The Hope of Advents
The Hope of Advents
3rd December 2023
Mark 13:24-37
I have a confession: I’ve never been very good at remembering the theme for each Sunday of Advent.
Each week is meant to meant to have a focus:
Love, Joy, …patience, Kindness, self-control,
…Happy, Grumpy, Bashful, ...Donner, Dasher, Blitzen.
But I can read.
And so, I have discovered that this Sunday is meant to be Sunday of Hope.
So, that is what we will go with.
Is today’s Bible reading one of Hope?
Hearing this today, what feelings does it generate for you…?
The genre of writing is very much apocalyptic.
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. (vv24-25)
Full-on, right?
But it’s not meant to be scary.
This isn’t a threat about the annihilation of everything you know and love.
If you feel that a bit, I can understand.
Because our culture is so heavily influenced by a materialist worldview.
This attempts to describe all reality as what we can physically see, hear, touch and measure.
So a description about the destruction of the sun, moon and stars sounds like the end of everything there is.
But this passage doesn’t hold a materialist worldview.
And so this passage is NOT about the destruction of all we know and love.
The physical world around us, the planet, the cosmos – is all God’s creation – and is provisional (on God).
These apocalyptic words of Jesus are not to threaten us with destruction.
So what are they about?
They proclaim: ‘the normal ways are going to be upended’.
The calamitous descriptions of the sun, moon and stars recognise the creation we are part of is provisional,
in order to emphasise The One who is
Lord of everything.
It won’t always be forever that we have to endure that which ‘sucks’ now.
AND what we're used to and comfortable with, won't last either!
With a passage like this there is a real risk that our imaginations get carried away.
It’s amazing we can be trusted with a text like this, really.
So, to try and stay faithful to the genuine meaning, we need
1. God’s Spirit to help us.
(that’s why we have our ‘Prayer of Illumination’,
asking exactly that, each time we prepare for hearing the Word of God).
2. Another recognised way to stay faithful to the genuine meaning is to look at the context of the passage in scripture.
What comes straight after this passage in Mark’s Gospel?
Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion of Jesus.
This climax of the Gospel allows us to recognise what God is doing, and how to better be ready for what God is doing.
(I’ll come back to that idea in a moment)
Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion were calamitous, but aren’t events meant to scare us.
They show us
· how God chooses to work His purposes,
· how ‘the normal ways are going to be upended’,
· how God proclaims unexpected glory through the One who is Lord of everything – including life and death.
So, as Jesus talks about the NEXT time he will come, we benefit from understanding the FIRST time he came.
We are living in the moment between the First Advent and Second Advent – and the better we acknowledge (and celebrate) the first, the more likely we are to recognise the Second.
Think about that First Advent
(which we have SO MANY symbols and carols about):
The birth of Jesus was anticipated only by a few
and understood by no one.
But, as we recognise ourselves between the First Advent and Second Advent of Jesus, recognition of the First gives expectation and attentiveness for the second.
(And reassurance that we are not alone.)
If you’re still not sure these apocalyptic words of Jesus are not to threaten us with destruction,
look at the next description Jesus uses for the Second Advent:
From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. (v28)
So, let’s not have talk of destruction of the sun, moon and stars distract us!
Many voices claim to know what ‘time’ it is…
political crisis,
economic crisis,
military crisis,
ecological crisis,
…even ecclesiastical crisis
– they may all be ‘real’ but followers of Jesus are to look for …the Lord.
Christ comes again.
Disciples are to be ready, so as not to be caught unprepared.
This week, I’ve wondered if this ‘readiness’ Jesus urges for his Second Advent, might also be meaningful each person’s death – for us to be prepared for that moment?
At the funeral for Harriet Johnston we had here this week, we prayer the words:
Help us to live as those who are prepared to die.
And when our days here are accomplished,
enable us to die as those who go forth to live,
so that living or dying, our life may be in You,
and that nothing in life or in death will be able to separate us from Your great love in Christ Jesus our Lord.
From the very early days, Christians have believed that Jesus Christ comes again.
He comes again at the end of time;
a final return when he will bring to consummation everything he commenced at Bethlehem.
Christ is the Lord of history.
He is the destination of history.
He is the one true end; the one true Lord.
Not chaos, terrorism, war, greed, injustice, cruelty, neglect, survival of the fittest, War in the Middle East,
the disintegration of democracy,
or even world-wide self-destruction.
None of these negativities will rule!
Christ alone is the end, the destiny of humanity.
The future which will inevitably arrive with the glory of Christ who comes again.
To believe in the Christ who comes again is to live with a stubborn HOPE.
Evil may be noisy, boastful, and blatantly busy everywhere, but it will not win the final day.
The ultimate victory lies with Christ Jesus.
God brings light out of darkness and growth out of decay.
The Lord creates love where previously no skerrick of love seemed to exist.
Living now – between the First Advent and Second Advent isn’t a passive waiting.
From the ‘First Advent’ of Jesus, we have his words and actions to guide us;
to orient our lives to the future by being attentive to the revelation that is his life – shared with us.
(this is what we do when we gather together each week – most explicitly in Baptism and Communion)
Through the life shared through his words and actions,
Jesus introduced people to the hope that upends what had seemed ‘closed’ futures.
Futures seemingly unable to change - could suddenly open up to exciting new possibilities.
In Jesus' presence, the crowd lost its anonymity, and became men, women and children in need.
As Jesus moved among them, their dreams of future wholeness suddenly became present reality.
Jesus was alert at all times to the transforming power of God working in peoples' lives.
Friends, let us live with this same attentiveness to this Light of the World that comes again.
Let us live with HOPE for the Advent of Christ –
open to the possibilities of God’s goal, purpose, and destination of wholeness.
AMEN.