There will be signs… always.

 

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.  People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.  Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.  Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”  ~ Luke 21.25-28 

  “When is Santa coming?  How many days till Christmas?”  We must have hammered our parents with the big question daily.  Back in those days Daddy went down to the timber or by the creek to find our tree.  They weren’t perfectly shaped like the ones the Salvation Army sold in the grocery store parking lot in town, but the sap of our little trees was still running, so the smell of juniper filled our little house.  The presence of the tree just raised the question more urgently.  All tucked in at night, we would bound out of bed to stare at the tree again and then run to ask Mother, “How many more days?”  “It’s still too early,” she would say.  “It hasn’t even snowed.”  “When it snows…”  My little brother asked, “… will Santa come when it snows?”  “Yes,” she said, and then she scooped us up onto the divan, one on each side of her, and read to us “The Night Before Christmas”… “the moon on the crest of the new fallen snow gave the luster of midday to objects below….”  I guess it must have satisfied us for a little while.  All we really needed was a sign… something to watch for so we would know when to expect him.

 Then one night while we were sleeping, it snowed, a thick fluffy blanket of white covering everything, disguising the shapes of the bushes, sparkling like diamonds in the new morning light.  My little tow-headed brother Norman came running from the bedroom, to the window, to the Christmas tree, into the kitchen that crisp December morning, his face red as he gasped for breath between sobs of disappointment.  It was the kind of crying that follows terrible events, so I immediately looked for blood.  Mother dropped a pan into the sink and drying her hands on her apron, rushed to him.  “What’s the matter, honey?” she asked.  I noticed her looking for blood, too, and felt gratified that my response matched my mother’s.  His little chest caved as he grabbed a breath and wailed, “He come-d, but he didn’t bring me nothing.” There was snow… a sign… and it was an unfulfilled prophecy.  That can be heartbreaking!

 Advent begins this first Sunday of December, and is a time of waiting, full of anticipation, for the coming of the Christ to be a light in our darkness.  Our scripture lessons for the next few weeks will be leading up to the much-loved, long-awaited story of the nativity.  Matthew and Luke each have an account of the birth of Jesus, recorded early in their narratives.  But the lectionary scripture for this first Sunday of Advent 2012 is from the 21^st chapter of Luke’s gospel.  It appears late in the account of Jesus’ life and ministry, just before the events leading up to his arrest and trial and execution.  This is not a sweet, comforting scripture.  (We expect sweet; we need comforting.  That’s why we love Christmas!)  Instead it heralds chaotic confusion, destruction and death.  (For context, read the entire 21^st chapter of Luke.)  How on earth did this passage get into our Advent lessons?   This is pure apocalyptic terror – the kind that teases the human appetite for intrigue with fear of just how bad things really can become.  Evil is.  We hurt each other.  Nations fight, etc, etc.  And so because we love intrigue, for as long as there has been prophecy, we humans have chased after signs to validate our suspicion that things really are worse than ever, to prove that this then, must be the time when Jesus will return.  Apocalyptic themes tease our hungers for intrigue, for mystery.  We interpret them as eschatological prophecies – predictions of what things will be like at the end of time.  One of the dearest women from my childhood was prone to recounting all the natural and human-made disasters in the news and saying, “I think surely this is the end-time, don’t you?”  She had been taught that this is when Jesus will come again.  Apocalyptic scripture was written for a different purpose -- to reveal truths – it is revelation, which is not about the end of time, but rather about meaning for THIS TIME.  NOW.  So if we can trust Luke to have been true to the nature of prophecy, this passage in Luke 21 was a kind of code language offering wisdom and understanding for the people of that day.  It happens to apply today as well.  Truth is about to emerge if we will just pay attention... deep attention.  There is nothing frivolous here.  Pay attention.

 How long have we been waiting?  For how many years have we been bugging our God for signs telling us when God will come again?  And for how long have we interpreted God’s second coming as Jesus literally coming back in the flesh to earth?  After all this time, how will we know when it is time? 

 Paul authored the earliest writings in what became the New Testament canon.  He, and we can assume some of his contemporaries, could not accept that the vibrant, vital ministry Jesus established was over, finished by his public execution – this one they loved and believed in and followed.  The Jesus Movement had just caught fire, and was spreading even after news of the crucifixion rocked them all.  Jesus had been a gifted, wise storyteller, and the leitmotif that ran through his parables was the promised Kingdom of God.  This idea wasn’t new.  It wove its way through the sayings of the ancient prophets of Jesus’ Jewish heritage.  He would have heard in Temple the words of the prophet Jeremiah that appear in our lectionary for today:  “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.  In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.  And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’”  ~Jeremiah 33:14-16

 Paul and others like him, devout Jews who became early followers in the Jesus Movement, would also have heard the writings of the prophets read in Temple.  It makes sense, then, that their human appetites for intrigue would have led them to draw on ancient prophecies as “proof” that Jesus of Nazareth was the one the prophets were talking about all along. No doubt that is why they so often referred in their own writings to the prophet's sayings as evidence that Jesus was the one. This made the prophets predictors of the future, when the ancient prophets actually were writing about things happening in their own time, interpreting their current events in light of where God was in all of it, how God was at work, and what the people should do.  Still today, we have trouble shaking off the idea that prophecy is prediction of the future.  Prophecy is interpretation of the present in the hope we can learn from it and choose a wiser future.  Prophecy is revealed truth about what’s happening NOW. 

 

So this morning, on the first Sunday of Advent, 2012, I have a new question.  Why are we waiting for Jesus to appear someday in power and great glory when the risen Christ has been seen and heard, over and over again defying the power of death to contain the Spirit that is life?  Here is what makes me say that:  I read in the Luke passage from the lectionary for today, “…distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves,” and I think of the people devastated by Hurricane Sandy, and I think of my cousin Alan North who as a retired (disabled) fire fighter is there as a volunteer, helping people put the pieces of their lives back together.  I know a little about Alan’s faith, and I know he is doing this work in the name of Christ as a disciple of Jesus. That’s what it means to be the body of Christ in the world in 2012.  We are the flesh on Christ’s bones.  We are the Incarnation.  Today the Son of Man appears in this northeastern cloud of destruction, in the form of Alan and other volunteers.  In the lives of hurting people, Christ appears with power and great glory.   Why after all this time are we waiting for God to break into human history in some supernatural way when the Christmas story is about God breaking into history in the most ordinary way, as a tiny impoverished baby?  Why are we waiting for the “second coming” of Christ when according to the messenger at the empty tomb in Mark’s account (16:7), the risen Jesus promised those early followers that he was not gone from them, but instead would go before them and be waiting for them where their work continues?  Still today Christ goes before us.  And as Matthew tells it (28:19-20) Jesus promises in person "I am with you always."  Present tense. Why are we still waiting for God to show up when God has been here all along, and we just failed to notice?  Have we refused to hear the prophecy?  When will we get it?  When will we stop looking for signs and see right here before us the only signs that will actually satisfy our human appetite for intrigue... signs of newness of life everywhere which are evidence that God has never left us and is always right there in the midst of our despair weaving the frazzled, frayed ends of our lives back together again?  How bold a sign are we waiting for?  In fact, when things get as bad as they possibly can be, that is precisely when, if we are paying attention, deep attention, we see with our own eyes “the Son of Man (Luke’s nickname for Jesus) coming in a cloud (the cloud of chaos and dread?) with power and great glory (that will tame the chaos into new order).”

 To paraphrase Luke’s conclusion in verse 28, “So when things are so awful that your spirit is tormented with doom, stand up tall and raise your heads.  Pay deep attention, because God is already at work here.  Your redemption is near.”

 So what if I’m wrong?  What if apocalyptic prophecy is a forewarning of a future event, and not a revelation of meaning for today?  Some may be worried for my eternal wellbeing – that I may go to hell when I die – but I have a hunch they are wrong, that we have been wrong for centuries about fear-mongering being the way to our salvation.  Where’s the “good news” in that?  The bad news is this… all our attention to what will happen when we die has caused us to miss the redemptive truth that our salvation is already accomplished.  We just need to pay deep attention to the brokenness around us and find ways to join God in the work God has already begun right here under our cover of darkness.  We just need to fill all the days we have left in this life being agents of God’s salvation for a world that waits with longing for the coming of the light.  There always have been signs.  There always will be signs that humankind is capable of interrupting God’s peace.  So light-bearers, pay attention.  Deep attention.  Amen.

 

A prayer for today:  Every evening it's the same: put the key in the deadbolt, turn and lock; check the windows; put out the cat; leave a light on... all those routines to feel safe and fall asleep in peace.  But some night, in the midst of my security, you will tiptoe into my house, rearranging the furniture, cracking the combination of my heart, and ransacking all my fears; then softly whistling, "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus," you will slip out, leaving the door standing wide open that I might follow you into the kingdom.  Come, Lord Jesus! Amen.  (Author unknown, but greatly admired.)

© Rev. Linda Miller, December 2, 2012.

Feel free to borrow.  Credit is appreciated.

I recommend for your reading pleasure "The First Christmas" co-authored by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan.