Coming

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday November 29, 2009, the 1st 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.

I don’t know if you heard the starter’s pistol on Friday morning, but it went off signaling the official beginning of the Christmas shopping season. The square is buzzing with activity. Wal-Mart is flooded with shoppers. The highways to Springfield and Branson; to Fayetteville, Springdale, and Rogers are burning up with drivers on their way to the malls.

If you missed this activity, I commend you and the rock you were living under. The sheet metal nativity is up on the square. The Christmas lights on the highway have been up for quite a while. Andy Williams is gracing the television calling this the “Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Maybe the worst part of all of this is that the Christmas advertising season began before the football season this year.[1] It’s one thing to start getting ready for Christmas before Thanksgiving; it’s quite another thing to start getting ready for it before Labor Day.

So as we prepare for the coming of the Christmas season we are met with one of the most Christmassy images in Holy Writ, the people fainting from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world followed by the Son of Man coming in a great cloud with power and glory. Yep, nothing says “Christmas” like the gory and the glory.

During this season of Advent we celebrate the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. A tremendous amount of our economy is tied around the litany of things holy and human wrapped into this season. So it just seems unusual that we begin this Advent season with the images of Second Coming, this isn’t the usual path to the first Christmas. But really, that, as much as any other, may be the point of selecting this reading to start the season.

We are accustomed to the coming of a little baby like the one in the sheet metal crèche on the square. This time, this expectation is turned on its ear. We read instead about what all Christians anticipate, the next coming of this same Christ with power and glory. We expect a baby; we get something we don’t expect.

A theologian once wrote:

Our time is a time of waiting; waiting is its special destiny. And every time is a time of waiting, waiting for the breaking in of eternity. All time runs forward. All time, both history and in personal life, is expectation. Time itself is waiting, waiting not for another time, but for that which is eternal.[2]

We wait. We wait for what has all ready come. We wait for what is coming. Especially during this time of year, our waiting and anticipating are of his joyful and glorious arrival. We will sing songs of great joy celebrating our Lord’s birth and the promise of his life. But here, in this text, while we anticipate the wondrous joy of a season still coming, we are confronted with a more shocking image.

A couple of weeks ago, we read from the beginning of this chapter of Luke. Today, we read from nearly the end. Remembering the beginning of Luke 21, we are warned of wars and rumors of wars. We are warned that nation will rise against nation. We read of famines and plagues. We read of earthquakes then of dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

Before this happens, yes before this happens we read that we will be arrested and persecuted; handed over to religious and civil authorities. We will be betrayed by our friends and our families; and some of us will be put to death for what we believe in and for whom we believe in. We will be accursed, hated for proclaiming the name of Jesus the Christ.

Returning to the horrors of our passage, there is one thing missing that I imagine we would like to hear. As for me, I would love to hear Jesus say, “Just kidding, phew! This is the stuff that will happen to unbelievers. You get a free pass on all of this horrible stuff. Yes I said you will be hated by all because of my name, but that’s just me pulling your leg.” I would really like to hear that.

Marie is so cute, when someone pulls her leg she often says “Pull the other one, it has bells on it.”

Good Lord in heaven, I would love it if Jesus promised that from the moment I first believed that these fears would be a part of my past and not of my future. I would love the “and they all lived happily ever after” ending, but that is not the promise Jesus makes for us in this world.

Instead, we are warned and we are encouraged. We are not told this will not go away, on the contrary, we are told to be on guard that our hearts are not weighted down “with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.” FYI—We have a handle on drunkenness and the worries of this life, but dissipation may be a new word for us. It means, “The nausea that follows a debauch.”[3] The passage is a warning not to worry so much about this life that we get so drunk so we become physically ill. Sage advice for any situation.

We are then told “Lift up your heads and be alert at all times praying that you may have the strength.” We are told to prepare. A hard rain’s gonna fall and there won’t be time to get an umbrella once it starts. Get prepared. Be alert and pray for strength.

There is a darkness which has, is and does come upon creation. But even the darkness, even the horror of a sin sick creation broken far beyond any intentions of our loving God, even this darkness has a value. Catholic theologian John Navone writes:

Darkness provides us with a therapeutic limit-experience, illuminating the meagerness of human resources for experiencing, understanding and communicating the divine. It reminds us that God alone has an adequate idea of who God is and that even our most successful efforts at understanding God are inadequate. When darkness induces modesty, humility, faith and trust, it leads to a communion with God as God really is; it frees us from the self-deception of worshiping Gods of our own making. Only the real God saves; not the illusion. The true Israelite is the wise person who makes a home ‘in the shadow of the Shaddai’[4] (the Almighty).

We are not promised the end of trials. We are not promised that our earthly tomorrows will be filled with peace and joy. On the contrary, this passage seems to promise that even after the day of our dear Savior’s birth there will be what I call “days like this.” The world will be filled with pain and strife. The world will continue to be a very scary place. As with every day since the first coming of the baby Jesus upon his creation, for better or for worse, people will continue to act like people. For better is the prayer, for worse is the expectation.

There is a darkness in our lives that is terrible, but can in Navone’s words be therapeutic. We are not to delude ourselves into believing that Jesus is a magic potion. Jesus is Lord, and it is when our darkness induces faith and trust that we are freed to be with and serve our Lord.

Our call is to not get tied into knots. Our vocation is to be watchful and pray for strength. We are to do this so that we may escape all of the things that are about to happen. We are not promised that the terror of life on earth ceases.

Instead we are promised that by the strength of Jesus, we may be able to escape these things and may be able to stand before him. We are to lift up our heads, be alert, and pray for strength so that we may escape the terror and stand before the Son of Man. This is how we live, and this is how we are to live, making our home in the shadow of the Shaddai.

There is terror in this world. We don’t have to look beyond these very walls to see the ravages of war and sickness, of natural disasters and economic calamity. There is uncertainty in this sanctuary over one and many matters. We all come with our individual worries and we come with our corporate worries.

And we come to the throne of grace. We come to the throne of peace. We come in the darkness created by the sin of generations before us and continuing in the sin of our own. We come seeking strength to escape the terror of life.

Now and forever, let us remember that the wolf is at the door, but it is by Christ’s power and glory—the glory that is coming and continues to come until he comes again in power—by Christ we may stand in his strength and not be laid low by the world.

[1] Easterbrook, Gregg, Tuesday Morning Quarterback, ESPN.com Page 2, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/090818&sportCat=nfl, retrieved November 29, 2009.
[2] Tillich, Paul, “The Shaking of the Foundations.” Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948.
[3] A. T. Robertson, “Word Pictures in the New Testament.” Vol. 2. The Gospel According to Luke. New York: Richard R. Smith, 1930, page 262.
[4] Navone, John, “The Jesus Story, Our Life as Story in Christ. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., The Liturgical Press, 1979.