November 30, 2008

Jesus Is Coming
Mark 13:24-37
Advent 1 – November 30, 2008

...Waiting...

Advent is a season of waiting...

Waiting for Christ to come as a little child; waiting for Christ to come again in glory & power to renew all of creation.

Waiting is something we've got tons of experience in – It's estimated that we spend 3 years of a 70-year life span just waiting. If you've lived longer than that, you've spent even more time waiting! And there are all kinds of waiting. In Oh, The Places You'll Go, Dr. Seuss talks about the waiting place, filled with people:

Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

Yes, we wait a lot, at the grocery store, at the doctor's office, on each other -and with all of that practice waiting, you would think that we would be good at it! And yet, in our instant oatmeal, high-speed Internet, overnight delivery world, waiting is something we tend to resent. We want whatever we're waiting for to be here already, to be happening now, instead of on some future day. We have a hard time living in the present moment. We have a hard time waiting.

The early church was not so good at waiting either. That's the group that the author of Mark was writing to. The Gospel of Mark was written about 3 or 4 decades after Jesus had lived and died. Those early Christians fully believed that Christ was coming back - was coming soon, in their lifetime! But as time wore on, he didn't come, the first followers began to die, and waiting for the day of Jesus' return became harder and harder. They saw the events Jesus had talked about as signs that his coming was near start to happen around them: the temple had been destroyed, families had started turning in their Christian relatives to the authorities, persecution for their faith had begun. And still, Jesus did not come. Times were tough for them, and they longed for Jesus to come back and set everything right. They wanted Jesus to come and save them. As I imagine how they felt, I hear an echo of what we heard in Isaiah this morning: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence...” There's a sense of longing, but also, maybe, of impatience, kind of like the guy from Caddy Shack who Andy likes to quote: “Well... we're waiting!”

“Show up now God! You've been gone too long.”

This story that Mark tells us this morning is part of what's known as the “little apocalypse.” Jesus describes the day of his return as a day when “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven...” We read passages like this, and honestly, don't they sound kind of scary? But to that early group of Christians, frightened by what they saw taking place in the world around them, it was good news! The message that Jesus was gonna come back gave them hope and courage, even as the world around them seemed to be falling apart. Here in this passage, Jesus promises them, and us, that even though heaven & earth will pass away, his words will not pass away. We hear once again a parable about a man who goes away, but we also hear that the master of the house, Jesus, will return. No one knows for sure when it will happen, not even Jesus, just God the Father, but Jesus promises that he will be back! The troubles that surround them will not last forever, because Jesus is coming, and when he does, the world will be restored, and all the troubles they're facing will be over.

But knowing this isn't a license for them to sit around, twiddling their thumbs and doing nothing. Jesus says that while they wait, they have work to do! He tells them to beware, keep alert, be on watch. Keep awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come. The man has gone on a journey, and he has left his servants in charge – each with their work. They have been given a job to do, duties and responsibilities to fulfill. They are supposed to be doing the work of the master, even though he is gone. That is part of their waiting, their hopeful expectation that he will return someday, their joyful desire to do his work even in his absence.

As we enter Advent, this season of waiting & watching, today, it is good for us to hear this story again. It is not quite what we would expect or hope to hear, while the world around us fills up with twinkling lights and the sentimental songs of the season. But in our troubled world, where terrorists take hostages and kill innocent people, where greedy shoppers are so intent on getting a great bargain that they trample over a man caught in their way, we too long for a Savior to come and set things right, to change the world, to change us into the people we know we should be, the people we were created to be. We need to hear over and over again the promise that Jesus is coming, not just as a babe in a manger, but as the “'Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory,” who will usher in the fullness of God's kingdom, where God's will is always done, here on earth as it is in heaven.

This is good news! It is the day we look forward to, the day we cry out for, when we say “Come, Lord Jesus.” And while we wait, Jesus calls us to keep alert, to be on the lookout, because we don't know when that day or hour will be. And I don't mean that we're supposed to be like kids in school whose teacher has to leave the room & leaves them without supervision. You know how that goes, right? In my school, kids would take that as a chance to act up, to act wild, and usually one kid was set at the door to be the lookout, to warn everyone else when the teacher was coming. That not what Jesus is talking about. That's now how we are supposed to wait. While we wait, Jesus tells us to be alert, to watch with joyful anticipation, to wait for our most honored guest, to get ready to meet him when he comes. Remember the way you used to wait for Christmas Eve and for Santa to come? The hope, the excitement? Our waiting should be like that!

And while we wait, Jesus tells us we have work to do! We can't sit around twiddling our thumbs, bemoaning the state of the world, and wishing for Jesus to come back. It's not like the John Mayer song of a few years ago – we can't “keep on waiting, waiting, waiting for the world to change.” Jesus wants us to be part of the change, just as he was. Until he comes back, we are Christ's hands and feet in the world. We are to look for the signs of his coming, to see the places where God is already at work, those kingdom moments when God breaks through from eternity into the here and now, and to point those signs out to others, so that they can look forward to Christ's return with hope & longing, instead of fear & trepidation! Not only that, we are called to share in God's work, to reach out into our world to make a difference – feeding the hungry, and giving the thirsty something to drink; welcoming the stranger and clothing the naked; caring for the sick and visiting those in prison. When we look for Christ in the faces of the ones he called “the least of these,” we will find that there is more than enough to keep us alert and awake while we wait for his return.

Stir up your power in us, O God. Stir up your power and come. Amen.