1st Sunday in Advent December 2, 2007 “Series A”
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, we give you thanks that you have chosen to reveal yourself to us in many ways, especially in the person of your Son, Jesus the Christ. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, open our hearts and minds to your word, that we might trust in your promise of redemption, and look forward to the future with hope. Wake us to your presence, and enable us to live our lives reflecting your grace to those around us. This we ask in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
Today we begin a new church year, as we celebrate the first Sunday in the season of Advent. This year, our lessons will follow “Series A” of the three year Common Lectionary, which features the Gospel of Matthew. But Advent is more than just a time to begin a new series of lessons, as we begin to proclaim the Gospel anew. And Advent is certainly more than a time of countdown to Christmas.
This first season of the Church year is a time to help us realize that we are a part of this story that we are about to proclaim throughout the coming year. Thus, our lessons have been chosen for this season, to not only help us look back in history and recall how God was faithful to his promise of redemption years ago. Our lessons also proclaim a promise of a future yet to be realized, for those who have faith and have been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection. As a result, we are, in the present, a part of this ongoing revelation of God’s redeeming grace. Perhaps the simplest way to describe Advent is to say that it is a season that affirms the revelation of God in Jesus the Christ in all three tenses – past, future and present.
So lets begin by considering the past tense. Throughout the pages of the Old Testament, there are numerous records of how God chose to redeem his people – culminating in his promise of a Messiah. This is really where the Gospel story begins. God is true to his promise of redemption, and as Christians, we celebrate the fact that in the actual, historical person of Jesus the Christ, God fulfilled his promise. Jesus was truly the Son of God, his Word become flesh, and through his death and resurrection, he redeemed us from sin and death. It happened in the past. It has already been accomplished.
But since we are a part of God’s ongoing work of redemption, Advent calls on us to look back at our past, and recognize that through what God has already accomplished, we have the opportunity for our sins to be forgiven. Through the process of repentance, whatever sins we have committed before this moment in time, God, in Christ, has forgiven. It happened in the past. It has already been accomplished, even though we might experience it anew in present moment of our life.
Now, lets consider the future tense of our Advent message. Clearly our Gospel lesson for this morning focuses our attention forward in time.
Here, Jesus shares with his closest disciples that there will be a time in the future when God will act to establish a new heaven and a new earth in which his judgement will prevail, and his people of faith will enjoy the presence of Christ for eternity. But what do these words of Jesus, as Matthew records them, mean?
According to sections of the New Testament and early Christian writings, the Church in the first century expected the return of Christ to happen in their lifetime. But as years and decades past, the people of faith who knew Jesus began to die, which many Biblical scholars assert, inspired the writing of the Gospels. As a result, the mood of the early church changed from one of immediate expectation of our risen Lord’s return, to one of patient expectation. Thus, since Matthew’s Gospel was written some sixty years after Christ’s ascension, the emphasis of our text falls on the words, “Therefore, you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
Thus, we are encouraged to patiently await the future that God has promised those who have faith in Christ, which brings up a couple of comments that I would like to make about this text. This past week I spent at my camp, hunting and spending time with relatives and friends. I always go to camp on Friday, because quite often some of these persons come on Friday evening. I spend some time cleaning the camp, and getting things ready for their arrival, and then sit back and wait with expectation for their arrival.
But this year, no one came up on Friday. In fact, no one came up until about noon on Saturday morning. Although I often can spend several days at my camp by myself, enjoying the quiet solitude, I was a little antsy. I was expecting someone to come through that camp door at any moment. Even though I knew that they would all eventually be with me, I was longing for that to happen. This gave me a sense of what this patient expectation for the return of Christ, must have been like for the early church.
Secondly, I must admit that there are two views of interpreting this text that I do not subscribe to. First, I really do not find the “Left Behind” series of books to be a helpful description of our lesson. For if we are to take our lesson seriously, then I think we need to acknowledge that perhaps it is the faithful who will be left behind, rather than the unfaithful.
For Jesus says, “For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.” If we are to take this passage for what it says, it seems clear to me that the implication here is that the unfaithful will perish from the earth, and not the faithful.
To me, this passage is a passage of hope, not fear. It promises us a future, in which God is present in our life, rather than being left behind in God’s absence.
In all honesty, although Jesus clearly promises us a future in which God will embrace the faithful, it has been open to many interpretations of what that might entail. This brings up the second point about our future that I do not find helpful. Some scholars interpret the New Testament as proclaiming that when the faithful die, they rest in their graves until the day that Christ returns, when they will be raised to enjoy his presence in the New Kingdom he will establish. Paul, in his early writings seemed to believe this theory.
But near the end of his life, in writing to the Philippians, Paul states: “If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.” Here, it seems that Paul clearly believes that at his death, he will be in the presence of the risen Christ, not sleeping in his grave. I believe his insight to be true, even though it does not rule out a future time for our Lord’s Second Coming.
Sometimes in our life, we worry about the future. We plan for the future, but plans do not always go as we would like. And as I get older, I have come to realize that many of the things I had hoped to do at some future moment, I may not physically be able to do. Age has a way of taking its toll on all of us. And yet, I do not worry about my future. For even if I were to die tomorrow, I have a future. And that future is in God’s hands, sealed by his grace, through Christ’s death and resurrection, for my redemption.
Now, lets consider the present tense of this season of Advent. When the author Henry Thoreau was terminally ill, a friend tried to get him to express his thoughts on life after death. Thoreau replied, “One world at a time.” Although we may reflect upon the past, and speculate about the future, what a blessing it is to enable these thoughts to enhance our life in the present moment.
In Scripture, the word that is translated “eternal life,” has both a future and a present tense. The people of the Bible were very much a people living life in the present tense. This is beautifully expressed in Psalm 118, which states: “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it.” To know God, to love God, to experience his presence in your life is the beginning of eternal life, and it is now. This is also reflected in the Gospel of John, in which the word “eternal life” refers to a quality of life in the present tense, as well as life in the future.
Advent is a season that reminds us that it is important to be conscious of our Christian heritage, knowing, that what we are now, is rooted in what has come before us. It is also a season that reminds us of the importance of being a people of hope in what is yet to come. But Advent is also a season that reminds us that as baptized people of faith, we are to live our lives in the present moment, continuing to proclaim the Gospel of God’s redeeming grace, in the present. For I believe that God, through the power of his Spirit, continues to open our hearts and minds to this great story that we begin today to proclaim for another year. I believe he is present to challenge us, to open new ideas to us, to test us, even to make us uncomfortable, in order that we might grow in our faith. We are a part of God’s ongoing work of redemption. Let us rejoice in this day, and embrace his presence.
Amen.
