “Wherever the corpse is, there the eagles will gather”?

    Our Gospel reading this morning is full of things that Christians have long struggled to understand.  When Christ refers to ‘the abomination of desolation,’ He is making both an historical reference, and also a prophecy. 

   The ‘abomination’ refers to the year 168 B.C., when a Greek king, Antiochus Epiphanes, was ruling over Israel, and he sent his army into the Most Holy Place, the house of God, the Temple in Jerusalem.  They profaned the Temple by putting a statue of Jupiter in the space that was reserved for the worship of the one true God.  

    Such an abomination would occur again.  Jesus prophesies here and elsewhere of the coming destruction of the Temple by the Romans, the current overlords of the Jews.  In the year 70 after Christ, as punishment for the rebellion the Jews had launched against Rome four years earlier, Jerusalem would be destroyed by the hands of the legions.  The Temple itself would be torn down, “not one stone left standing on another.”  Jesus’ words about fleeing to the mountains, and woe to pregnant and nursing mothers and their children at that time, His call to pray that it does not come in winter, these all are in reference to the coming calamity of A+D 70. 

   So, no worries for us.  This abomination has already occurred.  We do not worship at the Temple in Jerusalem, nor are we afraid of the Greeks, nor of the Romans. And Jesus gives us another comforting word.  He promises He will return visibly, once more, and no one is going to miss it. 

   “…if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or ‘There He is,’ do not believe him. ²⁴ For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. ²⁵ Behold, I have told you in advance.  ²⁶ So if they say to you, ‘Behold, He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out, or “Behold, He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe them.  ²⁷ For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.  

   No one is going to miss the arrival of Christ on the Last Day; His return in glory will be seen by all.  We can relax about that.

    Well, then, that’s easy enough, right?  We can live in these End Times with confidence, with peace in our hearts.  Whatever happens, we have a faithful word from Christ that teaches us that He is coming to take us to Himself.  Do not worry.  

    Got it?  No problem, right?  According to Christ’s Word, we can face anything, we can live in any situation, with confidence and peace.  Wars and rumors of war?  Earthquakes, famines, floods, and pandemics?   No worries.  Right? 

     Jesus calls us to joyful, confident, even fearless living.  But we struggle.  When Christ says, “Fear not!” He means it as a blessing.  But, for us ‘not fearing’ is so difficult, we can end up feeling guilty.  We want to live without fear.  We want to face death as St. Paul says: For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.  

   But, at least for me, life is full of doubts and fears.  It is much easier for me to think like Job spoke today:  “Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble. He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not.”  How can we, who have many problems, and who are going to die, still live with confidence and peace?  Does Christ Jesus offer us a practical way to walk in the confidence to which He calls us?

   Yes. The answer is in the last verse of our Gospel.  It doesn’t seem like it, because it is such a strange phrase: “Wherever the corpse is, there the eagles will gather.”  Now, those of you who have been reading up on your End Times prophecy might be thinking, I thought that verse said, “where the corpse is, the vultures will gather.”  And it is true, most modern translations say “vultures,” instead of “eagles.”  

 

   The King James Version uses “eagles.”  Today, we have used the NASB, which gives both options.  And, in a sense, either translation would be correct, because Greek speakers in the 1^st century used the same word for both birds.  “Aetos” means both eagle and vulture.  Seems weird to us, who see both of these birds in the Black Hills.  They are both very large birds, and they are both scavengers, they both eat carrion.  But still, it seems weird to name them both with the same word. 

 

   Why should we choose ‘eagle,’ over ‘vulture’?  Well, because of Jesus’ earlier word about the ‘abomination of desolation.’  Both in 168 B.C. and 70 A.D., these pagan desecrations of the Holy Temple were carried out by soldiers.  In Jesus’ day, and still three decades later when Jerusalem would be destroyed, these soldiers were Roman soldiers, Legionnaires.  And what was their symbol?  The eagle.  Each legion had one special battle standard, almost a holy object for them, which they would defend ferociously, to the very end.  It was an eagle mounted on a tall pole.  Our American flags with an eagle on top are mimicking the Romans.  They, like we, saw in eagles a symbol of power and nobility and honor.  Archeological evidence suggests that many Roman soldiers decorated their shields with, wait for it, eagles’ wings.   

   So, if in 1^st century Roman-occupied Judea, an eagle would bring to mind the Roman military, what does Jesus mean when He says they are gathered around a corpse?   Where, biblically, do see a group of Roman soldiers surrounding a dead body?  And, it is not actually ‘a’ dead body, but ‘the’ dead body.  “The corpse.”  What is Jesus driving at?   

   Jesus’ concluding words to this passage do seem abrupt, not obviously tied to what comes before.  Jesus was just speaking of His return in glory on the Last Day, instructing His disciples not to believe it when false teachers claim that the Christ has appeared in the wilderness, or is hidden in some inner room.  

   No, everyone will see His Final Return, like a flash of lightning, only brighter and better, bending the rules of physics and enlightening the whole world, in an instant.  Don’t go looking for some hidden Christ.  Rather, “ Where the corpse is, there the eagles will gather.” 

   We preach Christ crucified, because Paul tells us to, and even more, because Jesus was always preaching about His Cross.  Many times the Lord is very direct, giving the Twelve Disciples concrete predictions:  And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³² And he said this plainly. (Mark 8:31-32a) 

    Other times Jesus is more subtle:  When I am lifted up, I will draw all men to Myself. (John 12:32)  Destroy this Temple, and I will raise it up in three days. (John 2:19)  And today, with the greatest subtlety,  “ Where the corpse is, there the eagles will be gathered.” 

   What Jesus teaches us is the same thing the preacher to the Hebrews proclaims to his hearers:  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2) 

    Today your Savior instructs you:  “When the times are crazy, when you are tempted to fear or despair, or to run after some false Christ, stop.  Don’t go looking for Me in the wilderness, or secretly appearing in some inner room.  Rather look to Me, surrounded by Roman soldiers.  Look to My Cross, and know, your salvation is finished.  I have died, and risen, and am ascended on high, for you.  I am making all things new, for you.  Believe in Me, for I am preparing a place, for you.”    

    In the very next verse in Matthew chapter 24, Jesus says this: Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Is Jesus here referring to the Last Day, or to His crucifixion?  The answer is 'Yes.'  He is speaking of both.

    Today, Jesus teaches us about the End Times, and about Christian living.  He speaks of the Last Day, and also of Good Friday, of His Cross.  As Matthew reveals in chapter 26, at the Crucifixion, the Last Day invades the present.  At Christ's death on the Cross, the sun was darkened, the earth quaked, the whole creation convulsed, as her Creator suffered and died.  Saints came out of their Tombs and the devil and his demons fell.  At the Crucifixion God changed everything.  On His Cross, the Lord destroyed the power of sin to accuse and condemn mankind.  All of these End Times predictions and promises were fulfilled, for you, in the body of Jesus, at Calvary.

   The Crucifixion is finally the true “abomination of desolation,” a much deeper sacrilege and blasphemy than either desecration of the Jerusalem Temple.  When the eternal Son of God suffered and died, Satan and the world laughed.  The disciples mourned and scattered, and heaven itself bowed in reverence and horror.  The eternal Beloved suffered in innocence, for the sins of His enemies, for our sins.  The world angrily rejects this truth.  Christians struggle to accept it.  We are all tempted to look away, to hide it away. 

   And yet, this is love.  The death of Jesus reveals both how God loves you, and how much He wants sinners to be with Him, in paradise, forever.  Let the reader, let the hearer understand: by means of this abomination, you are brought to salvation.     

    Even more, in that dark and difficult mystery, in that saddest of all moments, when the only Perfect Man suffered and died, there we find the way to live in our dark days.  By focusing on, staying connected to the Cross of Jesus, we can bear our crosses.  As St. Paul says in today's Epistle, we can even face the pain and doubt created by the death of a brother or sister in Christ, because we do not “grieve as others do, who have no hope. ¹⁴ For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.” 

   The secret of living with confidence and peace, in sunny days and in difficult days, is not found in preoccupation with suffering, nor in avoiding it . The secret is not in searching for the coming of Christ, trying to discover the date of His return, looking for Him in the desert or in the mountains, or even in our own hearts.  The secret is to look to the place where the eagles gathered.  Look to the Cross, where the Last Day has already passed for you, where all your sins have already been taken from you.  Look to the Cross, where the Christ of God has opened the kingdom of heaven to all sinners.  Look to the Cross, and know that the dead body hanging there is your God, who did not stay dead.  No, He is risen.  He is ascended and rules over all things.  And He is coming for you.

    This is why, whether it includes a representation of the dead body of Jesus or not, the Cross, the tool of Jesus’ execution, is the most important symbol of the Christian faith.  The Cross is the center of our preaching, and the foundation of our trust.  Not because Jesus is still suffering in our place, but because all suffering, all evil, all death has already been consumed in His corpse, His dead body, which three days later was resurrected, and is now seated at the right hand of God the Father.  

    We live from the power of the fruit of that tree, where the eagles gathered. And despite appearances, the fruit of that tree is so sweet.  For it is forgiveness, new life, salvation, and peace with God. 

    We live in a world full of blessings that would have been incomprehensible to our grandparents. We enjoy blessings that were unheard of just 50 years ago, when I was a child.  And by God’s grace, we as Christians in America are still free to practice and express and live out our faith.  God grant us zeal and humility to live well, to live as He calls us, to live as Christians, loving our neighbors and confessing Christ’s Name.

    We also live in a world of crumbling families, rampant substance abuse, pornography, gambling, and constant distraction by our screens.  We must deal with crazy politics, overreaching government, the threat of jihadists and terrorists and foreign militaries.  There is war in Europe, and the Middle East.  In Iran, China, Venezuela and North Korea, the mullahs and Xi, and Maduro, and Kim in are still in power, still making threats against our country.  Here in America, we still face a culture of death, where far too many people promote suicide and killing babies as positive goods, as human rights.  And worst of all, we still face the sin that remains in each one of us.  There are many reasons to be afraid and to be worried.

    But because of the corpse surrounded by eagles, we have peace and joy and confidence.  Jesus Christ is more powerful than all the evil in the world.  And this same Christ is here with us.  He is always with His Church, with all who believe in His Cross of forgiveness and His resurrection of glory.  Jesus has promised: He is with us always, to the very end of the age.  

    In spite of all the evil in the history of the world, or better, because of all that evil, Christ has remained.  His salvation, His Word, His Holy Supper and Holy Baptism, these have remained and will continue, until the lightning comes out of the east and flashes to the west, and then we will be with the Savior always, forever and ever. Amen.