“Keep
awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” (Matthew 24:42)
I always find the First Sunday in Advent a tad vexatious. I’m just not comfortable with this Second Coming stuff, and I don’t imagine many people are. The texts are always so confusing. For several years I’d find a guest preacher to give the Advent One message so I wouldn’t have to deal with all this disagreeable “The-End-Is-Coming-And-It’s-Going-To-Suck!” stuff.[i]
If we read a little further back from where our gospel pericope (Matthew 24:36-44) starts, we’ll hear Jesus making some really frightening predictions about what’s about to hit the fan. This will include warfare, famine, the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, natural disasters, persecution of the faithful, mass apostasy, the increase of lawlessness, and a huge desire among the faithful to get the hell out of Dodge before stuff gets any worse. The result of all this, besides some terrible suffering inflicted on just about everybody, will be a bunch of idiots claiming they know what this is all about. Jesus warns the apostles—and us—not to listen to any of these false messiahs or false prophets.
The problem we have with all this tribulation described in Matthew Chapter 24 is all the aforementioned awfulness is always happening, and some idiot is always trying to tell you they know why God’s allowing it to take place. “We are in the End Times,” they’ll tell you. Well, maybe we are and maybe we’re not.
What we do know is that something really terrible did take place in Judea from 66 to 72 CE. It involved the destruction of the Temple and a war with the Roman occupiers which ended really badly for the Jews. I can only imagine what these folks suffered. We don’t think Christians—being Christians and committed to non-violence—participated as belligerents in the Jewish uprising, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t suffer. Anytime you get caught living in a war zone, things are going to be really, really bad. The Romans didn’t have the sort of awful weapons the Russians are currently using on Ukraine, but they were just as merciless. They didn’t give a rip if someone was a pacifist Christian or a Jewish revolutionary. They destroyed infrastructure and cut off food supplies and killed indiscriminately. When it was all over, there was nothing left but wreckage and rubble and hunger. The way it is with all wars.
Jesus may have seen this coming, or Matthew might be attributing the prophecy to him in hindsight. In any event, the message is this: tribulation will be unpredictable, and the ones who tell you they have it all figured out are feeding you nonsense. We all need to keep our hearts alert for the things of God, because we cannot control what will happen.
This is the great paradox of Advent. We’re supposed to prepare, but how do you prepare for that which you can’t control? And how do you keep alert when you’ve got so much preparation to do? I’ve already strung up my Christmas lights and done a little shopping, but I still have Christmas Eve sermons to write, music to select, visits to make to shut-ins, and a bunch of other things to do to get ready for Christmas. I’m one of those dudes who actually likes going to the mall at the last minute. I kind of thrive off of the chaos of this season. But with so much busy-ness, how do we stay alert?
Have you ever found yourself so involved in the preparation for an event that you don’t actually experience the event when it arrives? I’m always amused when I see concerts on TV and people are holding up their phones to record the moment, but they don’t seem to be living in the moment they’re recording.
Our time of preparation needs to have some time to be alert to the things of God. It’s time to find the quiet moment to ask yourself what this season truly means to you. Don’t just give the catechism, doctrinal answer. Who is Jesus to you? What difference does it make that God became flesh and entered this world? Why does it matter that you are a Christian? You’ve heard the Christmas story a million times, so what is it about this story that makes you want to hear it again? If we’re going to spend the next 29 days going crazy, is it just so we can have a winter party?
There’s a popular term I’ve heard in the last few years: mindfulness. I think it just means keep alert. Keep alert to how you’re feeling. Keep alert to the feelings of the people around you. Keep alert to the world, to the color of the sky, the breeze, the naked trees, the smells of the season. Keep alert to what God has already done in your life.
Slow down. Be aware. Because God has a way of showing up unexpectedly.
[i] I
thought this year I’d just fob this off on Pastor Natt, my distinguished
Liberian colleague who has been serving as our Assisting Minister, but since I’ve
been out two Sundays on vacation and then missed two more because I got COVID,
I figured I’d better Pastor-Up and preach on this one before the congregation
forgets what I look like!
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