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11-29-09
Text:
Luke 21:5-36
● This
first Sunday of Advent always seems to mess with our ‘sensibilities’. We
have turned the corner from Thanksgiving, we have contributed to the growing
stability of our economy with our participation in “Black Friday”, and are
now given full permission to pursue Christmas with gusto.
But, each year we receive this shock to our festive spirits as the
gospel reading in the lectionary always confronts us with the passages
concerning what has been identified as the
‘little apocalypse’. Just when we
are starting to think about ‘beginnings’ (birth; incarnation), our attention
is suddenly drawn to ‘end of the world’ talk.
● We are
distracted from the sights and sounds of the nativity to envision a world
encountering cataclysmic events and even Jesus suggesting that, if you are
able, you should ‘run for your lives’!
Apocalyptic literature is always birthed and received into contexts of
life which are painful and desperate.
Meaning, they are written by people who themselves are subject to
oppressive life-circumstances and need a reason to hope (i.e. Daniel—
● Advent
reminds us that much of the world understands apocalyptic literature better
than we do and prevents us from editing our lives to exclude all of those
things which might prevent us from experiencing our ‘happy holidays’.
● In
consideration our text, there is no shortage of opinion concerning the
‘times of the end’.
●
Although many of us would agree that history is moving toward a purposed end
and that sovereignty means that nothing will thwart the fulfillment of God’s
vision for the world, we cannot seem to come to any consensus on how we will
arrive at such an end.
● Much of
the theology to which I was exposed seemed to suggest that it is our
function to:
a) set
out the coordinates and be able to chart out our place, at any given time,
on the historical continuum.
b) be
able to predict, without going over, the year that all of the mayhem is to
begin [not convinced there weren’t some ‘pools’ going on].
c)
present our findings with colorful and terrifying images sure to make for
‘sleep disorders’ in the unsuspecting young and contribute to a life of
fearful uncertainty to follow through adolescence and into adulthood.
●
“Well, Phil, it’s obvious that you
don’t take any of this very seriously”. It is precisely because I
take this seriously that I am concerned about many of the end-time scenarios
offered which seem to:
- first,
leave us lacking both credibility and accountability, and,
- secondly, have little or nothing to say about the effect the
presence of the Kingdom is to have on our present reality.
● If we
are honest, all of the speculation and fascination has left us, for the most
part, unaffected. “It’s fun to
conjecture, but what’s it really matter?
People have been fretting over this for centuries and ‘nothin’!”
When nothing appears to be happening, or you’re simply unaware that it’s
happening, it’s easy to fall asleep.
It’s hard
to stare at the same thing for any length of time and believe you’ll
experience anything other than what you are currently observing
(i.e. just when you ‘doze off’ for a sec, the movie takes a surprise turn.
Or when you’ve been outside on a clear night lying on your back for hours
and you go in to grab some more beef-jerky and it is precisely the time a
star goes shooting across the sky).
As you read the prophets ‘in context’, you will discover that their
messages seem far more concerned with impacting the present than predicting
the future.
Any consideration of the future offered to us by the prophets
concerned (2) issues: “warnings” and “promises”.
● People
often mistake sovereignty to mean that all of history is moving toward a
‘scripted end’, one which has been pre-determined with all of the characters
cast and the final scene waiting to be acted out.
The role
of the prophets was not to offer a precise image of an unalterable future.
In fact, the prophet’s greatest hope was that their predictions of judgment
would not come true. Their hopes were that such judgment would be averted by
their response of repentance and return.
●
“Warnings” and “promises” allow us to…
… live in
the present with a sense of awareness and mission--- with our eyes wide open
to all of the ruin and devastation we face daily, yet still hopeful.
… assume
a posture of empowerment and hope (making disciples, teaching them to
function under the blessing of obedience:
“I am with you until the very end of
the age” Matthew 28:20).
… live in
such a way that we actually perceive ourselves as contributing to the
restoration in meaningful and lasting ways.
Although at Advent we celebrate ‘fulfillment’, we are also to continue to
live as “people of promise”.
●
Prophets like Isaiah kept using ‘future-tense’ verbs in ‘real-time’. He knew
the real obstacles that stood in the way of the vision.
But, a vision of the future will always do more to shape our present
reality than an unhealthy dose of our past.
What you
believe to be true of the future will always determine your present values
and priorities.
● Peter
asks, “In light of the warnings and
promise, what is to be our response? What kind of people should we be?”
(2 Peter 3:11-13)
“You
ought to live holy (distinctive) and godly (our way of reflecting the image
of God in the world) lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed
its coming… In keeping with his promise, we are looking forward to a new
heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness”
(that’s
what it’s best known for like, “The home of the 12 lb. pancake”. It’s what
people expect to experience there).
●
Interestingly, Peter uses the future hope not as a means of distracting his
readers from the present evil nor projecting them into some theological
‘happy-place’, but as a motivation for our present response.
● I
recently saw the new
“A Christmas Carol” and was reminded that although
Ebenezer Scrooge was offered a
vision of his past and a reminder of his present, it was not until he was
confronted with the potential future he was creating for himself that he was
awakened and a transformation began.
● God has
a ‘word’--- a way of describing those whose vision of the future does not
include him:
“fool”. It’s how the Bible
describes those who are prone to shape a life which neither views God as
relevant in the present nor meaningful for their future.
Advent is an ‘apocalyptic’ season which conveys a “larger-than-life”
message of hope in the context of undeniable fatigue, failure and despair.
Advent requires that we
‘persevere’. It’s a season dedicated to addressing our longings and
expectations; a season of preparation and repentance for all of the ways
that we have neglected to seriously consider ‘the end’ and for all of the
ways our lives have failed to resemble God’s dream for us.
● In most
instances, “persevere” means, “Just
suck it up and stop feeling sorry for yourself!”
The Latin
root of the word, loosely translated means,
‘by means of the truth’.
We persevere by recognizing and recalling what is true about God, ourselves
and his determination to set things right.
What is our motivation--- our view of God’s restorative work in the
world? The Kingdom has come; the
Kingdom is coming!
At the
moment, we welcome it, we seek it, we receive it, we enter it and we pray
for it to come.
● When
all of our speculation has proven futile and all of our charts and graphs
inaccurate, we are left to conclude that, at the very least, we do know that
we are currently living sometime between Jesus’ first and second advents;
between the kingdom that he inaugurated and the kingdom that will be fully
established.
An apocalyptic approach to life says that what the world needs is neither
abandonment nor evolution, but restoration and renewal.
●
Abandonment is the
‘hell-in-a-hand-basket’ approach that says our world is ‘unsalvageable’;
it fails to recognize the trace-evidence of a good Creator-God.
On the other hand, the evolutionary approach places too much
confidence in the human project which says,
“Just hand in there until we get this
thing figured out!”
● The
clear assertion of Luke’s gospel is that although the final Kingdom will
always remain a massive and fresh act of grace, it does not provide us with
permission to disengage from the world and concede to the dysfunction and
disorder brought on by evil. Advent declares that we are to live in ways
that bring glimpses of the future hope and healing to bear in our world,
right here, right now.
Many of us today are in the ideal place for Advent, but we don’t even
realize it.
It can be tempting to think that because we are struggling these
days, we can’t enter Advent without an ‘attitude adjustment’ or without
making ourselves ‘more presentable’. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
Advent is about letting God come to us, and the whole mystery of our
faith is that God is not reluctant to come in unexpected ways and into
seemingly undesirable circumstances.
Advent is the realization that we don’t just ‘need a hand’, but that we
need to be rescued and our best response is to accept the saving love of our
God.
“Look
(pay attention; wake up), I bring you good news of great joy that will be
for all the people. Today, a Savior has been born to you…”
Luke 2:11-12
An Advent
prayer…
You are
the God who has loved us first. Help us to find in your love a new way to
live; a new way to be human.
May your
love free us from our reckless past, provide us with joy in the moment and,
in response to your love, cause us to live wisely and with hope for a better
future.
Make our
hearts big to receive your love, Jesus, and make our lives open to share
your love with others.
Amen. |
