November 29, 2009
Luke 21:25-38; Jeremiah 33:14-16
The past two months we have focused on the book of Acts in our sermons. We are going to take a break from Acts for now to focus on Advent. After Advent we will come back to Acts and look some more at what it means for the church to “live under the influence of the Holy Spirit.”
I must confess that the first Sunday of Advent is always a little difficult for me.Advent is about preparing our hearts to receive the Christ child.
But the first Sunday of Advent is difficult for me because the lectionary readings for this Sunday are always about the end of the world and Jesus’ second coming.
These verses in Luke 21 are not about Jesus’ birth but about all hell breaking loose in our world.
Listen to the words Jesus uses to describe the end times in verses 25-26. He talks about times of – distress, confusion, fainting, fear, and foreboding. “Foreboding” is certainly a scary sounding word.
And the images Jesus uses to describe the end times are not easy to hear either.
In verse 10 Jesus talks about – nation fighting nation, great earthquakes, dreadful famines, harsh persecutions, even betrayal by loved ones, and being hated by all because of Jesus.
He even talks about blood in the streets, signs in the sky, panic on earth, stars falling, and people dying of fright.
Those are certainly “foreboding” words and images and I wonder why they are important for us to hear at Advent.
One way I have come to understand these scriptures about the end time being used for Advent – is to remember that the same Jesus who came as a baby is the one who will come again at the end of time.
Welcoming the Christ who is to come at the end of time – is no different than welcoming the baby Jesus. We have the same longing for God to set things right today as people did in their longing for the Messiah to come.
So, as I reflected on these scriptures for today I came to appreciate how they can be helpful for Advent. They can be helpful because Advent is not about the past – it is about the future and it is about hope in God.
I want to suggest that this scripture from Luke’s gospel – even though it uses scary and foreboding language – is primarily about hope for the future, not fear and trepidation.
I realize that the apocalyptic imagery used here easily translates into doomsday scenarios. It has fed the imaginations of people for centuries who cry – “the end is at hand.”
This week I read about the new movie “2012”. This movie is supposedly based on the Mayan calendar that calls for the world to end in 2012.
When I went online to look at reviews it gave pictures of buildings tumbling down, huge waves destroying everything in sight, the sky turning dark, and people all over the world trying to escape the horror of it all.
The pictures were definitely ones of distress, confusion, fainting, fear and foreboding. The script sounded like it could have come directly from Luke 21.
Of course, if you wanted to learn how to survive 2012 you could get a special rate on a book for only $47.
Now, if Christians are suppose to tell the end of the world by the number of wars, famines, earthquakes and plagues that are afflicting our world – we’d have to say “the end is here.” Wars and rumors of war are constantly in the news.
The only problem with this view is that Jesus wasn’t giving us in Luke 21 a checklist of items to mark off as they happen.
In several places Jesus says pretty emphatically that “nobody knows the day or hour of the end except God alone.”
To me that means “if you think you know when the end is coming – the very fact you think so is proof that you don’t know.”
Biblical prophecy is always more open ended than this.
Some of the things Jesus talks about here have happened many times in history already and will repeat themselves many times in the future.
There will be lots of events that will fit the description given in Luke 21.
In this passage I think Jesus is telling us much more than how terrible things can be for us in the world. Jesus is mainly trying to reassure us and encourage us.
Jesus does not want us to be panicked by the events happening around us. He wants us to know that despite wars, earthquakes, personal tragedies, and disasters of all kinds – this world still belongs to God.
Jesus wants us to know that none of the terrible things happening in the world or that may happen – means that the Gospel is not true or that Jesus is not really Lord after all.
In verses 27 and 28, when Jesus describes the terrifying events happening in the world – he tells his disciples to “stand and hold their heads up high because their redemption is near.”
Jesus is speaking here to people who know about redemption. These are Exodus people. These are Passover people. These are Manna people.
These are people who have a history of being squeezed by Egypt, Babylon, and Rome. For them, the coming of God’s redemption means liberation is coming, justice is coming, and the King of all the earth is coming to make things right.
When Jesus says “our redemption is near” he is letting us know that history is heading in the right direction and that God will bring liberation and justice to all.
I think Jesus knows, though, how hard it is to live with this sense of expectancy and hope in the midst of injustice and suffering and personal tragedies.
And it is especially hard since the church has been expecting Jesus to return for a long time – and he hasn’t come back yet. William Willimon commenting on Jesus’ delay says – “It’s hard to stand on tiptoe for two thousand years scanning the horizon for his coming again.”
When we are suffering or struggling or going through difficult times it is easy for us to become tired, to give up and to lose hope.
Yet, in verse 34, Jesus says “be on your guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly like a trap.”
Jesus reminds us that if the news headlines for the day are all we have to go on – then we almost certainly will be driven to despair.
We are bombarded daily with frightening news that the ecosystem is collapsing, AIDS is claiming a whole generation, global warming is bringing rising seas, the economic collapse is causing widespread unemployment, there are wars and threats of war, stories of people dying for lack of medical care, a swine flu pandemic, killings in our neighborhoods, and on and on the bad news goes.
The panic and fear whipped up by these daily images of terrorism and rampaging violence everywhere is enough to drive one to drinking.
Jesus says, the bad news causes people to worry – so they get drunk. They get drunk – so they worry. And that makes them want another drink. In the classic addictive cycle people try to relieve distress with the same thing that caused it and they end up trapped by it all.
Jesus says if you become too wrapped up in how bad things are then you will feel trapped and you will conclude that the world really is going to hell in a hand- basket.
But Jesus tells his disciples – not to get trapped by the worries of this life because our redemption is near.
Despite the multiple threats to our very existence Jesus says what gives Christians a hopeful future is the promises of God through Jesus.
As Christians, we are freed from the tyranny of clocks, calendars and preachers who are always predicting the end of the world.
Our task is not to count minutes, hours, days, or years. We can stop our worrying now and get on with living.
We can rest in the assurance that God will act at the appropriate time. The world is in God’s hands, not somebody’s predictions.
Jesus only asks one thing of us regarding the times we live in.
And that one thing, Jesus says, in verse 36 is to – “Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
We are to be alert and ready at all times.
Our task as Christians is to live in such a way that it doesn’t matter when Christ returns. We are to live in a state of readiness and watchfulness.
So, our best preparation is to make every day count for Christ. It is walking faithfully with Christ from day to day and doing what he called us to do.
Sometimes, I think the hardest part for us is just doing the simple, little faithful things in our work or in our homes.
It is tempting to think that nothing is really being done for anybody by the seemingly small, mundane things we do when the problems are so large and systemic.
But I think Jesus teaches us just the opposite. Without doing the little things – there are really no big changes.
I read this week a story from the desert fathers and mothers. In this story a man tells his Abba how discouraged he is because he is so far behind in his prayers.
In response to his complaint the Abba tells the man this story:
“A man had a plot of land that had become a wilderness of thistles and thorns. He decided to cultivate it and said to his son – “Go and clear the land”.
But when the son went to clear it – he saw that the thistles and thorns had multiplied.
The son thought to himself how long it would take to clear all the thorns and thistles from the land – and decided to sleep instead. He did this day after day.
When his father found him doing nothing – the son explained that he was discouraged. The father replied – “Son, if you had cleared each day the area on which you lay down, you work would have advanced slowly and you would not have lost heart.”
The son did what his father said and in a short time the land was cultivated.”
Now, I know there are a lot of thorns and thistles in our community and world and it is easy to sleep on the job and to become discouraged by all that needs to be done.
However, I want to suggest this morning that “being alert and ready” in our day means that we keep on doing all the little things that advance God’s kingdom and serve the people around us.
- Helping people move into their new home.
- Sending a note or card to encourage someone
- Visiting someone in prison.
- Teaching Sunday school.
- Tutoring children who need help with homework.
- Taking a turn to work in the homeless shelter.
- Taking a meal to someone who is sick.
- Opening your home to a stranger.
- Or doing your job with joy.
You see, living in readiness is simply continuing to do all the things that Jesus taught us to do.
Living in readiness is not to be distracted or discouraged by wars and rumors of war, but to be faithful and persistent in doing the little things God has called us to do.
Alice Walker once said – “unless you live as if the world you imagine already exists, the world you imagine will never exist.”
I think Advent is about having a vision of God’s reign in our hearts and minds and then living towards it.
It is doing what Jesus taught and then expecting God to show up.
Many times we miss God showing up because we are looking for the wrong thing.
Many people missed God in Christ the first time around simply because of “how” he came and “who” he was associated with.
They missed God because they were not prepared to receive a God who came in weakness – born in a barn and with smelly shepherds around him. They wanted someone to come with power and prestige and make changes happen quickly.
But this season of Advent is a reminder to us again – to always be ready and to look for God with us in the least expected places and ways.
Being ready and alert is important because it is only those who are looking and watching who will actually see God coming in our daily lives.
At one level, Luke is appealing to us in this scripture, to live out of the wisdom God gives us – not to live out of fear.
Luke is encouraging us to let our responses to the hype and horror of tragedies and disasters not be determined by a fear-mongering media or religious demagogues, but by the Holy Spirit who is at the center of our lives.
There will always be scary movies like 2012 and there will always be preachers who will attempt to frighten people into becoming Christians. But that is not how Jesus operated.
Jesus sought to comfort us and to show why we do not need to be afraid. In verse 38 it says that people would rise early in the morning to go and listen to Jesus teach in the temple.
I am convinced that people eagerly soaked up Jesus’ teaching – not because he was a doom-and-gloom naysayer or fear-mongerer – but because he offered them real hope and new life in the midst of harsh realities.
This first Sunday of Advent gives us an honest assessment of the world we live in. This is not a time to deny or forget the world’s troubles.
Instead, Jesus encourages us to remain both “expectant and patient” and to seize these troubled times as opportunities for witness to God’s amazing love and faithfulness and mercy.
In Advent we are reminded that a Light – God’s light in Jesus – shines in the darkness – a light no darkness, no apocalypse, no warfare, no falling meteors, and no holocaust can prevent from shining.
So, we don’t have to be fearful of our world or distracted by wars and economic collapses this morning.
God wants us to be risktakers and to invest our gifts and abilities and time in the reign of God and to let the light of Christ shine through us.
This Advent season, then, is about seeing God in unexpected places and ways.
The question is –
Are you awake and alert to God coming among us?
Are you ready to be surprised by God?
Take heart! God is coming to make things right.