Mark 13:24-37
We
have just come off of what was probably not the Thanksgiving we would have
chosen or the one many of us would have wanted. Now we begin to look toward
Christmas which will pretty much be the same. I am sure we all had lovely thanksgiving
dinners and enjoyed the ones with whom we were able to spend it. For many the
day did not include as many as we would have like. There were vacancies at our
tables, some because we had not been able to join those with whom we usually
celebrate this meal, some because they were unable to join us, and others were
simply vacant because those seats will never be filled again. Not the Thanksgiving
we would have hoped for. Not the Thanksgiving we would have wanted.
We
are in the between times. Our national and cultural calendar keeping tells us we
are in those strange days which fall between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This
is a season when we focus on family. It is the time of the year when so many of
us take the journey home. If we manage to make it “home” once a year this is
the preferred time to do so. These are “home” going days, when we go to the places
and to the people where there are those who joyously wait our “home comings”. This
is the season of our year when we traditionally travel the places where we
belong, home to “our people.” Not this year. This year we are staying put. Our celebrations
this past week were smaller and for some lonelier and we can expect pretty much
the same for Christmas as well.
In
this year when we cannot “go home” when we are unable to take that annual
pilgrimage to the places where belong, we once again as the Church enter into
the Advent season. The Advent, as well
as the Christmas seasons are seasons of homecoming, not only in the culture
around us, but for us as Christians as well.
In
Advent and Christmas we remember that God came and found a home among us,
becoming flesh and dwelt with us for a time. As we look toward the manger and
the tiny Messiah it holds, we are once again reminded that Christ’s dwelling
places are not always the place where we would expect to find the God of the universe.
So many times when we are looking for Jesus we look for him in the sanctuaries
and cathedrals we have built for him. We search for him in abbeys and monasteries
among the men and woman who have given their lives over to worship and prayer.
Yet when Chris dwelt among us he came to us in a manger, and slept in stable
room among the animals. He grew up among the meek and the lowly. He made his
ministry among the outcasts and the sinners, for which he was commonly ridiculed.
And when he went into the sanctuaries and holy places of his day, he was not well
received and was often cast out. So as we move into this Advent season this
year, I ask the question, where do we belong?
The
passage with which we are faced this morning does not seem to be very homey. Yet
it is a homecoming passage, in which we contemplate Christ’s return. At the beginning
of the passage Jesus is using language and imagery which would have been familiar
to his listeners, as it was the same as that used by the prophets when they
spoke of the great and terrible day of the Lord. “In those days,” are the word
the prophets used to describe the days when the messiah would come. They are
the words Jesus uses here to describe the coming of the “Son of Man” that is
his own second coming.
The
great and terrible day of the Lord, the coming of the Messiah is the time when
God promised to right all which had gone so terribly wrong. Evil doers would be
punished. Those who swindled the poor, who did not seek to help the orphan and
the widow, who bought and sold with dishonest scales, who mistreated those
around them and hoarded up wealth for themselves at the expense of neighbor, stranger
and kin alike, would get what the truly deserved. Justice would finally be
found throughout the land. A terrible
day for all these; a great day for those who love and for all those being
misused and abused; for those who serve the Lord. It is the ultimate homecoming.
It will be the day on which all those who love God will be where they truly
belong.
The
passage begins with the darkening of the sun and moon and the falling of the
stars. Often when we read this passage and those like it, we want to look to this
paragraph to give us clues, to serve as a road map or to be an alarm clock
which will go off to warn us when Jesus is coming. But, as Christ reminds us
here, “No one knows the day or the hour, neither the angels in heaven or
himself, only the Father knows when all this will come to be.
What
Jesus is describing here is the entire created order losing all “order”. The
heavens break open, the cycle of days and seasons fall into disarray. All that
makes and measure time ceases as we enter into a new “season” which will no
longer be marked by day and night, or the phases of the moon or the positioning
of the stars. When the heavens break open and eternity invades finitude,
everything is affected and time itself unravels. What Jesus is giving us here
are not billboards on the highway letting us know that the next rest stop or
gas station will be in three miles, so that we can prepare to get over now.
What Jesus is letting us know is that when eternity breaks into our world, all the
ways we know to mark the days and the season, to mark time, will no longer
matter.
Why
do
we need warning signs for when Jesus is returning, anyway? What is it we are hoping for? Would a
billboard telling us when Christ will return really change who we are, what we
are doing, how we are living? If we knew Jesus was returning in May of 2020
would we work harder, to be the holy people we are called to be? If we knew He
would return before the end of the year, would we pray more and longer? What would
we do differently with our lives, with our faith? Why would knowing Christ’s
immanent return change these things?
The
message Jesus is seeking to convey is not for us to look for the signs so we can
hurry up and be ready for his return. The message here can be found in the idea
which is repeated several times throughout this passage, that is, “Keep
alert;" "keep awake.”
In
the parable we are those to whom the master has entrusted with the care and
keeping of the estate until his return. As we wait for his return are we doing
our best, working to further the kingdom, living lives which are reflecting the
love of God and neighbor we saw lived out in the life of Jesus Christ and to
which he called us through his teachings? We are the workers managing the
estate until the master’s return. As we do so we are to continually be working,
doing our best to “hold down the fort” so to speak, until his return, so that
we are always awake, always ready for his arrival.
We
are not to be like teenagers from TV show and movies, who upon finding
themselves home alone for the weekend throw a huge party, only have their
parents return earlier than expected and have to hurriedly put everything back
in order before they arrive. Instead we are to always be ready for Christ’s
return, whether he comes today or 2,000 years from now. We cannot go through
our lives expecting to have a warning, so we can hurriedly get ourselves and
our lives in order.
We
are to live in hope, in expectation, always ready for Christ to return, desiring
and longing for the moment when all things will be set right. Yet working and
living to make right what we can while we have the time. We are to live into
and work for the good, the justice which will be made complete, made full when
Christ returns. Each day is to be lived seeking to make God’s will, God’s
justice, righteousness, goodness and love a reality in the here and now, all
the while hoping for the time when it will all be made manifest with the return
of Christ.
Advent
is the season when we remember the moment when God came into the world and made
a home among us. We remember that Jesus, for a time, belonged with us and
continues seek our belonging in him and with him. Right now we are reminded
what it is like to be longing for home. In this time when we cannot be where we
want to be, we long for the places where we belong. Yet, as Christians we know we
will never truly find home, this side of eternity, outside of the home we will
make with God in Christ.
In
this Advent season of waiting, we are also reminded we continue to wait for
Christ’s return, for Jesus to come “home.” We wait for a time when we will come
together for the greatest “homecoming” feast the world has ever seen, one in which
there will be no vacant seats. We wait for the time when we will all come home,
because Christ has finally returned and we can all be home together for eternity.
And while we wait, let us not wait like those who are looking for early warning
signs, so we can hurry up and get our act together, but let us be alert, and always
be ready, living today as if Christ will come today, yet also living prepared
to continue to wait. All the while we are waiting, let us wait in hope and not
in despair, not waiting for Christ for all things to be set right, but let us
work to make things right, to be agents of justice, love and peace as we wait.
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