The Gospel for the First Sunday of Advent was Mark 13: 24-37, reading as follows:
24 “But in those days, following that distress,
“‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
25 the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’
26 “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.
28 “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 29 Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. 30 Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
32 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. 34 It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.
35 “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. 36 If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. 37 What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”
You will notice right away that Mark's Jesus is far more direct than the guy we've been hearing about in Matthew for the last year. There's little explanation here, no extended prose. It's just...BAM BAM BAM! Heavens are shaken, Son of Man coming, end of an age, can't guess when it will be, watch out!
What are we to do with this? Click "read more" to find out...
On Sunday we took a simple approach to the text. Even figuring out that we need to keep awake, to watch and prepare for something, would be a big step forward in our faith lives.
In a world where we feel perpetually busy we get lulled into a familiar rhythm by our daily tasks. A couple weeks ago we talked about the ways in which we can waste our time and other ways in which we can live productively. This week we addressed an implication of those lists that we haven't talked about yet: we are among the first couple generations on the planet that has had the option to waste this much of our time! Whether you want to talk about ancient hunter/gatherers, medieval serfs, or our own pioneer great-great-grandparents, all of them were familiar with two things:
1. Preparing for and having to work hard at anything they wanted to accomplish, which was mostly finding a way to eat today.
2. Being at the mercy of forces beyond their control (cruel lords, rampant disease, natural disasters, wild animals, the vagaries of the weather even) which could wipe away or change their efforts in an instant.
These aren't nearly as much a part of our day-to-day reality as they were back then. Many of our great-grandmothers spent every day, dawn to dusk, cooking and washing for husbands and children and hired hands. Lunch used to take 3-4 hours to prepare. Now it's 90 seconds in a microwave. Neither system is inherently better or worse but the example shows how the message to watch and prepare seems foreign to us.
So, too, with the idea of those forces beyond our control impacting our lives. We are isolated, insulated. If it rains we go inside something: house, car, shelter of an umbrella or vinyl hood. If it doesn't rain we simply turn on water from the tap. Back then if it didn't rain no crops would grow and you died. Once upon a time the Son of Man coming on the clouds at a time unknown to anyone would have seemed natural. Now we can schedule him between 3:30 and 4:00 on Tuesday if he texts us first to confirm. If it falls outside of our routine we resist it. Most of us have the power to do so with all events beyond the most catastrophic. And when those truly catastrophic events do find us (as they eventually do with us all) they cause a crisis of faith that we're ill-equipped to handle.
In my experience texts like this make little connection with most modern church-goers. That's a shame because the message is important. Faith isn't something that just happens. Faith is a daily discipline, intentional and full of preparation. Loving the Lord God with all your heart, soul, and mind and your neighbor as yourself isn't just going to happen. God is too ephemeral and most of your neighbors too annoying, especially those who cut you off with their grocery carts in the aisle while you're Christmas shopping! Unless you prepare yourself--exercising those faith and love muscles, determined that win or lose you're not giving up--you'll not be able to even see what you're called to do, much less respond.
Faith doesn't mean everything will go right. Some things will go wrong. Eventually some things will go really, really wrong in ways you can't fix or control. Your sun will get darkened, your moon refuse to give its light, the stars in your sky will fall and everything you depended on in the universe will shake. That's only the beginning of the story in this text though. Its end is redemption, endurance beyond every trouble, the gathering of all God's beloved into his arms and their deliverance from that which afflicts them. But if we've trained our eyes to see--and our hearts to depend on--only the things of this world we can't get past the horrific beginning of the story to its glorious end.
We're not told to prepare and watch because that's the answer to everything. It may not even be the answer to anything! But in the long run it's all we can do when we're enmeshed in a world that's gone wrong. Don't be lulled into thinking that backwards is forwards and wrong is right. Don't busy yourself in a million chores to run away from the bigger picture. That picture can be scary, but it ends very, very well. Don't give up! Expect God to act. Prepare for God to act. Depend on God acting for your good and the good of this world. Trust and then have the courage to watch. Wake up every morning yearning to see him, entrusting yourself and all that you love to him. He will respond.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
P.S. Don't forget that you can send questions or comments via that e-mail address or leave them in the comment section below each post.
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