Originally preached on November 30, 2008, the first Sunday of Advent, at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio UCC.
Isaiah 64:1-9 Mark 13:24-37
Dedicated to Betsy on the weekend of our anniversary; and always to the glory of God.
Today I’m going to preach about the second coming of Christ. This may not be a subject you have spent much time thinking about, or that you expected to hear about this morning. Or, it may be something you have thought about a great deal. My fear is that it is a part of our Christian faith that has been confused by those who talk about it with wild predictions and fearful words, but we’ll get to that.
Let us pray: God of light in the darkness, illuminate the eyes of our hearts, that we may receive your word of hope, of faith, and of love. Amen.
This is the first Sunday in the season of Advent, which is a word that means “arrival” or “coming.” In this season, we prepare to celebrate the arrival of Jesus Christ, born to Mary in Bethlehem so many years ago. It is a story from the past that shapes us in the present: the first coming of Christ.
Isaiah gave voice to those who waited for a messiah, waited for God to tear open the heavens and come down. We know that it happened. God did tear open the heavens and came to us, only not exactly how Isaiah had thought that God would come, with power and might on display. Instead God came as a baby, who would live and grow as one of us, sharing our common lot; knowing what our lives are like, so that he may show us what our lives could be. Isaiah’s hope has come to pass.
Advent is also about the future arrival of Christ, who will return to complete the work that he began: to heal what is broken, to bring goodwill to humankind and on earth, peace. This is also the hope of Advent.
In Mark’s Gospel Jesus tells his disciples about the time to come when he will come in clouds with great power and glory. He tells them to wait with a watchful eye, like a doorkeeper watching in the night for the master of the house to return. In worship, when we proclaim that “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again,” we become those who are watching for God in the night.
Advent is a time when we look backwards and forward. Looking back, we proclaim that Jesus Christ has already come to reconcile the world to God. All is forgiven; grace has been granted; and evil is conquered. And yet…still, all is not yet right in the world. Christ has not yet made a new heaven and a new earth, has not wiped away every tear, has not brought peace to all the world. We live between the words “already” and “not yet.” We live in the middle of the story, but even in the middle, we know how it ends, and what a difference that makes. Imagine earlier times in your own lives that you would have lived much differently if you had known how uncertainty would be resolved. Imagine the confidence you would have brought to a time of fear or anxiety. For us, knowing the end of the story is what it means to have faith in the second coming of Christ.
It means that when we read the news reports from Mumbai, India of the innocent lives lost, or the reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, where soldiers and civilians are injured and killed, we trust that bombs and bullets will not have the last word. It means that when we hear the stories of neighbors having to choose between paying the heat bill and buying groceries, we trust that want and hunger will not have the last word. It means that tomorrow, on World AIDS day, when we remember the devastation caused by this disease in every corner of the world, we trust that illness will not have the last word. The second coming means that God will have the last word. We light candles and trust that the advent of Christ will set all things right in the end. And just as the birth of Christ in the past can shape our lives in the present, so the future coming of Christ also shapes our lives here and now.
To understand this frame of mind, it’s helpful to turn to our storytellers. One modern story of hope is told in the movie The Shawshank Redemption, set in Shawshank Prison. It is the story of men who have done terrible things which cannot be denied, but it is also the story of how the cruelty and despair of prison life slowly diminishes their souls. In one scene, a prisoner finds himself alone in an administrative office, reviewing books and records that have come for the prison library. He picks up a recording of one of Mozart’s operas and places it on the turntable. Then he realizes that the microphone for the prison’s speakers sits on the desk next to him. He locks the door and for several minutes broadcasts the music, a duet, to the entire prison. Every man stands still, in the prison yard of dirt and rocks, in the woodshop and laundry rooms where they labor, every man stares silently at the loudspeakers. One prisoner says later: “I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about…. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.” That’s what it means to know that the present moment is not the last word. We get glimpses of it, and it changes the shape of our lives.
But first there are some warnings we need to pay attention to, like the warnings you might read in the directions of some power tool. These are things that can do great work, but using their power carelessly, or in the wrong way, can do great harm.
The first warning is that the second coming is not for us to speculate about or make predictions. I think that one of the reasons why we in the mainline Protestant and Catholic churches don’t talk very often about the second coming of Christ is that there’s not much to tell in terms of specifics. There have been lots of people who think they know just how it will happen and event the date, but in century after century they have always been wrong, and the more they speculate, the more ridiculous the whole thing seems. Jesus said “about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the father.” Speculation and the prediction are dead ends. It’s got to be more than that.
The second warning is this: we can never assume that our own politics or agenda will be served by the second coming. This is not the time when all our enemies get what’s coming to them. This is the other problem with the predictors: it just happens that their enemies turn out to be the enemies of Christ. For years it was Russia who would be defeated by a triumphant returning Christ. Then it was Baghdad, the site of ancient Babylon and our newest enemy, and now it may be Iran. For those who didn’t like the United Nations, they predicted an anti-Christ there, and even in this country, political rivals are named the enemy of Christ in anonymous writings. All of this makes the mistake of thinking that when Christ comes back he will be different than he was before – as if he will make the world right by destroying his enemies. This kind of vengeance is totally at odds with the character of God, revealed to us in Jesus, who offered healing not only to the poor and powerless of Israel, but to Roman soldiers who occupied their land. He offered forgiveness not only to repentant sinners, but to the ones who crucified him. When Jesus comes to make all things new, he won’t do it by destroying evil but by transforming it, and reconciling all of creation to God. Any vision of the second coming which imagines that God would cause violence and suffering to increase goes against the life of Jesus Christ.
A third warning: Do not wait for God to do everything for us. When we read the New Testament, remember that these people expected Jesus to return within their lifetimes. And so Paul is writing to some of them who have decided that it doesn’t make much sense to plant crops, tend animals, or do maintenance on their homes. It’s not going to last anyway. Paul tells them to get back to the sacred work of caring for one another. Christ came and showed us how to live, told us to love other as he loves us. Showed us that peace can stand up to violence, love can conquer fear, and grace can transform hatred. It isn’t complete yet, but it has been started. Jesus said the kingdom of God is among you, so instead of waiting for God to make everything new in the end, we can work in our corner of the world to make it new right now.
Advent calls us to do just that. In our national news we’ve been following this strange time between the election and the inauguration of our new president, a time every four or eight years when the President-Elect has to wait until inauguration, but in the waiting there is much great work to be done. There’s always a transition team bringing great skill and creativity to their work. This is our image for Advent. We know what’s going to happen but it hasn’t happened yet, and we are God’s transition team. We can’t solve every problem or cure every ill. But we can solve this problem. We can cure this ill. We can give a bit more of ourselves, of our resources, our time, our love and attention to someone else. And how freeing it is to know it finally doesn’t depend on us alone, because God’s going to have the last word. We trust in the second coming not with specific predictions but with our faith put into action.
In this season of Advent, I invite you to do more than preparing for the celebration of Christmas with presents and treats and decorations. Those things are wonderful expressions of our joy, and they make this a magical time of year, but I invite you to let them be just the beginning of our preparation. Let us prepare for the coming of Christ by finding ways to create the kind of world that God will bring to completion.
You might suggest to certain people that instead of exchanging gifts, you might make donations in each other’s names, like a check to the Akron-Canton Foodbank or to the United Church of Christ Neighbors in Need fund.
You might send a card or even a dinner invitation to that person you are finally ready to forgive, because not forgiving is causing you too much hurt.
You might simply create a time of quiet this week at dinner to light one candle for hope, and two candles the next week, then three and four. Light candles and pray for God to heal this world. Light candles as a way to keep watch in the night.
Jesus tells his disciples to “keep awake,” and that is the word for the season of Advent. We wait in a night that often seems dark and cold, and we watch for God to come into the world and into our lives with a new movement of God’s soul healing grace and world changing love. It will be so, it will be so. Amen
Let us pray:
O God, you came to us a baby lying in a manger, and you dwell among us still. By faith, we trust that you will come again to make all things new. So call us to live in the holy present, help us to respond in these sacred moments to those small broken places where we can share your healing grace. Amen
