Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent, December 1, 2024
Jeremiah 33:14-16+Psalm 25:1-9+1 Thessalonians 3:9-13+Luke 21:25-36
There is a meme that pops up on social media every so often that seems to have as its source some random guy named Matthew. I have no idea if it is original to him nor can I accurately attribute it, but this is it:
People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider webs. It's not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go.
Hope is tough. Hope is resilient. Hope is fearless. And this is the kind of hope you need to show up here on the First Sunday of Advent in the Year of Our Lord 20 and 24 and listen to the readings we have on offer.
End times, justice and righteousness, the power of the heavens shaking.
And even though you may have shown up here longing for comfort and joy, that is not what Advent serves up. At least not today.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all have some version of what is called a little apocalypse just preceding the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. We are accustomed to thinking of an apocalypse as a disaster or something catastrophic, and when we look at these readings, there does seem to a clear sense of foreboding. But the word apokálypsis in Greek means to uncover or disclose or reveal. Jesus is letting his followers in on something that had been previously hidden. Maybe he is situating it in time, referring to the destruction of the temple or the thunderous violence of Rome, but he is also pointing forward in our direction. The question for us is what we are to make of all of this and why is all this talk of gloom and doom throwing a wet blanket on my Christmas preparations?
There is temptation aplenty to try read these words literally and to figure out when the end times are coming. I think the latest guess is May 21, 2025, at 6:00pm, just in case you want to start planning for that.[1] You might want to go ahead and take that dream vacation you've put off for so long.
I am not in the prediction-making business, and I sometimes find these words of Jesus to be as confounding as you probably do, but Luke is not just drawing words out of the air and putting them in Jesus's mouth. Some of these predictions and portents are found in the Hebrew scriptures with which Jesus would have been very familiar, and in some of them, we can find parallels or contrasts in what has come before in Luke's narrative.
In a few weeks we will read the words, "This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger” (2:12) whereas here, the signs in the sun and the moon (21:25) anticipate the risen Jesus. The humility of the infant being "wrapped...in bands of cloth and laid... in a manger" (2:7) here becomes "the Son of Man coming...with power and great glory" (21:27). The warnings we have here of "people fainting with fear and foreboding" (21:26) first heard a message of "good news of great joy for all people" (2:10). Yes, our story is filled with paradox, just as this season of Advent is. We are preparing for that child to be born even as we look for Christ's coming again.
But how do we do that? How do we prepare for we know not what nor when?
As the late William Barclay once said, “The best way to prepare for the coming of Christ is never to forget the presence of Christ.”
Instead of looking backwards toward the nativity story, let’s look ahead at what comes next after this little apocalypse. Today, Jesus says, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away" (21:33). And what are those words? We can take our pick from the next scenes the Passion narrative unfolds.
This is my body, given for you. This is my blood of the new covenant. (22:19, 20).
Father, forgive them. (23:34)
Today, you will be with me in paradise. (23:43)
Peace be with you. (24:36)
You are witnesses of these things. (24:38)
Week after week, we gather here and eat the bread and drink the cup and are reminded of Christ's sacrifice made once for all, with a promise that we will never be abandoned or forsaken. We live in a liminal space where Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. And we tell the story over and over again as we look forward in hope. Not a warm, fuzzy, Pollyanna-ish optimism, but that kind of hope with scraped knees and dirty faces.
We have a hope that knows that we are not going to be able to bring about world peace, but that we can help one parent have a bit more peace not having to worry about Christmas gifts for their baby.
We can give hope to someone who is hungry by helping prepare a meal at the Shelter next Sunday evening.
We can welcome the stranger in our midst by supporting the Lighthouse when the powers that be are talking about mass deportations.
We can respond in love when those around us are wallowing in hate.
Back when our son Seth was studying acting at NYU, he loved regaling us with what he was learning, often recruiting us into serving as his acting partners if he needed to practice something. From a class on a David Mamet technique called Practical Aesthetics, Seth taught us that the actor responds to a given prompt "as if" there is some deeply personal meaning in that prompt, unlocking an imaginative idea of what could or might happen in a given scenario rather than drawing on some kind of past experience to play the scene.
We are, in a sense, acting out an "as if." Maybe we don't know when the end is coming but we live "as if" it is here. We continue in our baptismal promise, seeking and serving Christ, striving for justice and peace, loving our neighbors as ourselves, until that time comes. These portents of end times need not be terrifying or confusing. God is working out God's purposes in this world. Our job is to live in a state of watchfulness and hope, as if God's reign has come on earth as in heaven.