The Sky Is Falling

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday November 30, 2008, the 1st Sunday in Advent.

Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37

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

If you’ve watched the news, read the paper, checked out a magazine, or surfed the web lately, you will have all of the evidence you need to think that the sky is falling.

Let’s start right here at home where David Davis Chevrolet has closed. Because of personal tragedy and a harsh economy, our local GM dealer has closed laying off twenty people. This isn’t a Yugo dealer; this is a Chevy dealer closing its doors.

Another victim of the economy is DHL Shipping which is closing its American operations. How bad does the economy have to be for a company to decide to close its American subsidiary and focus overseas? This may sound biased, but that’s not how I intend it. When a company decides every market it serves on earth is better than America, something’s happening.

A quick trip to the mall shows a bunch of stores in trouble. The stock price of Little Rock’s very own Dillard’s has dropped from just over $23 per share to under $4 in less than a year because their revolving credit line has dried up with JP Morgan. Other stores like Talbots, Pier 1, and Eddie Bauer are taking it hard too.[1]

Just to make all things seem even more wrong, Rite Aid pharmacy is on its way down the financial tubes. When a pharmacy is losing money, it’s no wonder financial pundits are crying like the sky is falling.

And to put the cherry on the ice cream sundae of disaster, a meteorite, estimated to be ten feet in diameter, fell on Alberta last week. One writer said that if it had been ten times bigger it could have wiped out Edmonton.[2] So literally, the sky is falling.

Speaking of Rite Aid, I don’t blame you for wondering if I haven’t gone off of my medication. The same thought crossed my mind. If nothing else, it may be time to get my meds adjusted.

Of course, we aren’t the first to suffer woes. In the time that Mark’s gospel was written, the church was facing difficulty. By this time, there were obvious differences between Jews and Christians.

Christians were being blamed for the woes of the Empire. Christians were made the scapegoats for Rome’s burning during the reign of Nero.[3] Leaders of the Church, including Peter and Paul, were being jailed and crucified. So it was no wonder that toward the end of this Gospel, there is significant attention to pain and suffering.

The siege of Jerusalem was just around the corner. About this time, the Jews had captured the Roman garrison complex at Masada. War and rumor of war were brewing. To the faithful, it must have seemed that creation was hanging on by a thread. Life as they knew it had changed upon recognizing the Christ and their responsibility to Him and His reign on earth. As their leaders were being beaten, tortured, and killed; turmoil was the order of the day.

I imagine to them it looked like the sky was falling. It’s no wonder bible editors call this passage “the Little Apocalypse.”

Many in this world are in situations not unlike the Christians of Mark’s day. We are at the end of our ropes. We are hanging over the abyss. Christians are facing loss of life and liberty across the planet. The name of Christ is being misrepresented in the name of war and in the name of commerce.

Mark describes this well, whether he intended his situation in 65 AD or ours today when he wrote,

“But in those days, after that suffering,
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”

These images weren’t lost on the people. They are from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Joel. There would be suffering and then the world will be in darkness. The laws of physics are suspended as all that we know as right is gone and even the powers in the heavens will be shaken. The sky is falling and we are at the end of our ropes; what shall we do?

What we should do is the scariest thing a 21st Century American can imagine. I say let go of the rope.

That’s right, let go of the rope.

You might well be thinking right now it would be an even better time for me to check my meds, and you may well be right. But before you think me cruel in my suggestion, let me make one more, we need to release all of the presumed control we have over our lives and the lives of others and release it right now. We need to fall into are the arms of the loving God.

Our reading from Isaiah confesses to the Lord “There is no one who calls on your name or attempts to take a hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us.”[4] “The Lord has delivered us into the power of our own iniquities.”[5] After this confession, Isaiah continues “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”[6]

Isaiah confesses the Lord hides from us because we have been delivered into our own iniquities, our own sins. Yet, we also confess that the Lord is in control and molds us as a potter molds the clay. When we drop into the arms of the Lord, the Lord will catch us and mold us.

Our reading from the Psalms is a cry for restoration;

“Restore us, O God of hosts;
Show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

The psalm makes this plea three times. We beg for light from the face of God that we be saved. And surely this is true when we release our own concerns and take up the ones we are commanded to accept from God.

Paul’s writings in 1Corinthians go on to remind us that it is all right to let go of our ropes because what the Lord provides is so much better than whatever we scratch and claw. In Christ Jesus we are enriched in every way. We do not lack in any spiritual gift as we wait for the Lord to be revealed. In Christ we are strong so that we will be blameless on the day of the Lord.

Alfred Delp expresses these sentiments saying:

We must let go of all our mistaken dreams, our conceited poses and arrogant gestures, all the pretenses with which we hope to deceive ourselves and others. If we fail to do this, stark reality may take hold of us and rouse us forcibly in a way that will entail both anxiety and suffering.[7]

When we hang onto the ropes of our concerns, worrying about falling into the abyss that is both the known and unknown terrors of our lives, we cling to nothing but fear and dread that one day we may fall.

We fear that we may become victims of what our lives have in store for us. And this is surely why we are called to release our expectations and be molded into the life the Lord intends. We are to use the gifts God has given us. We are to use them seeking restoration of God’s good creation. To do this, we are called to be aware.

We are called to be aware because we do not know when the time will come. So as we drop from our ropes, we are called to keep alert because Jesus is coming. And as we read last week, we know the Lord is here now. We fall into the arms of the ever-loving God when we serve the poor which we do today in our tithes and next week in the Two-Cents-a-Meal offering.[8]

We read from Matthew’s gospel last week, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Walter J. Burghardt said, “Here is your Advent: Make the Christ who has come a reality, a living light, in your life and in some other life. Give of yourself… to one dark soul… with no conditions”[9]

The Advent of the Lord is coming, literally. You see, Advent comes from the Latin for “coming.” Jesus has come. Jesus is here now. Jesus will come again.

Given the way the sky is falling, this is our only hope, the hope of all Christians. In the words of William Sloane Coffin, “hope is what’s still there when all your worst fears have been realized.”[10] So be hopeful; and take heed, keep on the alert; for we do not know when the appointed time will come.

[1] AOL Money and Finance, “Big Retailers Which May Close or Downsize,” http://money.aol.com/investing/big-retailers-which-may-close-or-downsize?photo=1, retrieved November 27, 2008
[2] Easterbrook, Gregg, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/081125&campaign=rsssrch&source=page2, retrieved November 28, 2008.
[3] New Interpreter’s Study Bible, vol. viii. Leander Keck, General Editor, Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1995, pages 514-515,
[4] Isaiah 64:7a New Revised Standard Version
[5] Isaiah 64:7b, New American Standard Bible
[6] Isaiah 64:8
[7] Delp, Alfred, The Prison Meditation of Alfred Delp. Herder and Herder, 1968, published with permission of The Crossroad Publishing Company in “An Advent Sourcebook.” Thomas J. O’Gorman, Editor. Chicago: Archdiocese of Chicago, Liturgy Training Publications, 1988, page 9.
[8] The Two-Cents-a-Meal offering, also known as the Cents-Ability offering is taken by the First Presbyterian Church on behalf of three hunger relief missions and collected by the Presbytery of Arkansas. A portion of our regular tithes and offerings also go to support the Salvation Army and the Loaves and Fishes Food Bank of the Ozarks.
[9] Burghardt, Walter J., “Sir, We Would Like to See Jesus.” Paulist Press, 1982 in “An Advent Sourcebook.” Thomas J. O’Gorman, Editor. Chicago: Archdiocese of Chicago, Liturgy Training Publications, 1988, page 9.
[10] Coffin, William Sloane, The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years, Volume 1, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, page 137.