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From December 3, 2006 "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken." Excuse me. What's going on? Isn't today the first Sunday of Advent? What's this with the fainting and the sense of foreboding? Where is our familiar angel Gabriel? Where is our taken-by-surprise peasant girl, Mary? Why aren't we beginning at the beginning? I mean, isn't Advent all about a birth? Isn't that why we have carefully unwrapped our nativity sets and arranged them just so? Just what are we doing this first Sunday in Advent beginning at the end of Luke? The only thing I can think is that there is something wrong with the lectionary. A misprint maybe? Advent. This word has Latin roots and means "the arrival of something momentous." For Christians, we know this "something" to be the birth of the Christ Child two thousand years ago. Advent is the holy season for remembering God's faithfulness to Israel, which is also God's faithfulness to the human family. It is a time of hearing again the prophets boldly proclaim God's promise of a savior. Advent isn't really Advent without Jeremiah. "I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David," we hear the prophet say on God's behalf. This new, strong shoot you and I already know by name: Jesus Christ. In Advent, we look back to long ago to the prophets and the promises they carried to us. And we find there so much that thrills and comforts us, so much that gives us reason to praise God for God's stunning, saving goodness that would break into human history as a newborn. But there is a second advent. One that lies ahead of us, not behind. This second advent doesn't come wrapped in swaddling clothes, cooing in the night. This one comes dressed in power and glory to bring forth the fullness of the Kingdom of God. This event, this second advent, goes by a name we don't much hear during the season of Advent: the Second Coming. Now I don't know what other churches do with this during Advent. Here in the United Church of Christ we tend to avoid it if we can. Instead of looking toward God's future, we revisit the past. We prefer to recall what God has already done rather than prepare ourselves for what God intends to do. Standing with God in the present, holding fast to the richness of the past, Advent asks us to turn toward God's undisclosed future. Which is why we begin this holy season today not with news of the baby's impending birth but with news that there is a time still to come, an advent yet to be--the timing of which we cannot predict but only anticipate--when the Prince of Peace will come again. And when he does, all that God has ever promised will come into glorious fullness. This first Sunday of Advent, it's more than shepherds and stars that God would have us watch and wait for. You and I are to be about the spiritual work of anticipating God's promise of a future time, a time when redemption draws near and the Kingdom of God is at last what we know and inhabit. A time when the Son of Man is present among us in a way we've never before known and bids us come to him. So as compelling as it is to watch the night sky over Bethlehem, we are also to be watching for indications of the coming of the Son of Man. Watching with keen attention. Be alert, Jesus says succinctly in Luke. Luke's words this morning certainly carry a sense of urgency, a cosmic urgency even. Everywhere there will be signs, signs that God is at work in the present so as to draw us into God's future. Into a future in which only God's love prevails. By the time God's work of love is complete, everything that is not love will have fallen away. If Luke's words carry a tone of cosmic urgency--and they do--they also manage to elicit feelings of uneasiness and even outright fear. Why? Because to those words have been added other words, other images. Every generation has heard how Christ's second coming is fast approaching and those doing the proclaiming have often been more than willing to elaborate on the horrors that will befall those whom Christ finds unprepared. If you've read any of the Left Behind novels, you know what I mean. End-time proclaimers typically preach fear. And it's easy to understand why. Because what Jesus describes in Luke this morning is fearsome. It's God's creation moving in reverse: order is taken over by chaos, stars become entangled, the sun and moon lose their way, sea and waves roar in wild commotion. (Thomas Troeger) Many of us prefer not to think about what might happen when the end time comes. And if we do, our imaginations tend to get the better of us. Certainly this was the case for me growing up in the Bible belly-button of California, where end time talk was fairly common among my fundamentalist friends. I remember one day looking up into the sky and seeing a huge opening in the clouds, one that had an eerie, supernatural quality about it. Any minute now, I decided, Jesus will reach down through that opening and take all the ones he really loves, just like some have been saying would happen. And what if he doesn't reach for me? And what about all the other people who don't get scooped up? As I contemplated that possibility, I was struck with the terrifying thought of being left to languish in a world Jesus had no further interest in saving. As we think together this morning about what Jesus has to say about his return, his second advent, first and foremost remember how gently he came the first time. Remember the grand sweep of his ministry. Remember also what Jesus preached. Jesus constantly preached trust in God's boundless love, not fear of God's unpredictable wrath. That same trust Christ reaches today in Luke. When the end of time comes and everything begins changing, Jesus doesn't tell us to hide in the nearest closet or cower in the basement or locate the nearest bomb shelter. He tells us to stand up and raise our heads. Why? Because when redemption draws near it will be governed not by wrath but by love. By a love that surpasses anything we have ever known. We have enough fear about enough things. Let's not allow fear to grab hold of us now. Instead, let us think differently about this ending Jesus speaks of. Is it not possible that signs of an ending are really signs of a new beginning? And not just any new beginning but one launched and tended to by a God whose promises are always grounded in love, a God whose capacity to create always remains viable. Signs of things ending are, in Jesus' words, like the budding green on the fig tree... an indication that something life-giving and fruitful is happening. There is another advent, one that awaits us. One that we need not anticipate with fear but with confidence. If the present is not fixed but is changing, as Jesus says, if our creating God sees fit for even heaven and earth to fall away, then we can be people of hope. Why? Because God will see to it that everything that isn't love will fall away. Everything except love will fall away. Memories so painful we dare not touch them. Beliefs so favored we are imprisoned by them. Habits so practiced we are drained by them. Expectations so fixed we are perpetually disappointed. Ideas about ourselves that keep us small. Desires. Resentments. Brokenness. There is another advent. One to anticipate. A time when everything except love will fall away. What will change? Our affairs with violence, greed, and competition. Our fear of differences among people. Our tolerance for injustice. Everything we ever thought impossible to change, will. For this is the promise of the second advent--complete redemption, utter wholeness, the inevitable and unalterable reign of God. So, a tremendous invitation this first Sunday of Advent. The invitation to stand up and raise our heads--to come alive and be engaged. Stand up and raise our heads, reaching out toward the yet-to-come, taking note of how God is drawing us toward that day, that time when love and only love reigns. Watch and wait. Watch and wait... with hope, not fear or foreboding. Everything God creates is borne of love. For what is not borne of love is not borne of God. Surely the baby whose birth we both remember and anticipate, surely he taught us this. Amen. © Rev. Karen Winkel |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie Allen
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