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The Fourth Sunday Of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday)
O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of thy people; Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calleth us each by name, and follow where he doth lead; who, with thee and the Holy Spirit, liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Scripture citation(s): I John 2:18-29
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
I John 2:18-29
✛
The Antichrist
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He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Episcopalians are not known for our preaching on the subject of the antichrist. In fact those who do preach on it the most tend to be of puritanical sects of one sort or another, groups led by individuals who are not shy to identify the antichrist, often ecclesiastical or political leaders of groups they don’t like. One recent instance is the Rev’d Ian Paisley, the Irish Protestant hardliner, who regularly protests Anglican hospitality to the Pope as admittance of the antichrist into Christian sanctuaries. This tends to cow other Christians from attempting to address the subject faithfully.
But let us not be cowed, even though Pope Benedict XVI, a most orthodox Evangelical and Catholic theologian as well as Christendom’s most obvious presiding bishop, is about to make an historic visit to New York; and even though he will pray with and speak to an ecumenical gathering, which will include members¹ of the Anglican-Roman Catholic New York Dialogue.
The first and second epistles of Saint John are the only places the word antichrist is used in Holy Scripture, although those instances are related to biblical figures and ideas that we should look at briefly.
The Book of Daniel, which consoled the suffering Jews during the days of the Maccabees two centuries before Christ, refers to a terrible beast with ten horns, including a “little horn” speaking “proud and blasphemous words” against God, setting up himself as God, defiling the temple in Jerusalem, and erecting a “desolating sacrilege” in the place of worship (Dn 7). It was not until the hero Judas Maccabeus defeated the Hellenistic despot Antiochus Epiphanes and restored the temple (Hanukah) that this early anticipation of an anti-Messiah was crushed and the prophecy believed to be fulfilled.
Jesus similarly spoke of the abomination of desolations in the Jerusalem temple in his prophecy of the Holy City’s devastation (Mk13:14), which the early Christian saw fulfilled in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, the deporting of the Jews from Palestine, and the conversion of the Temple into a pagan shrine in 70 AD.
Saint Paul, in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, mentions a “man of sin” who opposes and exalts himself against all that is worshipped or called God. He claims to be God. He is not Satan himself, but Paul says his coming is “after the working of Satan.” His appearance is in the future. The Apostle does not see this world as gradually evolving into a perfect state, but he sees evil continuing right up to the end, when it will make a final challenge as the judgment between good and evil, between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this fallen world, is manifest. Christ, says, Paul, will consume this man of sin with the “breath of his mouth,” and this last, supreme challenge of Satan to God’s rule will be defeated.²
Then there is the Book of Revelation, in which there appears an unholy trinity opposed to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit: the Dragon (Serpent, Satan), the Beast, and the False Prophet, working signs and wonders against the faithful, deceiving the world throughout history and at the end. This monstrous representation of evil will be defeated by Jesus Christ, again, by the breath of his mouth, at the climactic confrontation of Armageddon and will be sent home to the bottomless pit as the redeemed and renewed heaven and earth, centered in a new City of God, descends from heaven and closes the pages of the Revelation, indeed of the Christian Bible.
What about us, who live here and now, for whom Christian faith and work is a daily challenge? Saint John’s words about antichrist and antichrists clarify and encourage our faith. The true test of faithfulness, writes John, is to believe that God has sent Jesus Christ to take upon him our flesh and to suffer death upon the cross for our salvation. That is the critical content, the substance, of all orthodoxy. It is the very core and heart of the Gospel. One need not be a biblical scholar or theologian to grasp this. As John says, all believers in Jesus Christ have been anointed by the Holy One, and they “all know” this most basic fact of the Gospel. Antichrist, at the most fundamental level, a level we all experience, is the spirit that opposes, denies this essential fact of the Gospel. “Who is a liar but he denieth that Jesus is the Christ. He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: but he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.” (Vv 22-23) In his second letter, John develops this thought: “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.” (II Jn 7)
These antichrists were the fallen spirits which possessed individuals, leaders and followers, to leave Saint John’s Church community, to reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord and God in the flesh. Their leaving means much more than transferring from one parish to another over a disagreement or a matter of taste. This is a leaving, such as the one told by John in his Gospel, when Satan entered Judas at the Last Supper, and he left the Upper Room and went out into the night to betray Jesus. It means going right out of the Christian fellowship, out into the world which is in the thrall of the Prince of darkness.
All of John, the Gospel and the three letters, emphasize above all that we are to love one another as Jesus Christ has loved us. The criterion for faith is the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh and to the cross. The proof of the faith in a person is love towards our brothers and sisters as Jesus Christ has given himself for us.
What then of these grander and more apocalyptic visions, of an unholy trinity, a “man of sin,” of monsters and beasts opposing God and destroying his servants and indeed all of mankind? They are the historic and cosmic backdrop to our not so little daily dramas of faith and love, of truth and courage, of hope and perseverance. Every time we resist the temptation to despair, to lose faith, to quit loving, we pass through a crisis which, though it may seem to be merely a daily circumstance, is of eternal consequences. For we have witnessed to Christ and given a setback to the cause of the spirit of antichrist and his henchmen.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
__________
¹Including yours truly and Father Victor Austin, Friday April 18, 2008, at St. Joseph’s Church, NYC.
²“Antichrist” in The New Bible Dictionary, J.D. Douglas, General Editor, Erdmans, 1979, p. 40.
