This is a hard week for many of us here. I think all of you must have read of the murder-suicide that took place in our town just a week ago. By itself, it is one of the most tragic incidents to occur among our midst in quite a long time - certainly since I arrived. Two young men in their prime, one driven by jealousy and rage and pain that he allowed to consume him; another just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Each man leaves children behind him, left to grow up wounded and bereft. And it affects this congregation even more deeply that one of the young men was brother to one of our own.
In sharp contrast to these violent and ugly deaths, just a few short days later, on Thanksgiving itself, the father of one of our own members was called to the Lord. He too leaves sons, but grown sons, and he leaves them with a legacy of love and faithfulness and godliness that leaves them sad, but whole.
The Book of Common Prayer, that matchless contribution of the Episcopalian Church to the devotional literature of our faith, says truly indeed in their burial service that “in the midst of life we are in death.” And it is ironic to be brought face to face with that bitter reality right in the middle of this season of thankfulness. I can only try to imagine how hard it must be to enter the joyful season of Advent under the shadow of death.
And yet it would have been entirely natural in the Middle Ages to begin to prepare our hearts and minds and homes for the coming of Jesus with what they called a “memento mori,” that is a reminder of death. But it’s not our custom, is it. And so it jars us. It doesn’t seem to fit. “Joy to the world,” we sing, and we look forward to glad tidings, to the newborn king, to angels and shepherds and wise men and gifts. But think for a minute: what was it like when the baby first came?
In chapter 4 of his Gospel Matthew quotes Isaiah 9:2, “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” [Mt 4:16]
Now, Isaiah had written those words for the people of Galilee, who were about to be hauled off into slavery by the Assyrians, and Jesus began his ministry in Galilee by quoting them. And this was a people for whom life was very rough indeed. Not only did they have to live under the Roman occupying forces, who taxed them into poverty and then sold them into slavery, they also had to deal with the fact that their more sophisticated cousins in Judea, where the capital Jerusalem was, looked down on them as yokels, hayseeds, and unwashed louts.
But things hadn’t really been much better 30 years before, down south in Judea when Jesus had been born. In fact, some would say they’d been worse. Because even though Rome hadn’t taken over completely yet, Herod the Great was a paranoid dictator who killed indiscriminately anyone who remotely appeared to threaten his rule, including his own sons, and used the local population as slave labor for his building projects. So when Isaiah wrote this, the people really did live in the shadow of death, and when Jesus was born the people also lived in the shadow of death, and when Jesus started to go about the country teaching, people lived in the shadow of death, and when Matthew wrote it all down 30 years later the people were still living in the shadow of death. And yet Jesus said, and Matthew said, and we affirm: “light has dawned.”
Because that is what we believe, isn’t it, that on that miraculous night 2000 years ago that the light did dawn, and that it has not gone out since. In the midst of life were are in death. That is true. And that is painful. But it is equally true that in the midst of death we are in life. As the Apostle John said, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” [Jn 1:5] And that is what lifts us out of the pain of death, from the ordinary losses that are the inevitable part of life to the inexplicable evil that occasionally shatters our world, into hope.
But - that was 2,000 years ago! When Jesus was born, it had only been 400 years since the last prophet had spoken a promise to the people. When Matthew wrote, it had only been 30 or 40 years since Jesus had risen from the dead with a promise of eternal life, with a promise that he would return and take to take his people home. People expected it to happen any day, but it hasn’t happened yet. It can be really hard to keep focused on the light - either of the long-ago Christ Child or the some-day-to-come Christ King! How long are we supposed to wait?
Yes, I know, I know - I’m supposed to be the one reminding you, not the other way around, that the light of Christ is still with us. He is with us in God’s word, he is with us through his spirit in our hearts, he is with us through the acts of love and grace which we show to one another during times of grief. But when the darkness is thick, that light sometimes can seem very dim. And the darker it is, the more we long for the return of the King, and the end of the struggle. The promise of Revelation 21, calls to us most strongly when the tears are fresh:
"God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more…" [Rev 21:3]
The time of Advent, when we celebrate the time of waiting for the birth of the child Jesus, is also a time to contemplate the time of waiting for the return of King Jesus. And this is a particularly interesting year to be doing that, too.
I was at the post office yesterday morning, picking up a certified letter, and there was a flashing sign on the wall of the post office, ticking off the seconds remaining until the millennium. In 398 days, give or take an hour or two, it will be the year 2000. Actually, it’s probably more like 2,004 years since Jesus was actually born, but hey, who’s counting, right? Anyway, it’s going to be a very important day for prophecy mavens - you know, the ones who tot up the earthquakes, wars and other disasters and confidently identify the Antichrist (usually a world leader they dislike on political grounds). It’s happened time after time over the centuries and never with more fervor than when that celestial odometer turns over 3 zeros. And of course with Hurricane Mitch being the worst one that Central America has seen in 200 years it’s especially tempting this time around. And we want to believe it for two reasons: first, something inside us says that a disaster of that magnitude has to mean something. It can’t just be more of the same old ordinary everyday hardship and misery that is the common lot of mankind, it just can’t. Something has to redeem it. Second, it’s just really really hard to wait.
A Jules Feiffer cartoon shows a man looking up in the sky; another man comes up and asks what he is doing. He responds, “I’m waiting for Jesus to come back, that’s what I’m doing.” The other responds, “That’s silly. He won’t come back from up there. You can find him in ordinary life, in loving your neighbor, doing good to those who hate you, in suffering for the truth.” The first one replies, “Did you say, ‘suffering for the truth?’” The last panel shows them both looking up into the sky, and the first man says, “I find this position more comfortable.”
But Jesus didn’t give us the option of hanging out and waiting for the announcement. The disciples really, really wanted him to tell them when he was going to return. They ask him for signs, a sort of divine crib sheet for telling the future. But in the 24th chapter of Matthew he gives them quite a lecture, instead. He tells them that the temple will be destroyed. He tells them that false prophets will arise. He tells them that there will be wars and famines and earthquakes. They will be persecuted, he tells them, sometimes killed. Some will lose their faith, some will go so far as to hand over their own family members to the authorities. I can just see the disciples listening intently, nodding their heads, maybe taking notes, “Yes, Rabbi, I got it, and then what comes next?” And then he zings ‘em: “the end is not yet.”
Even when the temple is desecrated, destroyed, and the city overrun, everything that they have hung onto until now as signs of God’s presence among them is gone, the end is not yet. “That’s no help, Rabbi, we want to know when it’s going to be so that we’ll be ready!” But Jesus doesn’t tell them. Instead, he says,“...about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
Why is this all the answer they get? What’s going on in this passage? It seems to raise more questions than answers, doesn’t it?
But I think that the point is really that the disciples wouldn’t benefit from knowing the time Jesus would return. God doesn’t call us to handle our spiritual obligations the way I handle my housekeeping. I need at least a half day’s notice before company comes. Whereas my sister, with whom I just spent Thanksgiving, is always ready. She’s not always ready to feed people, or to put them up for the night, but boy no one will ever catch her with her slippers on the living room floor. And she’s always ready because keeping her house clean is a major priority with her. And that’s the point of this passage.
You see, in order to be the kind of people God calls us to be, we can’t be part-timers, with a sort of early warning system that let’s us know when to tidy up and look like we’ve been on the ball all along. God wants our major priority to be his kind of people even when he’s not looking.
"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." [Mt 24:38-39]
There wasn’t anything wrong with eating and drinking and marrying, far from it. God gave those gifts to Noah’s neighbors - and to us. But that’s all they were doing, greedily gobbling up God’s gifts as if that was the whole point of life. It’s not that they were supposed to be outside looking for thunderclouds, they weren’t, any more than we’re supposed to take our spiritual cues from the weather channel. But they didn’t even bother to consider the possibility that there was more to life than the body.
We’re supposed to watch. But watch what? Jesus has already told us that we’re not to watch for signs. There are two choices, and I think both are necessary. I don’t know if Matthew meant it both ways, but it certainly won’t hurt us to take them both.
The first choice is to watch ourselves. We have to watch ourselves to make sure that we don’t lose our hope, or our commitment. Because it’s easy to become skeptical, after the almost 2000 years since Jesus spoke those words. But just in case that’s where you’re at on this point, remember what Peter wrote in his 2nd letter:
...understand this... in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!” [2 Pe 3:3-4]
And even if the Lord should tarry another thousand years, there is no doubt that time will run out for each one of us. Many have a long time to prepare for that day, as George did. But for Gary, the end came without warning, breaking into his days that were filled with other things - things like plans, dreams, work and play and love - just as the thief in Matthew’s illustration breaks into a house filled with valuables and steals them away. We do not know if Gary was ready. Tom hopes so; they had been talking about Jesus. But too many people think they have all the time in the world to consider eternity, and that is not so. Each one of us really only has today. If tomorrow comes, it is a gift.
So watch yourselves. Keep awake. Nudge your neighbor if she begins to nod. Don’t snooze past your stop. But - you know - it’s easier to stay awake if you’re walking in the light. And that’s what we really need more than anything, is for the light to shine in the midst of the all too present darkness. Didn’t I say something about light back in the beginning?
Well, that’s where the second choice comes in. If all we do is watch ourselves, it can get pretty depressing. Or at least I find it so, because let’s face it, friends, I have a long way to go before I am perfectly conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
But if we spend our time watching Jesus Christ, instead, recognizing him in the faces of our families, the needs of our neighbors, the courage and perseverance of our brothers and sisters around the world, then his light will break in on us at the most unexpected moments. Because Jesus is always present, always active, always working in the world. We only have to learn to see him, and to follow where he leads us. There is no unexpected hour, when we walk with the Son of Man all the time. And no darkness lasts for long when he is near. That is our hope, and that is our joy, and that is what we celebrate, as we prepare once again to welcome Immanuel, the God who is with us always.
