Keep Your Eyes On The Prize

Dr. Daniel R. Anderson-Little
November 14, 2004

A simple word association: I say "Apocalypse". What pops into your mind? Cataclysmic pictures of war and destruction? Actually, apocalypse is the Greek word for revealing or revelation, and in our church parlance, it means the revealing of God's purposes in the world. Those purposes are often dramatized as a cosmic struggle between good and evil, but the word itself refers to a glimpse of a future that is certain to come and which must be endured. Apocalyptic literature employed all sorts of symbols and conventions that not only foretold of the future but reflected current reality. The passages that will be read and sung for us today are all apocalyptic.

There's the definition; now a confession. I never got passages like the ones we are going to read this morning. I never got them because they seemed so foreboding, so arresting, so unsettling. Wars and insurrections. Great earthquakes, famines and plagues. Dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. I never got these passages because they seemed so removed from my daily experience. Wars and plagues happened somewhere else or in the distant past. Portents and great signs seemed remotely situated in a future I could never imagine. And harsh, uncomfortable passages like these never really made sense in a church service and church culture that valued beauty and order. I never got these passages with all of their ugliness and jarring imagery. I never got these passages until I spent some time with folks for whom these passages were absolutely central to their daily experience. In South Africa in the 1980's, apocalyptic passages like the ones we will read this morning were crucial pillars of faith. For the people struggling for their freedom, these passages spoke directly to their situation. These passages weren't at all confusing or foreign. Hearing Jesus speak these words drew the Christians of South Africa closer to Jesus because they let them know that he knew what they knew.

Since spending time with Christians for whom the apocalyptic portions of the Bible were so deeply meaningful, I have discovered that they are meaningful to me as well. While the situations that I face rarely compare to that of black South Africans living under apartheid, my life is full of confusions and contradictions, difficulties and struggles, and these words of Jesus let me know that he knows what I know. It is a daily struggle to know how to faithfully fulfill the various roles of my life - as husband, father, pastor and citizen. Mounting evidence about global warming and our nation's steadfast refusal to even talk meaningfully about it, deeply worries me. I spend time with many people for whom poor and declining health or death of a loved one have upset the rhythms of their lives. The recent votes, not only on gay marriage, but on civil unions spells uncertain days for millions of citizens in our country and for people about whom I care deeply. And certainly living in this post-9/11 world makes the language of Jesus strangely familiar.

You are now going to hear two portions of an apocalyptic passage from the Gospel of Luke. Diane O'Brien will read the first part and the choir will serve as liturgist for the second part. As you listen to passages, I invite you, not only to hear the unfamiliar, but on the familiar. These passages are jarring - and Paul assures me that the choir's part of this passage is particularly jarring and troubling - and they should be. But if we allow ourselves to enter into these passages, we may discover that they speak to our daily experience - that they draw us closer to God and to God's purpose for our lives.

So what do we make of this passage? Do you hear themes and sub-themes of your life in it? If not the picture, does the energy, the angst, the anxiety resonate with your experience?

These passages certainly resonated for African American slaves in this country. Torn away from their homes, cruelly transported across the ocean, sold like cattle, branded, shackled and enslaved. Women sexually abused; men beaten; children ripped from their parents. It was a world in which a simple request for a bit of kindness could be met with a lashing or worse. Wars and insurrections, earthquakes and plagues, dreadful portents...you bet. So what kept those folks going? What kept the South Africans in the freedom struggle going? What keeps us going? What enabled those slaves and then the civil rights marchers in the midst of an apocalyptic time, to sing,

Paul and Silas, bound in jail
Had no money for to go their bail

Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on!

Hold on, hold on,

Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on!

What empowered them to keep the faith was that the apocalyptic message not only spoke the truth about their wretched condition today, but also held out hope for a better tomorrow. Even the passage the choir sang from Luke begins to point to that hope: Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.Jesus tells us that faith in him does not remove us from trials and tribulations. In fact, he seems to be promising them. But Jesus also promises that that is not God's last chapter of the story. That justice, that peace, that mercy, that grace, that love will ultimately triumph. So if things are bad right now (and when are they ever not bad), then keep your eyes on the prize and hold on. If things are troubling and desperate and scary (and things are always troubling and desperate and scary), then keep your eyes on the prize and hold on. Because the days are coming...

Apocalyptic faith not only tells the truth about our present, it also tells the truth about God's future. Jesus begins to speak of it in this passage from Luke - and he stands on a great tradition of God offering hope to God's people even in the darkest hour. I want to invite you to listen to this passage from the prophet Isaiah - written at a troubling, desperate and scary time. The people had returned from exile in Babylon, but life was hard and the future seemed bleak. To those people God spoke through the prophet. And again, I invite you to allow these words be words to you - words that uplift you and give you hope:

That's the prize that we are to keep our eyes on. The prize of God's fulfillment, the prize of the peaceable kingdom, the prize of good triumphing over evil. It was that prize that kept hope alive in the returned exiles. It was that prize that enabled the African slaves to endure for three and a half centuries. It was that prize that fueled the liberation struggle in South Africa. It is that prize that gives us strength to live each day with hope and promise.

And how do we know that this prize is real? Why trust this prize as anything more than pie in the sky? Because in Jesus Christ we know that this promise is real. Jesus, an innocent man, the only innocent man, was condemned as a common criminal, beaten, abandoned and put to a most cruel death. And God raised him up. God made him alive again. God made the prize real in him. And he is alive and is with us even now. So we can sing keep your eyes on the prize, hold on, because we know the prize is real and is worth holding on to.

So when the forces of evil press in on us, when illness and death rob us of hope, when we can't see a way forward, when all seems lost, remember: keep your eyes on the prize and hold on. Hold on because while evil may have its sway in the nighttime, goodness will dawn in the morning. Hold on because while illness and death may shape our days, eternal life shapes our eternity. Hold on because while we may not see a way forward, our God makes a way where there is no way - a way through the sea, a way through the wilderness, a way through the cross, a way through the grave, a way to God. Hold because while all may seem lost, God has sent the Good Shepherd to seek us out and to bring us home. Keep your eyes on the prize and hold on.