Delivered Sunday, November 27, 2011 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Charlottesville, VA.
Text: Mark 13:24-37
This is a little frightening for me, standing here, in this pulpit, and preaching on this particular text at the beginning of the Advent Season. Contrary to what may be expected of a seminarian, I don’t have the liturgical calendar memorized, and didn’t realize that this Sunday was the First of Advent when I agreed to be here. Countless times I’ve sat in the pews and listened to wonderful sermons from Jim and Laura, and it’s still sinking in just how high the bar is set.
Both in and outside the church, advent is a time of waiting and preparation for Christmas, honoring the first coming of Jesus into this earthly world; a time of eager anticipation for Christmas morning, preparation for a variety of special services—the Lessons and Carols service, Christmas Eve and, this year, a Christmas morning service. A time of shopping and planning for Christmas parties, Christmas or Christmas Eve dinners, and, finally, Christmas day, when the waiting is over, presents are opened, and hopefully the stress of the season begins to dissipate.
At first glance, this text, focused, as it is, on the eschaton, the end-times when Jesus will come again may seem out of place. When we think of Advent texts, we think of the birth narratives of Luke and Matthew, shepherds and wise-men coming from near and far to see the infant Jesus, led by angels who know what’s going on and by a star set firmly in the sky above Bethlehem.
This text gives us none of those. Instead we are confronted with stars falling from the sky and the ignorance of angels. Instead of infant Jesus in a manger, we have a presumably adult Christ coming in clouds with great power and glory.
On its surface, this text feels more appropriate for Lent or Easter, but, here it is, in the Lectionary for Advent. The first question, then, is why? This text is urgent in its demand that we keep awake, stay alert, keep watch. We need to pay attention to the signs around us. The first part of the chapter enumerates a great many signs to which we should NOT pay attention. There will be wars, there will be persecution, omens and signs will be produced, but these are false signs proclaimed by false prophets to lead the people astray.
Jesus will not come during, but after all of that. Jesus will not spring up from nowhere, but will come down “in clouds with great power and glory.” Simply put, when it happens, it will be obvious, but before that, we can’t know. The angels don’t know. Jesus even says that HE doesn’t know.
I can’t help but remember, on reading this passage, the recent furor caused by Harold Camping, who has made several predictions regarding the second coming, 2 just in the past year. The first was last May 21st. A friend actually called me that day, seeking reassurance that the rapture was not about to happen, that the world was not about to end. I told her that many people have attempted to predict the end countless times in the past. That the Book of Revelation is largely written in a code meant to get by Roman censors, and thus much of the apocalyptic language in that book is really describing conditions and events in the time it was written. That I didn’t accept the idea that there even would be rapture distinct from the Second Coming and that such an idea is really only about 150 years old. I told her that we shouldn’t spend time speculating about when God would come and give us a completed kingdom when there is work to be done in the here and now to bring this world closer to the kingdom.
I then found out that she had previously spoken to her mother, a conservative Baptist who had also sought to reassure her drawing on her own tradition. Thinking about it, she may well have drawn heavily on this chapter of Mark. My friend’s mother had talked about how, while the end was coming, there wouldn’t be rapture because Christians need to stay to help other people during the tribulation, and, even so, there were a great many other things that had to happen first, including possibly the emergence of an anti-Christ. As she was telling me the things her mother said, I was, well, horrified, but my friend told me that her mother had been much more reassuring than I had. Something to remember—people don’t want vague theological platitudes about God and the kingdom. People want details. Even if those details are disturbing in themselves.
Fortunately, despite my failure to offer any concrete reassurance, the call eventually ended, and I continued on my way to a graduation party where we observed that the world did not, in fact end. Harold Camping rechecked his numbers and came up with a new date, in October, but, as May was his second failed attempt to predict the Second Coming, it wasn’t paid much attention, and, again, the date passed and we remain here.
Standing here, thinking about the countless apocalyptic predictions that have come and gone, it’s easy to become complacent, and to think it never will. This is perhaps the true danger of these false prophets. Those they lead away in the short term will have opportunity to return. But every false prediction dulls our senses. As in the story of The Boy who Cried Wolf, eventually we stop paying attention entirely and become consumed in our every-day lives.
Friday night, I let my parents read an earlier version of this sermon. My mother, who grew up Episcopalian, but has since been reformed, asked me “Do Presbyterians believe in the Second Coming? I don’t remember hearing it talked about all that much at Westminster.” As is often the case, the long answer is very long, but there is a short answer, it’s “Yes, but we don’t like to talk about it.” Don’t worry, I’m moving on
In this advent season, we focus on planning and throwing the perfect party, cooking the perfect meal for Christmas Dinner, and finding the perfect present for, it seems at times, everyone we have ever spoken a hundred words to. The distractions during this time of year are myriad and well known, but we still succumb to them, and, in doing so, often fail to pay attention to the real things around us.
This year, stores expanded their Black Friday hours, many opening at midnight, some even opening 10 PM on Thanksgiving Day. I’ve heard reports of people camped out in parking lots as early as noon on Thanksgiving. Despite online protests at the move, Reuters reports that the change was a huge success for retailers and that likely even more will do it next year.
This early start to the shopping season is, apparently, necessary. According to a Consumer Reports poll earlier this month, people plan to spend an average of 19.3 hours shopping for Christmas presents, a number which doesn’t include the three hours people anticipate waiting in line, another three hours wrapping presents, and some 8.5 hours travelling. In total, that is almost 34 hours, compared to 13.7 hours people plan on spending with family and friends. Consumer Reports has not bothered to ask how much time people plan on spending at church services or volunteering, but, I doubt the time would be significant given that last year The London Telegraph reported an estimate that, on Christmas Day, more people would shop online than go to church. Not that over the course of the year, or even the holiday season more people would shop online, no, on Christmas day itself more people would visit Amazon.com than a church. This may not seem a big thing here in the U.S., where many churches have Christmas Eve instead of Christmas day services, but my experience was that in the U.K., the Christmas morning service is the norm.
Honestly though, I doubt any of that is particularly new or surprising to you. For years we have been lamenting the commercialization of Christmas. Such stories are as perennial as the fig tree, one of few deciduous trees native to the mid-East, and one that is known for being predictable. One commentary that I read suggested that Jesus’ use of the fig tree in the parable in today’s text indicates that Jesus is not speaking of a one-time event. That Jesus isn’t speaking about the eschaton, but rather indicating that there will be many times of suffering, and that God’s love is regular and predictable. We fail to pay attention and become hurt, we cry out to God, and God acts to heal us and the world.
So far, I’ve talked a lot about the Second Coming, about which we don’t really like to talk, and the commercialization of Christmas, about which we’ve heard too much. If we can’t predict when the eschaton will occur, and if, as I think we all acknowledge, we will become distracted, what then should we do? If we aren’t to be troubled by God’s timing of the eschaton, what are we to concern ourselves with?
We need to pay attention, to keep awake. Not just to the dangers of false prophets and consumerism, but to how we lead our lives. Naysayers of doom and commerce aside, the advent season does prompt many to reconsider their spiritual lives. In the midst of frantic shopping and scurrying, we do notice the Salvation Army bucket and soup lines. We may not always worry about whether or not God is watching, but we do wonder about Santa, and, hopefully that translates to the same effect.
We need to concern ourselves with where we would stand if the eschaton were to occur today. We need to remember that there may not always be an opportunity to say “I’m sorry,” or “I love you.” We need to live each day as if it were our last. I don’t mean that you shouldn’t plan for tomorrow at all, but that when it comes to setting something right, we should do it today. God’s love is perennial and eternal, but this world is not.
Yes, we will become distracted, we will spend more time and money shopping than we should, and, almost inevitably, family members will argue during some Christmas gathering or another. These things are all distressingly regular. Fortunately, we have the reassurance that God’s love is just as regular, and will not pass away unlike earthly arguments and complaints, the hours spent shopping, travelling, and waiting in line, wrapping presents and planning parties, events and services, Jesus’ word, and God’s love, will outlast this world.