The Old World Has Been Shaken - Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermon

0:00 Peace be with you. Friends, we come to this 33rd Sunday of the year, which means next Sunday is the final Sunday of the year. So at this end-of-the-year time, the Church always gives us apocalyptic readings. Our Gospel is from what's called the little apocalypse in the Gospel of Luke. Now, as I've told you many times before, apocalypsis in Greek does not mean end of the world. what it means is unveiling, taking away the calypso, the veil. And that's why when apocalypsis is rendered in Latin, we get revelatio, revelation, taking the vellum, taking the veil away. So they're all about, I put it this way, something old being shaken and set aside, and then something new being unveiled. That's apocalyptic literature.

0:55 Well, this little apocalypse in Luke, I think, is really interesting because it's showing you, I think, three shakings and then three unveilings. It's the showing forth of a new world, but that has to be preceded by a sort of shaking or setting aside of the old world. Now, what am I talking about? I'm talking about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. That's the good news. That's the gospel. That's in their minds and hearts and on their lips was this message of Jesus risen from the dead, which they took to mean, listen now, that the old world, with all of its priorities, has been shaken, questioned. It's been marginalized.

1:47 It's been relativized. And now a new world is revealed. Think of the tearing of the veil in the temple. We hear at the death of Jesus, the veil is torn from top to bottom. Access to the Holy of Holies, yes, it means that. But I think also it's the showing forth of something altogether new. Think for a second about that cross of Jesus, is how all the powers of the world, all our certainties and finalities have gathered there. And you say, yeah, in the death of this poor man, the facts of life, the facts of the world, political, natural, religious, they're all there on display. And see, the Christian gospel, everybody, says, no, all of those things that you consider absolute and final, they've been shaken by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

2:45 And a new world has been unveiled to us, a new way of being. Okay, so with that principle in mind, let me try to show you in the text how this happened. So while people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, so they're good, call them like religious tourists here. They're Jesus' disciples from the north, from Galilee. They're, in a way, kind of country bumpkin types. And they've come to the capital. They've come to the temple, which, especially in its Herodian renovation, was like one of the wonders of the ancient world. And these simple fishermen from Galilee hadn't seen anything like that. And so, of course, they're amazed. Think of a devout Catholic standing in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and you're admiring its architecture and art.

3:40 That's where they are. And what does Jesus say? Well, as usual, it's something a little bit unnerving. He said, Man, that's shocking. Again, go back to a Catholic in front of St. Peter's. Let's say I was there with some friends and they're, oh, St. Peter's, how beautiful, how amazing. Look at the architecture. And I would say, days are coming when that whole thing is going to be torn down. And that would give you a slight sense of what it was like to hear this sort of language. How do we interpret it? I told you last week about Jesus' cleansing of the temple and announcing a prophetic denunciation upon the temple. What did they know in light of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead?

4:37 They knew that everything they had taken to be religiously absolute has now been shaken. Think of all the customs, practices, everything that Jews of Jesus' time would have known, their whole religious structure, the entire religious institution, beautifully summarized, summed up in the temple. Jesus says the days come when it's all going to be thrown down. Why? Why? Because the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the stunning revelation, the stunning unveiling of the fullness of God's love and presence, of what religion really ought to be.

5:26 Religion, as they knew it, is shaken. But now he goes on. There's a second shaking. They ask, what are the signs when this great revelation is going to happen? He says, when you hear of wars and insurrections, don't be terrified, for such things happen first. Nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. What was he talking about here? Well, something that's of perennial interest to human beings. from the beginning of history to today, we tend to be fascinated by politics, by the play of nation against nation. I pick up the paper every day, and I look at what's going on with the war here and this difficulty and the Middle East, and as I record these words, Russia and Ukraine. And the world of political struggle, nation against nation, warfare, who's winning, who's losing, who's up, who's down, and the political order, we're fascinated by it, as they were.

6:30 As they were. Rome, and in relation to Judaism and the Roman Empire, and is it expanding, and who's threatening it, and who's the Caesar now, and who's jockeying for position. Yeah, politics. We love politics. We're captivated by it. We tend to think it's one of the most basic and fundamental realities we cope with, right? all of that is shaken by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. See, what did they know in light of the resurrection? Well, look, Caesar, he was the most powerful figure in the world. Caesar, through his local representative, Pontius Pilate, nailed Jesus to a cross. That's the full expression of Roman power.

7:24 You want to see the Roman political reality on display? There it is. but God raised him. And that's one of the most primitive, we call it, charismatic. It means the declaration of the fundamental gospel. One of the most fundamental charismatic proclamations is, you killed him, God raised him. Well, you see what that means, everybody. It means Caesar is not the Lord anymore. It means Caesar and his great empire are not what finally matters. Whether he's rising or falling, who's coming, who's going, none of that finally matters. And that's why the first Christians went out with this impossible boldness, saying, Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord, not Caesar, not the nations. Nations rise against each other.

8:19 Okay, they come and they go. What matters is Jesus risen from the dead. He shakes the religion they knew. He shakes the politics that they knew and reveals, revelatio, something new. Now, the third shaking, it also has to do with something that we consider pretty ultimate. Now, listen.

8:45 There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place, and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky. What's he talking about here? nature. You know, especially for ancient people, true of us, especially now in our very materialistic time, but for the ancient peoples, nature, earth, air, sky, you know, the oceans, the mountains, nature was it. Nature was the great context for reality. Even the gods, look at the Greeks and Romans, The gods were very high, sophisticated beings, but they existed within the context of nature. They were seen as literally living on Mount Olympus, for example. Nature, that's an ultimate reality. Again, we, in our materialistic age, we've kind of reverted to that pagan view that that's all there is, just the natural givenness of things.

9:48 Now, what's one of the most basic truths we know about nature? Things die, right? Living things die. They come into being as living things out of the earth and through the reproductive systems of animals and so on, plants from seed, etc. Living things emerge, and every living thing that's ever been that we know about dies. It's a basic truth of nature. Yeah, I know, but then there was the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And you catch it, you sense it in the Gospels. Jesus, who died? There's no question about it. Romans knew how to put people to death. They saw him. He died on the cross.

10:43 He's buried days in the tomb. And then they see him alive. We who ate and drank with him after his resurrection from the dead. And they all went to their deaths as martyrs. reverencing this truth.

11:06 Well, if Jesus, who had died on the cross, is through the power of God raised from the dead, that means nature isn't what we thought it was. It means the things we thought were absolute and unchanging aren't absolute and unchanging. Earthquakes tell me about it, because something is being shaken about nature. Nature itself is giving way to something new. Something has been shaken and now unveiled to us. What they thought of as ultimate in matters of religion, that gives way. What they thought was ultimate in matters of politics, it doesn't matter anymore. even what they thought was ultimate in nature is no longer the case.

12:01 See, everybody, that's the radicality of the resurrection. The folly of turning Jesus into a finally remembered moral teacher from long ago. That's a complete betrayal of the gospel. That's all he is. Who cares? Who cares? But the gospels, the good news, the euangelion is that something so fresh and new and unexpected and strange has happened that the whole world that we knew is marginalized, is relativized, and something new has emerged. So, what do we do? Well, we get about the business of ordering our lives not according to the old religious forms, not according to old political realities, not even according to what we assume is the case about nature.

12:58 But we get about the business of ordering our lives in accord with Christ Jesus, risen from the dead. Weird? Well, yeah, I mean, look, before I've done it, look what I'm wearing here, this cross with jewels on it. I mean, all of the poetry and weirdness of Christianity is fully on display here. Talk about political reality. Talk about the reality of what we assume is true of nature. Talk about the old religion. It's all shaken by this fact. And therefore, something in this cross and resurrection of Jesus is unveiled to us. Apocalypsis, apocalypsis. A new world has emerged.

13:50 and God bless you. Thank you.