One of the very
important aspects of the Church Calendar is to teach us as followers of Jesus
how to measure our time. There is the sense among many of us (I know because I
am like that myself) that from the first moments of our self-consciousness to
the later years of our lives, we are carried along the tides of time with
significant events or occasions (like marriage, the birth of a child, the death
of a close friend or family member) occurring every so often to bring us to an
awareness that perhaps there is more to life than just the passage of time. The
Church Calendar places us in a context of faith, of history, of purpose and
meaning, from a Christian perspective. The Church Calendar reminds us not to
forget or neglect certain important aspects of what we have affirmed or, when
we think of it, what we still affirm about our understanding of who we are in
the light of God’s revelation to us in Jesus Christ.
Advent marks the
beginning of the Church year and anticipates the time of celebration of
Christ’s Nativity, the birth of Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph and recognized as
the The Coming One, God Incarnate. And while we look back and commemorate
Christ’s birth more than 2000 years ago in very humble circumstances, we look
forward to the return of Christ and the world is again set to rights. The word
Advent means “coming” and so we remember and look forward at the same time. Our
texts are meant to help us do that.
God’s intention for
the world and the reality of the world are two different things. And yet God’s
intention breaks through in surprising and extraordinary ways throughout our
lives. C.S. Lewis called it “joy.” Christmas is a recognition of that “joy”
which we recognize and celebrate once a year. Our texts this morning give us
two different pictures in how to think of our Advent season and what it is
intended to mean for us.
In the Old Testament text set for today, Isaiah
11:2-5, the prophet offers a vision of God’s intention where a nation so often
the object of prey for the ravenous empire-building nations around it would
live in peace and harmony. The impulse
for destruction would become the desire for construction. The determination to
kill would give way to the instinct to nurture. The instruments of war would be
melted down and made to be implements of peace. Pronouncements of judgments and
justice would be given from one who made heaven and earth; teaching would go
forth and people would learn what is right and what is true. From death to life
itself.
From this picture in
Isaiah, we are then confronted with the Gospel text found in Matthew 24: 36-44 that offers a much
different picture. Jesus speaks to his disciples about events which are yet to
happen and warns them accordingly. In Chapter 26 of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus
speaks in what has been described as apocalyptic language. “Apocalyptic” has
been notoriously difficult for our modern minds to comprehend and to interpret
accurately. “Apocalypse” means revelation and this text has been variously
interpreted by Christian scholars over the ages. Sometimes it helps to
contextualize the words in order to understand them.
We have often
understood these words of Jesus to refer to events which Jesus never had in
mind although some Christians think that Matthew was already looking further
ahead. Some Christians see in our text a warning to be ready for the second
coming of Jesus, reading the first part of the chapter as a picture of Jesus,
not as his vindication and exaltation into heaven but as his return to earth.
We have been promised in Acts 1 and in many other texts that one day, when God
remakes the entire world, Jesus will reappear and, because no one knows when
that is, we are to be ready at all times.
Other Christians
read this passage as a warning to readers to be prepared for their own death.
Whatever we think happens immediately after death, (and many Christians have
disagreed over these details, we should be, in principle, prepared for that
great step into the unknown. That is why we are encouraged to keep short
accounts with God through regular worship, prayer, reading of Scripture and
other of the spiritual disciplines.
But Matthew seems
to have a different purpose. Jesus here tells his disciples that a great crisis
was going to sweep over Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside at a date
unknown to them but which we now know to be 70AD at the climax of the war
between Rome and Judaea. Something was going to happen which was going to
devastate the lives, families, communities and yet at the same time be seen as
the coming of the Son of Man, the royal appearing of Jesus himself and which
would end in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.
There are three
stages to the point this passage makes: No one
knows exactly when this will be; only that it will occur within this
generation; normal life will go on right up to the last
minute; and, like Noah’s time, people will carry on with normal living before
calamity carries everything away.This event will divide families and colleagues
right down the middle. “One will be left and the other taken.” The picture here
is not that it is good to be taken away but rather that the one remaining behind
will be the one spared. Others will be killed or kidnapped or perhaps worse.
Whatever the case, the time between Jesus’ death and resurrection and the
destruction of Jerusalem and the temple was a time of emergency and fraught
with danger.
These words ring loudly in our time as well. We live in
turbulent and dangerous times. Who knows what will happen next week, or next
year? But we as the church are urged to remain vigilant, to remain alert, to
wait in expectation. Advent is a time when we are taught to remember, to stay
awake. Not to worry but to wait expectantly for the coming of God. How will you wait expectantly this Advent? Some of us are
already attuned to do that in ways we might otherwise not recognize. Failing health,
illness, fragility of parents, broken relationships, loneliness, and other
difficult aspects of our current situation can help us to remain alert, to wait
expectantly for God to come to us in our need. But they can also create
barriers. Pain and suffering can drown out our best intentions. We seem always
on the verge of belief and unbelief. In the Book of Common Prayer, the “Prayer
for the Use of a Sick Person” seems perfectly to the point:
This is another day, O Lord. I
know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may
be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help
me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. If I am to
do nothing, help me to do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and
give me the Spirit of Jesus. Amen.
In the words of Stanley Hauerwas, we need to learn to live
eschatologically, in the light of eternity, in the "time between the
times.” Our time is changing. The time of Christendom may be coming to an
end. While the institutions may still be
present, they no longer carry as much weight as they once did in the community. When you look
into the future, are you filled with hope or do you have a sense of foreboding? One thing is certain; circumstances will become more difficult. For example, last night I heard some powerful words and voices speaking to the
need for a change in the relationships between the indigenous peoples and the
so-called “settlers”. The anger of the
indigenous peoples at the treatment they have received at the hand of the
colonial authorities is palpable. The fact that many of us immigrant peoples
have been knowingly or unknowingly complicit in this injustice requires us to
listen and hear the pain and anger. What this will mean I do not know but I know
it is time we listen to one another with open ears and hearts. Living eschatologically means living transparently in the knowledge that at any time we will be called to account for who we are and what we have done.
Let us listen again to St Paul writing to the church in Rome:
You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from
sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the
night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness
and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in
reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in
quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no
provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
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