November 28, 2021
Hope Lutheran Church
Rev. Mary Erickson
Luke 21:25-36
What Lasts
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
With this Sunday we turn the page to a new year on our church year calendar. The new year commences with the season of Advent. The word Advent means “coming.” This four-week season is marked by waiting and expectation at Christ’s coming.
Every year we look forward to the usual Advent cast of characters. John the Baptist helps us to prepare. He calls us to realign our lives in faithfulness. And we accompany young Mary. We hear how God intends to use her in the divine plan for the world’s salvation.
But this first Sunday in Advent begins in a very unusual place. At the beginning of this new year, we start at the end – the very end! We don’t look backwards to Christ’s first coming. Advent begins by focusing our eyes forward, to Christ’s coming again at the end of all things.
In our reading today from Luke, the disciples ask Jesus about the end of the world. How will they know when that moment is drawing near. They sound a little like children in the back seat on a long family trip, “How long before we get there?”
Jesus relates cosmic signs that will mark the end. There will be signs of global disaster. People will be overcome by fear and dread. Then the Son of Man will come from the heavens. Jesus encourages his disciples to remain alert and ready.
The end of the world – it’s not something we generally sped a lot of time pondering. However, that potential may seem more sobering as we face the effects of global warming, the melting of the polar ice caps and climate change. With scenes of plastic continents floating in the world’s oceans and news of a persistent pandemic, we actually do entertain thoughts of global apocalypse.
And with increasing divisions in our country, with a sense that we might be heading towards another civil war – or at the least, a war of our incivility towards each other. With concerns over the health of our democracy, we might very well imagine the end times of our nation.
Watching the news leads to an ever-growing sense that things are falling apart. We lie awake at night worrying over what kind of world we’re leaving for our children and grandchildren. Our hearts grow weary and we pour ourselves another drink. So maybe this Advent talk about the end times isn’t so outrageous, after all.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux spoke about the three comings of Christ. His first coming was in his nativity. Christ took on our flesh and our vulnerability to draw near and dwell with us. His last coming will be the ultimate one at the end of time. Christ will return from the heavens to judge the living and the dead.
In both of these, in the first and the last coming, Bernard said that Christ will come visibly. But the middle coming of Christ, here, Bernard said, here Christ comes invisibly. In this middle coming, Christ comes every day into our lives. Christ comes “in spirit and in power.”
This middle coming, friends, this is what the season of Advent is all about. Advent teaches us to wait for Christ’s coming in hope and expectation.
Spiritual waiting endows us with a whole set of character traits. Very briefly, I’m going to mention five traits:
• The first one is patience. This is something deer hunters develop. They may have to wait several hours in their stands for a deer to present itself. There’s the old joke, “Lord, give me patience, but please hurry up!” Waiting spans time, and how much time, we don’t always know. As we wait, we learn patience.
• The second characteristic of waiting is endurance. Waiting is about the long game. The thing we wait for, our goal, is in the future. It’s going to take some time before it arrives. As we mature in the spiritual practice of waiting, we grow in endurance. Endurance sustains us for the long haul.
• A third characteristic of waiting is that we actively prepare. Waiting isn’t a passive activity. We don’t toss our waiting in the corner and forget about it while we focus on other things. No, when we wait, especially when we wait with spiritual expectation, we are very actively engaged. This kind of active preparation is how expectant parents get ready for their baby. They use this time of waiting to get everything squared away and in place for when baby arrives on the scene. Waiting isn’t lazy; it’s filled with action, with active preparation.
• Fourthly, waiting involves alert focus. If a hunter idles in the stand, playing games on their phone or even snoozing, the opportunity to spy a deer will pass by without their knowing. When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane with his disciples, he bid them, “Watch and pray.” Within this unseen, middle coming of Christ, we find ourselves waiting. We wait with alert focus. We look for the unfolding experience of Christ. We look for Christ to enter our midst in spirit and in power.
• And finally, we wait in hope. To wait without hope is a most despairing thing. Waiting without any hope is a living hell. No, waiting demands hope. In the spring, we wait to see the greening of trees. We know it’s coming, and we wait in hopeful expectation.
As we wait, we do so in the hope that Christ will come. Christ has come, he comes to us presently in spirit and in power, and he will come again when time reaches its conclusion.
The Nicene Creed states, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” We wait for this end in hope and expectation, for who is this one who will be the judge? Is it not our same Lord who came to dwell among us, who took on our flesh to live in solidarity with us in all our joys and sorrows? Is it not our very Lord who became the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world? Did he not hesitate to accomplish his destiny on the cross for our sake? And were not his actions there the very healing of that chasm between humanity and God first made in Eden? Is not this the one who will judge all things? This one who is to come, is it not our same Lord who denied death its victory, our Lord who stepped from his own grave to forge the way to life eternal?
Yes, this is the one who will judge us! And where will his judgement be grounded? Will he judge according to our flaws and limitations, or will he judge from his nature, from his grace and truth? Will not this great judgment flow from the same trajectory of his life and his death and his resurrection?
Yes, from his endless supply of grace and truth! And that is why we wait in hope and expectation. This is why we pray, Come, Lord Jesus! Heaven and earth may pass away, but Christ’s word of life will not pass away. So let us ground our hope in what lasts: Christ’s grace and truth.
