Stay Ready So You Don’t Have to Get Ready
Mark 13:24-37
Black Friday. I suppose we all survived. You know what Black Friday is, don’t you? That inevitable Friday after Thanksgiving that signals the official beginning of the holiday season. That day when shoppers line up outside malls and shopping centers to get those early bird deals retailers are offering to those crazy enough to brave the pushing and shoving to save a few bucks. I heard about one store, either Best Buy or Circuit City, where the crowd actually breached the doors and entered the store before it opened. The police had to be called to clear the store so it could open. The onslaught of people actually caused the store to open late. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but it is the time when we start preparing for Christmas. We start getting ready because the big day is coming. We get ready by wrapping the gifts, baking the cookies, decorating the tree, lighting the house, going to parties, and making travel plans. We have to get ready because Christmas will be here before we know it. And in the course of our conversations, we seem to inevitably ask someone, “Are you ready for Christmas yet?”
Even in our churches, we embrace the Advent season as a time of preparation. We prepare the sanctuary by hanging the greens, and we adorn the church with decorations and poinsettias and nativity scenes because, after all, the Advent season is the season when we look with expectancy to the coming of the Christ-child. Advent means “coming” or “arrival,” and we focus on his arrival by setting out our prettiest nativity set for all to see. I find the traditions interesting as I have pastured from region to region. Oh, no church I’ve pastured has ever failed to set out the nativity, but what we do with the baby Jesus is interesting. Some churches never think a second think about putting out the baby when the set is put out. Decorate for the season and baby Jesus goes in the manger. Other churches, who consider themselves “liturgically correct” would never consider putting out the baby Jesus until Christmas Eve. I even heard of one church that would move the baby Jesus to a different place each week so the people would have to look to find him. We focus on the “first” advent of Jesus Christ. And we should, but we don’t stop there.
The Advent season is far more than simply marking a 2,000 year old event in history. It is celebrating a truth about God, the revelation of God in Christ whereby all of creation might be reconciled to God. That is a process in which we now participate, and the consummation of which we anticipate. Today’s passage reminds us that there is yet a “second” advent looming on the horizon, and as we reflect on the meaning of the first advent we must prepare, we must “get ready” for the dawning of the second.
The doctrine of the second coming of Jesus Christ is one of the central doctrines of the Christian faith. When we come to take the bread and cup, the liturgy reminds us of our confession that “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” This statement of faith echoes both Scripture and the tradition of the early church. The New Testament writers expressed their deep belief in the second coming as well. Hear the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:4-5:
Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! [5] Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.
The Apostle James believed it too. Listen to James 5:7-8:
Dear brothers and sisters, you must be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return. Consider the farmers who eagerly look for the rains in the fall and in the spring. They patiently wait for the precious harvest to ripen. [8] You, too, must be patient. And take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near.
Peter, too, held deeply to the conviction of the Lord’s coming: 2 Peter 3:9-10
The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise to return, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to perish, so he is giving more time for everyone to repent. [10] But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and everything in them will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be exposed to judgment.
John, the Revelator, wrote these words: Rev. 1:7—Look! He comes with the clouds of heaven. And everyone will see him—even those who pierced him. And all the nations of the earth will weep because of him. Yes! Amen!
And, Luke the historian records in Acts 1 that the angels of heaven proclaimed to the disciples gathered on the Mount of Olives as Jesus ascended to heaven, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing here staring at the sky? Jesus has been taken away from you into heaven. And someday, just as you saw him go, he will return!”
The words of Mark’s Gospel today are the words of Jesus, and his words remind us that he is coming again, and his words call us, as they did his disciples, to watch and prepare. In our hurried rush to prepare for Christmas, we need to be reminded that we need to be as ready for the second advent as the first.
One reason I think we don’t spend as much time focusing on the second advent is because of the danger of becoming pre-occupied with it. Seriously, many authors and not a few pastors have made their livelihoods by playing the same song over and over again. It becomes for some people an absolute obsession. How many books are there now in the Left Behind series? If my calculation is correct producers are shooting the third film in the Left Behind series. There is this fascination with the end times.
The fascination with the end times in nothing new, though. Actually, the words of this passage of Scripture is Jesus’ response to the disciples’ “when” question. Leaving the Temple this day, one of the disciples commented, “Teacher, aren’t these buildings awesome?”
Jesus replied, “These awesome buildings are going to be destroyed, and not one stone will be left on top of another.”
Well that got their interest up, just like it does ours, and they could hardly wait to get out to the Mount of Olives so they could ask Jesus, “When will these things take place.” The disciples were looking for a roadmap for eternity. In our search for that same roadmap we get lost in figuring out the images that Jesus used to communicate truth. There were some strange images that Jesus used: wars and rumors of wars, false messiahs, desecrations of the holy place. Jesus was simply using images familiar to his Jewish disciples, to their tradition and history. If time permitted I could recount numerous passages from Jewish literature and Scripture that echo the images Jesus shared that day. It was apocalyptic language. We become so obsessed with the particular that we miss the general truth Jesus wanted to communicate. As one preacher put it, “We are so heavenly minded we are of no earthly good.” Let me say it again: Jesus was neither giving the disciples a roadmap to eternity, nor a timetable to the future. He was giving an imperative to be ready for his coming again.
So how does getting ready for the one prepare us for the other? Just how are the two advents woven together in the Advent season? Theologian William Oden says the second advent is the consummation, the completion of what God began on the first advent. The two are inextricably and intimately woven together, and we get ready for the second by living in faithfulness to the first. What do I mean?
Perhaps we might understand it better if we think about how we live our lives. We live knowing death is inevitable, but we are all uncertain as to when it will come. Most sane people don’t go around lamenting, “Oh, woest me! I’m going to die.” No, we never hasten the day of death even those we live with its certainty. Rather, the prudent person prepares for that day, gets ready if you will, not by obsession, but by faithfulness. Living in faithfulness to the first advent gets us ready for the second advent.
How do we live in faithfulness to the first advent? First, living in faithfulness to the first advent is accepting Christ. To accept Christ is to acknowledge what God was doing in the first advent, namely, sending His Savior in the world to redeem His creation. That is the starting point for all subsequent preparation.
Secondly, living in faithfulness to the first advent is growing to maturity as disciples of Jesus Christ. It is allowing the awesome power of God through the Holy Spirit to transform us, to remake us, to give us new birth. We grow by opening ourselves to Christ, by preparing for his coming into our own lives through Bible study, through prayer, through fellowship, through so many other spiritual disciplines.
Finally, living in faithfulness to the first advent is serving Christ by serving others. When we serve others, the spirit of Christmas, nay, the Spirit of Christ, lives through each of us as we give ourselves in sacrificial, humbling love, which is exactly what Jesus did in that first advent.
Especially at Christmas, I am reminded of “Old Suzie.” Her name was Suzie McConnell, and she was the African-American woman who worked for my grandmother a few days a week. Old Suzie was a fast friend to the whole family, and she was forever trading jabs with family members, especially as the days drew close to Christmas, and preparations were being made. Old Suzie didn’t drive, and my grandmother would always have to take her home in the evenings when the days work was done. My grandmother would always ask the question, “Suzie, you ready to go?” And Old Suzie’s answer was always the same, “I stays ready to keep from having to get that way.”
Advent is the time when we reflect on the grace of God made real in our lives in a manger 2,000 years ago, and advent is living in anticipation of his glorious return. It is staying ready so we don’t have to get that way.
