As I said last week, Advent readings call us to begin to prepare ourselves for the coming of the Christ child, the Christmas event. And at the same time, they call us to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ. In actuality, three things are being thrown at us simultaneously today, and we are asked to catch them all and to try to juggle them, as we consider what we will do with them. So let’s get started.
First there is the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah. Today’s passage comes from a section of his writings in which he was bemoaning the fact that the people had forgotten God’s ongoing work in the world, and were acting as if God was absent from their lives. He says in the section we just heard,
O that (God) would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at (God’s) presence-- as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil-- to make (God’s) name known to (God’s) adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at (God’s) presence!
You can almost hear the anguish in Isaiah’s voice as he pleads with God to please come down from heaven and make Himself known to the people. The prophet says that the people have sinned because they don’t know who God is anymore and, to Isaiah’s mind, this must make God angry. But really, Isaiah is calling on God to come home and be with the family.
I’m sure that there are more than a few of you who experienced a time like I did when I was a child. I was in kindergarten when my parents took me to a large store and I got separated from them. When I looked up and discovered that the man I was standing next to was not my father, I was panicked. My father was gone. I was alone. And I had a sudden, desperate need to see him again. That is exactly where Isaiah finds himself.
God, the Father of all things, had been gone – at least in the peoples’ perception – for a long time. When Isaiah spoke to the people, he was longing for the Father to return home, even if He was angry, just to show the people that the Father loved them enough to come back – although it meant punishment would be meted out when He returned. And while Isaiah wanted an old-time show of power from God – fire and mountains trembling – he didn’t want these things to come too close to the people. That is why the prophet said, “Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever.” In other words, it is OK for you to be mad enough to shake the earth up a little bit, but please God, don’t be so angry that you get rid of your children.
Now, unlike Isaiah, we 21st Century Christians know the next chapter of the story. We know that God did, indeed answer the prayers of Isaiah and others, to return to the world in a form in which people could see God. We know that God came down to inhabit the earth. This is the second thing we are asked to juggle today; the fact that God did not come back the way Isaiah requested or expected. Instead of a being a god of strength and power, coming back to the earth to shake things up; God had another plan.
We have the benefit of the New Testament. And we know that God did, in fact “come home.” The Latin term, adventus, from which we get Advent, means, “coming,” as in “coming home.” We are asked today to take this second item and consider that, instead of coming in a blaze of glory and power, God came in the form of a helpless infant. God came to earth, not as the mighty warrior. Instead, God came in human form, meek and humble and full of love, so that all the people of the world could see and experience the mightiest power of God – the power of love.
Jesus is the fulfillment of every promise God made to the children of Israel. God made a covenant (or contract) with the those children, in which God gave them this world to live in. God gave them dominion over the earth. And God gave the children the scariest of all gifts, free will. God then said, “take care of yourselves and take care of each other. I will be around, but I will not be walking in the garden with you anymore.” As time went by, God gave the children the law, and the prophets to explain the law. Then, when the time was right, God came back to earth in human form, to fulfill the promise of a new way of living.
And as we know from the Gospels, Jesus set the standard for living as a person. He who was completely human, but without sin. He lived, died and was resurrected to save us from sin, but also to show us how to live in this world. Through our exercising of that frightening free will, we had gotten so far off course – in Isaiah’s time and on through Jesus’ time – that we no longer knew how to live as children of God. We had misbehaved badly while the parent was away. When Jesus came, He came not as the stern, judging parent, but as the example of what we should have done while we thought we were alone.
That brings us to the third ball we have in the air this morning, the Second Coming. Again, our modern-day prophets are yelling that we have gotten so far off course, we have stopped living like children of God. In many ways, our world no longer reflects God’s creative love, and it no longer functions as the product of Jesus’ redeeming power. So some say, we must look to see what it means that Jesus will come back to earth again.
Just as we heard last week from Matthew, Mark tells us that when Jesus returns, it will be like the Father, returning in judgment of those who have misbehaved. Jesus tells His listeners in today’s passage, that there will be suffering and darkness and all the stars will fall from the sky. Then, those who have misbehaved while the parent was away, will have to answer for the mess.
So what do we take away from our juggling act this morning? Since we can’t slow the balls down enough to consider each one separately, we will have to look at the blurred images as a whole. Here we need to look at what St. Paul said to the Corinthians.
Paul says that if we stay awake and alert, and consistently try to emulate Jesus in our everyday lives, we have already been enriched in Christ enough that we are not lacking in anything we need. Our Spiritual Gifts are sufficient as we await the day of our Lord’s return.
So the message for us is involved, but basically pretty simple.
God has been in relationship with God’s people since time began.
God’s part of the covenant relationship has always been fulfilled – God has always loved us unconditionally.
We have failed to fulfill our part of the covenant throughout history, by not loving God and each other.
God came to earth as a human being in order show us, for all time, what it means to be a child of God.
At some time in the future, God, in Christ, will return and the final era of judgment will be upon us.
It seems to me we ought to be paying particular attention this year when the baby comes on December 25th, so that we intentionally take note of the fulfilled promises of God. Christ will return in judgment. But God promised that we would have all we need to be ready. That promise, like all of God’s promises, has been fulfilled. We’re ready for the return of Christ, if we want to be ready. Let’s want to be ready.
In the name of one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
[Advent 1B, Sermon 112920, Isaiah 64:1-9a; Psalm80 or 80:1-7; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; Mark 13:(24-32)33-37]
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