Nov. 27, 2022
First Sunday in Advent
Isaiah 2:1-5
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 24:36-44
Psalm 122
I saw it on the rear bumper of an ancient Volkswagon bus in a grocery store parking lot in Black Mountain, North Carolina. The vehicle looked like it had “done hard time” on most of the highways and the backroads of at least the South.
Alongside faded stickers proclaiming” “Make Love, Not War”, “Peace” and adverts for a defunct Rock band was one which looked new. It read, in bold capital letters: “JESUS IS COMING AGAIN, LOOK BUSY”.
How appropriate for this first Sunday in Advent 2023!
Might we have taken too lightly things like Jesus’s promise: …..“if I go away…… I will come again and take you to myself”?
Jesus’s early followers thought he meant something like “Excuse me for a minute, I’ll be right back”. But that is not what he meant!
But he didn’t come right back and his followers have been wondering ever since about what he meant?
The return of Jesus, the Christ, and of God’s reign over a renewed and transformed world is deeply embedded in scripture and tradition. The writers of scripture take it for granted that, at some point in time, God will “ring down the curtain” on creation as we know it and bring forth an entirely new creation, a new heaven and a new earth based entirely in God’s love and care for all and the creatures that inhabit it. Our readings today, from the prophet Isaiah, the apostle Paul, and from the mouth of Jesus himself, affirm it.
But why are we talking about this return of Jesus and the establishment of God’s kingdom on this first Sunday of Advent? Aren’t we supposed to be looking ahead to the events of Christmas? That’s what many in the world that surrounds us seem to believe.
Well, it’s because the Advent of God as a human being in our midst in the person of Jesus Christ is a crucial step on the pathway that leads to the establishment of the Rule of God in that new heaven and new earth so long proclaimed by so many.
Astrologers seeing a new star on the horizon and marveling at its appearance are wondering what it might mean. They’re deciding to follow it and see where it might lead, no matter how long that might take.
In Nazareth, an unmarried teenager is largely pregnant and is dealing with the wagging tongues of her scandalized community.
In Palestine, vengeful and cruel governor has decided he needs to take a census so that he can better wring every bit of tax revenue out of the subjugated people he governs but despises. That will mean lots of displaced people and refugees.
It’s all part of a broad, vast plan stretching from the ordering of infinite chaos in Creation to the culmination of it all in the establishment of that new heaven and new earth which will last into infinity.
Let that sink in for a minute!
Then let’s ask ourselves: “Where are wein this story?”
Well friends, each of us is right in the middle of it!
We look back and marvel at the ways God has brought God’s plan for the world into reality.
We look ahead and find ourselves equally mystified as we marvel at the promised “New Creation”!
It’s been called “the already; not yet” of the Kingdom.
Events shaping the foretold event that will happen in a shed in a town called Bethlehem are beginning to fall into place.
So, let’s take a look forward.
Isaiah challenges us, “….come, let us walk in the light of the Lord”!
St. Paul cautions, “…..You know what time it is, how it is the moment for you to awake from sleep.….put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”
And Jesus himself says, “Therefore you must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
So…… the message seems clear:
No “dwaddling”!
No “sleeping at the switch”!
No “dozing at the tiller”!
No hand wringing!
No self-indulgent flirtation with the lures of the world around us and the crush of temptation to take the easy way out!
Sure, the world is a mess!
Raging pandemics.
Climate change and devastation of the environment.
International and domestic terrorism.
Homelessness.
Refugees.
Hunger.
Political gridlock.
But God is steadily and inexorably going about the business of bringing God’s Kingdom into reality even as we sit here this morning remembering how awful a lot of things are.
And God is enlisting our assistance in this cosmic and eternal project!
So……..
Let’s look at the message on that bumper sticker again.
Maybe we ought to adopt something different: How about:
“JESUS IS COMING AGAIN, GET BUSY”!
We have no idea when or how God’s grand scheme for creation will reach that great denouement, that grand “gathering together” of all the frayed strands of history and of human life.
A wise person has said, “We can wait in hope because we wait in memory!”
Presently we will gather to partake of Our Lord’s Body and Blood, “The Great Remembering”!
That ought to encourage us!
That simple act which we’ve done so many times together in the past constitutes our best hope for the future!
If nothing else, it ought to remind us of Who is in charge!
So, let’s remember this as we eat and drink together.
Then, let’s “move out” together into the work of helping make the Kingdom a reality!
It will come into being through millions and millions of small acts of love and kindness by millions and millions of folks just like us.
If we start now we can do it!
We can do it because…..
“JESUS IS COMING AGAIN!”
Thanks be to God!
Amen!
