Sermon for November 16, 2025, Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 21:25-28 (Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost/Proper 28—Series C)

“A Whole Lot of Shakin’ Going On”

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Enfield, CT

November 16, 2025

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text today is from the Holy Gospel recorded in Luke 21, verses 25-28:

[Jesus said,] ²⁵And there will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the sound and tossing of the sea, ²⁶while people are fainting from fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ²⁷And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. ²⁸But when these things begin to happen, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.

          In 1957, Jerry Lee Lewis released his rockabilly version of the song, “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On.” “Well, come on over, baby Whole lot of shakin’ goin’ on; Yes, I said come on over, baby; Baby, you can't go wrong; We ain’t fakin’; Whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.” As the song continues, they are dancing in the barn with the chickens. A whole lotta shaking’ going on.

          In our sermon text today, Jesus has shifted from prophesying about the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem (which took place in A.D. 70 at the hands of the Romans) to speaking about the end of the world. Jesus says that “there will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the sound and tossing of the sea, while people are fainting from fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” A whole lot of shaking will be going on.

          And this prophecy from our Lord is not something new here in the Gospel. The Lord has spoken of this “shaking” through His holy prophets of old. Isaiah 24:19, “The earth is utterly broken, the earth is split apart, the earth is violently shaken.” The prophet Joel described the day of the Lord when, “The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining” (Joel 2:10). Haggai proclaimed, “For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land” (Haggai 2:6). And the New Testament writer of Hebrews echoes this Word of the Lord, “At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens’” (Heb. 12:26).

          Before the return of the Lord Christ, there will be signs and a whole lot of shaking as there will be catastrophic changes in the sky—in the sun, moon, and stars. We know that the moon affects the tides, so there will be shaking in the oceans, “the sound and tossing of the sea.” It will be as if this world and all of creation is coming unglued. God’s orderly creation, as the Last Day nears, will become unstable and will revert toward chaos. One Lutheran commentator has suggested this is because God’s goodwill toward the originally good work of His hands is increasingly turning to anger as His patience runs out with corrupt and perverse humanity (Arthur Just, Concordia Commentary).

          The Last Day is also the Day of Judgment. The Christian Church confesses with the Holy Scriptures that Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, “will come to judge the living and the dead.” Jesus tells us in Matthew 25, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matt. 25:31-32). And St. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor. 5:10 ESV).

          Is it any wonder that these signs before the coming again of Jesus would cause people to faint from fear and the expectation of things to come as the powers of the heavens are shaken, the natural orders of the creation are dissolved and disrupted? I think being a witness to the undoing of creation will be quite a fearful thing for all people, including us, if we are still on this earth when it happens. Revelation 1:7, “Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him. Even so. Amen” (Rev. 1:7 ESV).

          When the time is right, the Son of Man, Jesus, the Risen Lord of all, will come in a cloud with power and great glory. His coming certainly intensifies the fear of unbelievers. Through the time up until the Lord’s coming the unbelievers will be afraid and have perplexity and anguish and fainting. Then the Lord Christ will come, and that will be the end of this present world. There will be perhaps more shaking as the dead are raised. Believers in Jesus will rise to everlasting life in body and soul in a new creation, and unbelievers will be cast in body and soul into the eternal death of hell.

          The End Times is not often a topic that people, including Christians, want to talk about. But as we have seen, God’s prophets talked about it. The Son of God Himself talked about it. And while the end of the world and the coming of the Lord certainly create fear, even in believers, the Lord Himself enables us to set those fears aside. Listen to what Jesus says to us, “But when these things begin to happen, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

          You and I who know the Lord Jesus according to His Word by faith receive what Jesus says in our text as words of Gospel comfort and hope. Yes, there will be signs in the sun and moon and stars. There will be distress of nations, people fainting with fear at what is coming and at Who is to come. There will be a lot of shaking going on. But the Good News, O Baptized Ones, is that we are not shaken! Psalm 62, “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God” (Psa. 62:5-7 ESV). A mighty fortress is our God!

Because we cannot be shaken, built on the Rock, Jesus Christ, we have no need to be bent over in fear and fainting. We can straighten up and lift up our heads with the confidence of saving faith because our redemption draws near, the blessed final consummation of all things. This comforting Word of Christ assures believers that the end of the world is not a reason for fear. It is a reason to stand tall and look up into the heavens, because life in the presence of the Triune God is about to begin. Hebrews 9:28, “So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Heb. 9:28 ESV).

At His Coming, Jesus will finally deliver God’s people from all persecutors and from a universe and world corrupted by sin. The apostle John recorded a vision of this wondrous event in Revelation 21, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’ And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new’” (Rev. 21:1-5 ESV).

The blood of Christ, the Lamb of God, shed on the cross, has taken away our sins. The Savior’s blood has atoned for every sin that causes us to fear. In our Baptism, they have been washed away in a cleansing flood. While we await the Day of His Coming, Christ feeds us with His Body and Blood in and with the bread and wine of His Supper. This enables us to look forward with the joy and confidence of faith that when this present world is shaken, we have eternal life in the forgiveness of sins. We and all believers in Christ will dine with Him at His heavenly banquet table in a new creation. As St. John has written, “Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, These are the true words of God” (Rev. 19:7-9 ESV).

Dear saints, in Christ you are “receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken” (Heb. 12:28 ESV). No matter how much the heavens and earth may shake at His Coming, you are safe and secure in Him, built on the Rock of Christ Jesus Himself. Your sins are forgiven. You have eternal life in the new heavens and earth with your great God and Savior. Amen.