"When You See These Things Taking Place..." (Reflections on Advent 1, Year C, 2021)

 

"Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:28) 

Yikes! 

Jesus seems to be painting a pretty nasty picture in our gospel lesson for Advent 1, Year C (Luke 21:25-36). What’s particularly nasty about it is that it looks like everything he’s talking about is coming true right now. If we’re not seeing signs in the sun and the moon, we’re certainly seeing some wild stuff here on earth. People may not be fainting with foreboding, but there’s more than enough foreboding to go around. Don’t you feel it? 

You don’t need a crystal ball or an angelic visitation to know that the whole world is at a tipping point. It may not be the end of the world, but it’s sure going to be the end of something—and it’s going to get scarier before it gets better. 

When Luke wrote his gospel (and we believe that was sometime around 85 CE although no one really knows for sure), things were looking rather grim. The Jewish people had launched an all-out war of revolution against their Roman overloads, and got soundly whooped. The great temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, and the whole theology of cultic sacrifice was shot to pieces. If you were a Sadducee, you were out of business. If you were an Essene hiding out in the desert waiting for God to intercede, you were disappointed. If you were a Zealot jihadist, you were killed in battle or crucified. If you were Jewish at all, your whole idea of what it meant to be God’s Chosen was something you might’ve started to question. 

Of course, Jesus knew all of this was going to happen, and he didn’t seem to be too alarmed about it. For just about everyone else, however, it was a time of devastating loss—and loss means pain. Even the anticipation of loss is painful, the fear that things are going to change and not be the way we’re comfortable with having them. 

Isn’t that where we’re at today? We hear on the news about climate change. We’re in a race against time, and, quite honestly, I think time is going to win. That’s going to mean rebuilding and reprioritizing. A changing weather pattern and rising seas will probably mean some of our favorite vacation spots may not exist thirty years from now. It will mean some industries will disappear, and that may lead to a whole new economy. It may mean an influx of climate refugees, and the majority of Americans may not look like me anymore (and that really scares some people!). 

I know that I’m scared of the polarization of American politics, the viciousness of our discourse, and the miasmic fog of nonsense lots of people seem to be believing these days. The January 6 assault on the Capital was something I never dreamt was possible in America. What will the next few years look like if we give in to arrogant nationalism, xenophobia, and the worship of firearms? You don’t need to be a prophet to know that something is up. Times are changing, and they don’t look all that rosy. 

And to top it off, we are also staring down the barrel of a changing church. American Christianity in general—and Lutheranism in particular—is taking something of a beating from a shifting culture, the gig economy, an addiction to cyberspace, and the vanishing Sabbath. . In our own congregation we see an aging membership, declining worship attendance, and serious deficit spending. If these things weren’t enough, we must now deal with the unpredictable consequences of COVID-19. What is to become of us in the next few years? 

One thing must be certain: things will never be the way they were. 

So what does Jesus tell us? He tells us to keep alert, not to hide from change, but to face it head on. He tells us that our redemption is drawing near—even if it may not look much like redemption to us. He reminds us that God is always with us and that his words will not pass away even when it seems like everything else is dissolving before our eyes.       

 When Jerusalem fell and the temple was destroyed, something new emerged. The Pharisees—who weren’t into ritual sacrifice as much as they were into parsing every syllable of the Law of Moses—created what would evolve into rabbinic Judaism. But a new religion was also emerging—that which adhered to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. For some the world was ending, but for others a whole new way of loving God was unfolding. 

No meaningful change can come without pain and loss. The birth of a child can’t be accomplished in any comfortable way, but when the pain is over, the joy is tremendous. In the midst of our fear and foreboding, let’s lift our heads in the faith and hope that God is doing something unknown, unexpected, and wonderful. 

A blessed Advent to you all.