On this final Sunday of Advent I invite you to look back and look ahead. Back to our Lord’s first coming and ahead to our Lord’s Second Coming. Back through the mists of time to a cattle stable in Bethlehem. Ahead through the lens of faith to the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord. Down, down into that cold stone stable. Up, up for your redemption draweth nigh. But first, let’s look back.
What Child is this, who, laid to rest,
On Mary's lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
While shepherds watch are keeping?
What Child is this? That is the question of the ages.
I used to tell myself, as well as my homiletic students that December is not the time to preach heavy theology. People are too distracted making their lists and counting them twice. But I felt compelled this morning to raise the question ‘Who was Jesus of Nazareth?’
The early Church grappled with this same question. So much so that by 300 AD a great fault line had appeared in North Africa. Most believed that Jesus was God come in the flesh. But a charismatic preacher by the name of Arius taught that Jesus was great man created by God the Father. And so, the lines were drawn.
The newly converted Emperor could not, would not tolerate his Empire to split and so 1,700 years ago, the church leadership sat down at the ‘request’ of the Emperor Constantine and wrestled with this question for many weeks in the small Turkish village of Nicaea. Was Jesus Christ similar to God the Father or was he the same as God the Father? The big word that was used is substance or being. Was Jesus Christ of the same ‘stuff’ as God the Father or was he only of similar ‘stuff’.
When the early Church leaders gathered in 325 ad they never did define or describe the substance of God the Father because they knew that God is incomprehensible - unimaginable. What little we know of God comes only through Divine Revelation. As it turned out the vast majority of the Nicaea fathers were convinced that whatever the substance of God the Father was Jesus was the same. There were about 320 bishops at the Council of Nicaea – only three dissented from the majority view that Jesus is of the same substance as the Father.
This was not a time for compromise. Most fought long and hard for the full deity of Jesus Christ. One story goes that St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra (the man who by the 21st Century would come down chimneys, dress up in a red suit and sit for hours in front of a camera at the Mall). This same Nicholas became so incensed at Arius who was the main push behind the ‘similar to God’ view that he punched the heretic in the face. So much for Ho, Ho, Ho.
In Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches we repeat the statement that was hammered out long ago called the Nicaean Creed. Most Evangelicals do not repeat the Creed, but all true Christians believe what it teaches.
When you look into the manger again this Christmas season and gaze at this baby you are looking at God. Mark Lowry was right when he wrote his carol – Mary, did you know when you kiss your little baby, you’ve kissed the face of God.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
The Baby
The Boy
The Baptism
The Prophet
The Preacher
The Healer
The Saviour
The Cross
The Resurrection
The 40 Days
And on the 40th day after the Resurrection he turned to his small group of followers and said, let’s take a walk. They crossed the Brook Kidron, and up the Western slopes of the Mount of Olives, past Absolum’s Tomb, past the Garden of Gethsemane, past thousands of Jewish graves until they reached the top of Olivet. On a clear day one can see all the way to the Mediterranean Sea to the west and to all the way to the Dead Sea to the East.
There Jesus stopped and as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.
The 11 men went back to Jerusalem. Spent the rest of their lives preaching the good news, all but one died a martyr. But by 325 Christianity had become the State Religion of the Roman Empire. Shortly after the Council of Nicaea Constantine’s mother Helena went on the Church building spree. She was the push behind the Church of the Holy Nativity in Bethlehem, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. She was the who started the Great Church of Holy Wisdom in Istanbul, and she was the one who planted a church on the top of the Mount of Olives called the Church of the Ascension.
This Church marks the traditional sight of the Ascension. It has to be the smallest church in the world. I am being generous to say it holds 20 people at a time. There are no pews, you go in this narrow doorway and stand. If you go to Israel and are claustrophobic, you might want to pass up a visit to the Church of the Ascension.
I led a group to the Holy Land a few years ago. We went to the traditional site of the Ascension. We did not walk up there. We drove in a shiny air-conditioned bus. We crossed over the Brook Kidron, past Absolum’s Tomb, past the Garden of Gethsemane, past 150,000 graves whose occupants have been waiting for thousands years to hear the Voice of Him who shall call forth the dead, past the Hebrew University, past the Brigham Young University until we got to the top of Olivet. All 22 of us filed off the bus and squished into the Church of the Ascension.
How could I tell anyone this Church only holds 20 people? So, in we went and belted out the song: Coming Again, Coming again, Jesus is coming again. The acoustics were amazing! The anointing was powerful. I will never forget it.
But why, why would we sing about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ in the little Church of the Ascension? Because, the Bible says in Acts 1: While the disciples were gazing up into heaven as Jesus Ascended, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.
This same Jesus – The sea walker, the blind man healer, the leper cleansing man from Galilee, the soul saver, the one who sets us free.
This same Jesus is coming again the same way he went into heaven. This same Jesus is coming again not as a helpless Baby but in power and great glory.
Jesue is coming again. In saying this I am aware that I am well within the mainstream of orthodox Christianity. The great catholic creeds clearly teach this great hope of the Church. The Apostle’s Creed declares that Jesus Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. The Nicene Creed says ‘he shall come again, with glory, to judge the living and the dead’.
Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Protestants we all agree: Jesus is coming again. You will find the same thing in the Augsburg Confession, The 39 articles of the Church of England, and the Westminster Confession.
The Reformers were greatly inspired by the prospect of Christ’s coming again. I live, said Martin Luther, as though Jesus Christ died yesterday, rose again today and were coming again tomorrow.
Two centuries later when the Wesley brothers were used by God to bring revival to the English-speaking world, Charles Wesley make the Second Coming the theme of 5,000 of his 7,000 hymns. It was Wesley who wrote:
Lo, He comes with clouds descending,
once for favoured sinners slain;
Thousand, thousand saints attending,
Swell the triumph of His train
Hallelujah! Jesus comes and comes to reign.
So how to you react to the idea of Jesus Coming again? My experience tells me that people (at least in the Western world) react in three ways. 1. Ambivalence 2. Speculation and 3. Fear
Ambivalence describes a person who has contradictory feelings about a thing. I believe in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ but I’m rather happy with my life the way it is right now. I recite the Creed, but other than that, I don’t think much about Jesus coming again. Most Western Christians, I would suggest, fall into this group. Ambivalence.
Speculation. These are the people who have every nuance of Bible prophecy figured out. These are the people whose hobby is eschatology. These people know the signs of the times. They know how many earthquakes have happened over the past five years compared to how many earthquakes happened 100 years ago. They follow every minutia, every detail of what is happening in the Middle East. Their favorite books in the Bible are Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation. You can get them on hundreds of Pod casts on a smart phone near you.
Fear Philippians 2 says that we ought to rejoice at the thought of seeing Him again. 1 Thessalonians 4 says For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise: Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
But sadly, some Christians are paralyzed with fear when the subject of the Second Coming is raised. Some of you may be thinking right now. I thought this was supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. Why is this preacher taking away all my fa-la-la’s?
Let’s say you have a loved one, an adult son, arriving by air for Christmas. If you reacted to your son’s arrival for Christmas, the way many of us react to the arrival of Jesus Christ it would go something like this.
Ambivalence. I hear your son’s coming for Christmas. O right, I forgot.
Speculation. I hear your son’s coming for Christmas. O yes, Did you know that his Air Canada flight out of Ottawa is Flight 416? And his flight out of Calgary is 250? Do the math. 666. It’s a sign. And did you know that the primary colours of an Air Canada Jet are Black, White and Red. It a sign. Yes, but what about your son. You seem to be more into the signs than the son.
Fear. I hear your son is coming home for Christmas. Yes, but I’m worried sick that the the plane is going to crash, the plane is going to be hijacked, a storm with divert the flight, he will miss his connection flight. It’s terrible. I’ll never see my son again.
I don’t care how we slice it. Ambivalence, Speculation or fear. What it really comes down to is we don’t love Jesus with the intensity that we should. Normal people are excited about the arrival of their loved ones for Christmas – without ambivalence, speculation or fear. Healthy Christians are also excited about the soon arrival of Jesus Christ without ambivalence, speculation or fear.
Yea Lord, we Greet Thee… Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus!
