1AdventA, November 27, 2016, St Martin’s Episcopal Church,
Moses Lake, WA by Annette Fricke
Just as in the most recent gospel
texts, this one too is a gospel about the end times. The church year ends with the end times as
well as the beginning of the church year begins with the end times. Today is the first Sunday of the church year
of a season that has only four Sundays preceding Christmas. We are now in the season of Advent. The word advent is from the Latin meaning
coming. It is the advent of Advent. During this period, we will see readings that
emphasize both the need for repentance as well as hope. Thus, the liturgical colors for the season
can be either purple, as in Lent or blue.
Blue has become a preferred color in many churches denoting hope. When we repent, we prepare ourselves for the
coming of Christ, both the birth of Christ and the second coming of
Christ. We look forward to celebrating
Christmas and also the second coming of Jesus in power and glory. These elements are descriptive and inclusive
of what we call apocalyptic literature. Although
all of the gospels include this apocalyptic material, the book of Revelation is
an entire book of it. It is by no means
an easy task to decipher just how we should interpret such writings. Many interpretations have been given in every
generation. For example, Martin Luther
named the then pope the anti-Christ.
Some people who lived through World War II might name Hitler as the
anti-Christ. In that line of thinking we
will end up with several anti-Christs.
But perhaps that is being just a bit too literal to really make any
sense out of it. Maybe there is a way to
look at it that makes the meaning written several years ago, be pretty much how
we would interpret it today in 2016.
While many people have predicted the end, the group called the Seventh
Day Adventists comes to mind, they were all wrong and the end is yet to come. There is almost an implicit message, if we
read between the lines, that predicting is of no value. Verse 36 clearly states, “But about that day
and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the
Father.” It’s as if God is saying to us to avoid the temptation to think that
we can predict the end. But we are
humans and we can’t help it. We like to
speculate. The earlier writings seemed to
imply that some disciples of Jesus would not see their own deaths, that Jesus
would return before they died. That didn’t
happen. This appears to be a
correction. Is that what Jesus said or
meant to say or maybe the end is not what most of us think it means. Maybe there is not this big happening way out
in the future. So, people also thought
that it could be that there is no second coming, Jesus came back in the form of
the Holy Spirit—that would be a second coming.
Another proposed theory is that the second coming of Jesus is when we
die. And if you think further about
that, in baptism, we die to our sins and receive the Holy Spirit which brings
us back to the Holy Spirit. Thinking
even more, it’s like life itself here on earth: we keep searching for definite
answers, God surprises us, but it is never quite certain what goal we have achieved
or if there is more. What does God have
in mind for us? Sometimes our sense of security lies in having answers. However, the answers remain ever elusive. We must conclude that it doesn’t matter if we
accept this or not, we will never know for sure the when of Jesus’ coming. That is why even faith is challenged. God is in charge and our faith is strongest
when we accept that we are not in charge.
Some would say that this is not at all comforting, but actually anxiety
provoking. I’ll say it again: “There is
almost an implicit message if we read between the lines that predicting is of
no value.” If that is the case, why should
we be on guard or alert? That would in
no way be logical.
Is it not true that our lives are
marked by beginnings and endings all the time and that we are frequently in a
state of confusion because of that very phenomenon? For example, is a graduation and ending or a
beginning? Isn’t it the case that we
also call this same event a commencement?
A birthday or anniversary is a commemoration of the past and also a look
into the future. Our whole lives are a
state of being somewhere in the middle all the time: that is where I was, this
is where I am and the future is yet to come.
Some days are lived in reminiscing, some lived in the moment, and still
others dreaming of the future. And God’s
story is the same with a beginning at creation which is the past, the continual
giving of the Son and the Holy Spirit which is the present, and the
consummation of God’s saving grace at Jesus’ second coming. In a certain sense, our lives parallel God’s. God has the upper hand in all things, can and
will make it happen. This is still the
beginning of the end of all things. Despite
how many times the generations of life and death and birth occur, we continue
to live our lives into the future. Children
wait for mom to pick them up from grandma’s house. Grandma works in a hospital. Mom teaches the 5th grade at the
local elementary. Dad sells cars. Every four years we vote for a president and
some people will challenge the election results because it is not to their
liking. People get into fights and young
people are sent to fight for their country.
Time marches on. Even normal happenings can keep us from watching for
Jesus’ return. From an unknown author
attributed to the Celtic tradition, “And every day, the world will drag you by
the hand, yelling, ‘This is important!
And this is important! And this
is important! You need to worry about this!
And this! And this!’ And each day, it’s up to you to yank your
hand back, put it on your heart and say, ‘No.
This is what’s important.” It is
important to be alert. It is important
to not allow other interests to pull us away from God. It is important to remember that God remains
the eternal provider for all that is necessary for life for all of
creation. God still has in mind the
restoration of God’s kingdom and will bring it to completion. Caring that much about each and every one of
us and all of the created order is God’s purpose. God will not abandon us or leave the work of
redemption unfinished. God will complete
the work of salvation. It is our role as God’s children to live out God’s
salvation, to keep on honoring God in our lives.
Some Christians do not know what to
believe. Will there be a second coming
of Jesus? It hasn’t happened yet. One
response to this text could be apathy—well, I don’t know if Jesus is coming or
not, so why should I care? Why should I
get excited about it? Does history have
any significance? I can’t see what’s
going on, therefore there is no point. There
are atheists who fall into this category as well. This attitude is summed up in Shakespeare’s Macbeth
who says, “Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying
nothing.”
There are other Christians who are
filled with anxiety when reading this passage of scripture because they focus
only on the part about being left behind. They fall victim to these words taken
out of context to make books and movies that only serve to strike terror into
the hearts of those who take this literally. They see God as one who
punishes. They don’t see a God of mercy
and grace.
Life is not a tale told by an idiot
and God is not a merciless tyrant who snatches away those who are somehow more
evil than the rest of us. Rather, God is
sovereign and holds all of created life in loving care, a care and love that
does everything possible to draw in and nourish all people. God will not abandon us because we are God’s
people created to be and live in God’s presence. God is no idiot, but has the wisdom that
surpasses all human wisdom. This is God’s
history and God will never write us out of it.
Our hope is in God, the maker of heaven and earth, all things visible
and invisible, and in Jesus Christ who lives that we too, might walk in newness
of life.
