Mixed Signals

This sermon was preached at First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on December 3, 2006, the first Sunday in Advent.

Jeremiah 33:14-16
Psalm 25:1-10
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

There is a common expression from sports that I suspect all of us are familiar with, “Heads up!” When you hear this yelled on a playing field, it generally means that there is a ball in the air and the players should be alert to where it’s falling. It’s not uncommon to hear this call from the stands of a ball game either. Fly balls are as likely to hit a spectator as they are a fielder. So if you are at the ball game, sitting in the sun, enjoying the warmth of the day, and you hear someone yell, “Heads up!” you can be sure that the ball is coming, maybe even into your section. Golfers have a different version of this warning. It is their time honored tradition to yell “Fore” when an errant shot approaches another group.

Growing up I had a friend named Keith Manies[1]. We played baseball together in the Cub Scouts. Keith and I often played in the outfield. At the time, we thought that our coach must have been a religious man because when Keith and I were in the outfield, we could hear him pray to God that nobody would hit a ball anywhere near either of us. Anyway, it seemed that every week a ball would be hit toward Keith in the outfield. Of course, everyone would yell, “Heads up!” and just as naturally, Keith would take one to the melon. Now, I know this didn’t happen every week, it just seemed that way, especially the way the story has grown over time. Our parents would tell this story as if Keith got beaned every game. My point is that yelling “Heads up!” wasn’t particularly effective because every time Keith looked up, it was just in time to take a fly ball to the noggin.

So really, in this case, “heads up” meant something closer to “duck and cover.” Mixed signals, it seems that there are mixed signals everywhere. This gospel reading, a description of the coming of the Son of Man and an exhortation to watch, contains what we could consider mixed signals.

The first part of today’s gospel reading I want to consider is from verses 25 through 28, the warnings Jesus gives his disciples. This begins with “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.” This is extraordinary. But at the same time, these warnings are in line with others found in Luke 21. This chapter contains warnings for the disciples about the destruction of the temple (which we looked at two weeks ago in Mark’s gospel) and the destruction of Jerusalem. All in all, this chapter of Luke contains some dire warnings. They begin with the temple, expand to the city, and end here with the powers of the heavens being shaken.

So, the disciples have been warned: the temple will fall, Jerusalem will fall, and the heavens, earth, and seas will be upturned to the point that people will faint from fear. But Jesus is not all gloom and doom. Jesus offers the disciples this encouragement, “Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads.” Literally, Jesus says when these things begin to happen, “heads up!” The Lord is coming in glory.

Now, this is wonderful and glorious. It is the event the church has waited for since before there was the church. But please pardon me, because this also sounds a little like my Cub Scout baseball experience and Keith Manies is about to get hit in the head…with the cosmos.

Yes, the Lord comes with power and great glory, but is still terrifying. Let’s begin with the signs of Jesus’ coming, they are very frightening—scripture tells us so. But let’s add one more thing to this—The Lord is coming—coming—and as glorious as this is for Christ and the body of his believers, we can’t homogenize his return so that our reaction to it is to bask in it like the glow of a warm summer day. The things that foretell Jesus’ arrival are terrifying. And Jesus riding in on this wave to conquer it all will probably be pretty frightening too. We cannot and we must not forget this. When we get the “heads up” we had better take it as the warning it is intended to be.

But we must also not forget we are to look up because our redemption is drawing near. This is again a mixed signal, when Jesus comes again he and we will be surrounded by terrifying things. And this is when our redemption is drawing near. This is the redemption which the disciples so longingly and painfully awaited. This redemption will mean release from afflictions and persecutions. But this reference it not just to liberation from sin or payment of a ransom, it is “rooted in the Jewish hope of the kingdom of heaven and given new depth in the word and destiny of Jesus.”[2]

We must not be so grounded in the fearsome earthly signs of the coming of the Lord that we forget our redemption is near, and we must not be so blinded by the light of the Lord that we are blind to the strife around us.

The mixed signal is here. We cannot afford to miss either half of the signal. When these things happen, there will be much to fear, and much to rejoice.

When these things happen…or to ask this as a question, when will these things happen? This next mixed signal is a very difficult one. In verse 32, Jesus tells the disciples: “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.” Well, the triumphant return of Jesus has not been seen on this earth, and more than one generation has passed since Jesus made this statement. This is where I would usually tell you about some quirky little context of the Greek that is missing from our English translations. Well, no body is more disappointed than me to say that isn’t going to happen.

The word used here for generation means just that, generation. It means what we understand as a generation the way Tom Brokaw wrote about The Greatest Generation. The generation here means a group of contemporaries like the World War II generation, Baby Boomers, Gen Xer’s, Millennials, and so on. Jesus is aiming at the whole people, not just a small subset of the population.[3] He said to his disciples that you and your peers will not pass before these things happen.

This must have been a very stressful thing to hear back in the day. But there is more. Scholars tell us that Luke’s gospel was written in about 75 AD. Jerusalem fell to Rome in 70 AD, five years earlier. These warnings, these signs, this encouragement came five years after the fall. I could be glib and say that it is easy to prophesy the fall of a city five years after its destruction. But consider too that Jesus died about 30 AD. About 45 years had passed since Jesus said “this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.” It may be glib to prophesy events that have all ready happened, but what is it called when events are prophesied that did not and could not happen? The disciples are told that their generation will not pass away until these things happen, but that generation had passed by the time this was written. As far as I am concerned, the signals don’t get much more mixed than that.

To me, the key rests in the last part of our reading, “Be on 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. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 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.”

Yes, these horrendous things will happen, they will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. There will be worries and there will be danger. These things cannot be avoided and they will not be avoided. Take heart, be courageous, pray for the strength to escape these things and stand before the Son of Man. We are to pray for the strength to escape these things and stand before the Son of Man.

There is only one way to do this, just one. We say that the church is the body of Christ on earth. This is the same as saying that through us, our heads, hands, and hearts, we are called to do the work of Christ until he returns. We are to spread the good news of his presence: then, now, and in the future. Scripture tells us we do this by sharing what we have, visiting those who are ill, lifting the sick of heart. We are to give like the widow whose story is told at the beginning of Luke 21, the widow who gave all that she had so that she may have even more.

Mixed signals. Advent means coming, to us it means the coming of our Lord Jesus. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to earth as a baby born to an unwed mother. He was born in the squalor of an animal pen. He was and is God incarnate (and that verb tense is enough of a mixed signal). He called the church universal to seek him and follow him and follow his lead in miraculous work. And he promises his return in power and great glory. Such might and majesty from something so small and delicate; something so frightening and still so encouraging; one who has passed from the earth and continues to live today on earth as he does in heaven.

The church was created as a model of the life and work of Christ. And because of this, in its own way, the church is—is—the coming of Jesus on earth. Our work in Christ is for the redemption of the world. Though we cannot redeem the world, we have a role in this redemption, the role given the church by our Lord. Make no mistake; while the church is the body of Christ, it is no substitute for the real thing. When the Lord returns in his glory and majesty there will be no mistaking that the church pales in comparison. But the church is how our Lord walks among his people today.

The church rides on the wake of the tragedy and travesty of the world. And as the church riding in the wake of destruction we are called to respond to that destruction, the brokenness of humanity and creation. We are called as representatives, emissaries of the Lord our God in this broken world. It is frightening and it is glorious. Yes, we will be like Keith Manies and take one to the gourd every now and then. But you know what, Keith caught his fair share of balls hit his way too. Heads up, the ball is coming. The Lord is coming in power and great glory.

As God comes, let us reflect the light of God in the world.

[1] Not his real name.
[2] Kittel, TDNT, v. IV, page 351.
[3] Ibid, v. I, page 663.