Sermon — November 17, 2024
The Rev. Greg Johnston
I met a traveller from an antique land, (Not me, personally. It’s a poem.)
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
The disciples roll up to the Temple in Jerusalem like the bumpkins that they are, gawking at the sights of the big city. As Jesus walks out of the Temple, having just said something wise about a poor widow who gave away her last two pennies there, one of the disciples says, “Wow! Rabbi! Have you seen how big these stones are? And the buildings! Look! They’re… they’re really big, too!” (Mark 13:1)
You might be surprised at this disciple’s surprise. After all, there were three great festivals a year, on which faithful Jews would travel to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple. Galilee’s not so far away. It would’ve been normal to do what Jesus’ parents did, and to come down, several times a year and for big family events as well, to offer a sacrifice there. This disciple may not be the most pious; maybe he’s stayed home the last few years, and it shows.
But to be fair, the Temple had been under construction for years, refurbished and rebuilt over the course of decades, beginning during the reign of Herod the Great. Over the course of Jesus’ life, the set of buildings around the Temple was transformed. What began as a few buildings around the Temple itself, which stood ten stories high or more, had been built up into a thirty-five acre Temple Mount surrounded by retaining walls; all in all, about a quarter of the size of ancient Jerusalem. Put another way: While the Temple itself was about the size of this church, the walls around the Temple Mount would’ve stretched to the Whole Foods parking lot in one direction, and up to the Monument in the other.
So fair enough. If you saw a building project of this scope grow over the course of your life, maybe all that you could say would be: “What large stones!”
But Jesus only looks at him and says: “Do you see these great buildings?” (13:2) “Well, yeah,” you can imagine the disciple might’ve thought to himself, “Wasn’t I just saying how big they are?” But Jesus isn’t done. “Do you see these big buildings?” he says. “Not one stone will be left here upon another. All will be thrown down.” (Mark 13:2)
Downer. But Jesus was right. Well, particularly pedantic readers of the Bible will sometimes point out that Jesus is actually wrong; that the Western Wall of the Temple Mount still stands to this day, a place of prayer for the Jewish people for two thousand years, ever since the Temple itself Mount was destroyed. But really, this only strengthens the point. Jesus was right: just a few decades after his death, at the end of the failed rebellion against Rome, all had been thrown down but one partial wall. And none of it would ever be rebuilt.
But of course, Rome itself was thrown down soon enough. The Roman Republic had already failed. The old gods would be next, Roman temples replaced as thoroughly as the Temple had been destroyed as new Emperors began to worship the man old Emperors had killed. And then the Empire collapsed, and only the ruins remained of its ancient glory, amid the medieval cities that rose up throughout the West, as nations and kingdoms rose and fell and rose and fell.
Human history, in fact, is an unbroken cycle of things being thrown down and new things being built. Every civilization seems to think that it is the greatest that has ever been, and that the End of History is surely near; and every one declines and falls in turn.
Jesus is right. Sooner or later, “all will be thrown down.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley knew this when he wrote the poem with which I began. Shelley was inspired by tales of ancient Egypt, whose extraordinary culture was only just being rediscovered in the early 19th century when he wrote that poem. “Ozymandias” is a Greek form of the name of Pharaoh Ramesses II, who really was one of the great figures in human history, probably the most powerful person to walk the Earth in 500 years or so.
Shelley envisions a statue worthy of the man, a form that would’ve towered over the crowds with a look of stern command. The pharaohs were worshiped as gods, and Ramesses was one of the greatest of them all. The statue addressed any who might think to challenge his grandeur and his might:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
And as two centuries of English teachers have pointed out, there’s a double meaning here. The statue sends a message to conquered lands and subjugated peoples, “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” You will never be as powerful as I. But there’s a message for later times, as well. “Look on my works, ye Mighty.” See the ruins of my kingdom, forgotten for centuries after it crumbled into dust. See my “shattered visage,” as it crumbles into sand, next to a couple of legs, without a torso to be found. “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Because if this is what remains of my great nation and my great reign—What will remain of you in 3500 years?
I think that there are a couple ways to take this, one bad, one good.
The bad way, I think, is to respond with despair. I’m sorry to say, your life will one day come to an end. This civilization will also decline. This building, into which so much energy and care have been poured for so many generations, will one day be thrown down, and not one stone will be left. So what’s the point? You might ask. It’s all just going to end up buried in the sand.
There’s half an answer in our reading from Daniel today, and it’s the promise that this world is not the end. That when we are forgotten after a hundred or a thousand years, we are remembered still by God. The world may go through anguish, time and time again, but in the end, “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake… [and] those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky.” (Daniel 12:1–3) The measure of our greatness is not how large our monuments and buildings are. It’s not whether we still inspire fear in the nations of the world. It’s the fact that we still receive God’s love, however great or small, however weak or mighty we are.
But there’s a second half to this good news, as well, and it’s not off in heaven. It’s right here. “Beware that no one leads you astray,” Jesus says. You may “hear of wars and rumors of wars…but the end is still to come.” This is all just “the beginning of the birth pangs.” (Mark 13:8)
I myself have never given birth. But I’m told it’s often worth it, in the end.
Yes, the Temple was cast down. And so was ancient Rome. But something else emerged. And that thing fell, and something else came next. Chaos and catastrophe recur. That’s human life. Everything we build will be destroyed. But that’s not a reason not to build it. That’s exactly why we must build, and rebuild, and rebuild again.
Because those buildings are beautiful and those stones are large. Because those relationships give us life and those communities teach us to love. Because when all our monuments have crumbled into dust, nothing can take away the acts of love we left behind. And even in some of the most anguishing times, something new is being born; in fact, nothing new is born in any other way.
So yes, one day this “all will be thrown down.” Our greatest achievements will collapse into the sand. So will our worst mistakes, for what it’s worth. And yes, one day you all will “shine like stars,” and the glory of that heavenly life will reflect the depth of God’s great love. But it is also true that the things that we build here matter, for as long as they remain. They’re temporary, and transient, but so is everything else. Our past has crumbled away, and our future is still far off, but right here, the things we build together remain, and we live in them—because we can try to remember the past, and we can pray for a better future, but we can start building a beautiful present together, today.