First Sunday in Advent 12/2/12

First Sunday in Advent 12/2/12 Text: Luke 21:25-36 Title: It Is Official. Jesus Is Coming Again! If I ask you what today is, you will tell me that it is December 2nd, the first Sunday in December. That means that there are only 22 more shopping days until Christmas. According to the church calendar, however, today December 2nd is something more. It is the beginning of the new church year; it is the first Sunday of Advent. And with that, today begins the season of waiting; waiting for the Second Advent of Jesus when he comes back to judge the world. This idea of waiting for something should be no surprise; especially parents or grandparents. You have some children or tween-agers or teenagers who have been waiting for some time since the Christmas promotions began. And when the calendar turned to December yesterday, the countdown time began in earnest. Anxious expectant waiting; that is the time we are in, but what are we waiting for; Christmas Day or Jesus second coming? Both actually, for this season of Advent in the church year has two points of focus. On one hand, Advent reminds us that there was a time more than 2,000 years ago when devout people were waiting for God to send into the world the Messiah; that is, the Christ. Over hundreds of years, generations of the most devout people in the ancient nation of Israel had been waiting for the Messiah. So in the Advent season we remember how those long-ago people waited for Christ to come. We celebrate that memory by singing hymns with lines like, “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel,” and “Come, thou long-expected Jesus, born to set thy people free.” But we, as New Testament Christians have a second focus during Advent. We also remember that Jesus promised that he would someday return to our earth, and in this season Advent we look forward to his coming again. That is why each one of the scripture lessons for today has to do with Christ’s second coming and not the birth of Jesus. There was something unsettling about the first time Jesus came, just over 2,000 years ago. As I said earlier, devout people then were waiting for God’s Messiah to come. As it turned out, however, most of the people in the first century who should have recognized Jesus; the Bible scholars which we know as scribes and Pharisees, the religious leaders of the time did not recognize Jesus, Immanuel “God with us.” as being the promised Messiah. We look at the Biblical evidence and can’t help but wonder why they didn’t recognize him. They didn’t because they were looking for the wrong Messiah instead of the Messiah God had promised in the Old Testament. Jesus did not match the Messiah they wanted and so they rejected him, just as people reject Jesus today because he does not fit who they want him to be. In our Gospel reading for today from the inspired words of Saint Luke we read that Jesus said that before his return, “there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” Signs in the skies should be easy to recognize. That is, if things are happening with the sun, the moon and the stars so that it distresses all the nations of the earth because of the “roaring of the sea and the waves.” We know those things because we have seen tsunamis where hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives, as it happened several years ago in Indonesia . We have seen or been in hurricanes like Katrina and now Sandy which caused unbelievable damage and ruined so many lives. We know they are terrible, but God’s Word is talking of something more widespread, more destructive: not just a disaster at one place on earth, tragic as that may be, but something as God’s Word tells us involving, “the sun, the moon, and the stars.” something really big and life changing. Jesus said that the times would be so severe that people would “faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world,” because “the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” And when all of this has taken place we read that Jesus will come “with power and great glory.” There must have been some doubters there that day because Jesus tells a parable. Look at a fig tree, he said. “When you see it sprout leaves, you know that summer is already near.” Even so, Jesus said, if you see these heavenly signs taking place, you can know “that the kingdom of God is near,” so near that the generation then living “will not pass away until all things have taken place.” Generation in the context that Jesus is speaking does not mean those who were alive when Jesus spoke his words, but humanity in general; in other words his human creation will not be destroyed before his coming. These signs in the world of nature and the fear and panic people will feel are the only signs of Christ’s return mentioned in today’s scripture lesson. You will find other signs in other books of the Bible. Some of them have to do with human conduct, such as an increase in immorality, and some with international affairs. It seems that much of the popular preaching concerning Jesus’ return, perhaps especially on television, emphasizes what is happening in world politics, especially concerning Israel and the Middle East. But most of us have learned that these political upheavals seem to come and go so fast that it’s hard to keep up with them. So, what do we know about the return of Christ? First of all we know that we need to keep foremost in our thoughts just who Jesus is and the purpose for which he came to be one of us. We don’t want to be like the people when Jesus was living on this earth that did not believe in him because they were looking for an earthly king. Secondly, we know that there are going to be some terrible events in our world before Jesus’ second coming; some of which we are getting a preview of now. Most of these events are hard to evaluate and understand. Don’t sell your farm on anyone’s interpretation of these signs, because they tend to be complex and can be interpreted in all different kinds of ways; some symbolically and others literally, as people who interpret them tend to put the twist of their own preconceptions on what they see. All of us are susceptible to that kind of thing because we are inclined to “find” what we’re looking for in God’s Word concerning the end times. Thirdly, we know that Jesus assured us that he will return. He said that we should encourage ourselves with this knowledge. We are not to be afraid, for what is happening should give us cause, as Jesus said, to quit living in fear and uncertainty. We are to “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” It is going to happen just as we know that when new leaves start sprouting summer is near. Fourthly, and I think it is the most important is that we need to be ready for Jesus when he comes back in his Second Advent. Jesus tells us in our scripture reading, “be on guard,” to watch out for “dissipation which means staggering when the head refuses to cooperate, like when you are hung over, and drunkenness and the worries of this life,” because these things can distract us so that we will not be prepared. Jesus is not talking here of physically being hung over or suffering from drunkenness. He is talking of this in a spiritual manner, as in being so swayed by the wisdom of those in the world; you know those who say that they really know what God’s Word says, even as they ignore the Church’s teaching of thousands of years, that you cannot think clearly our understand God’s Word. That is what he is warning about. We live in an uncertain and frightful world. We try to ignore it especially in this time of the year, but it does not work, for what the world offers cannot permanently ease our uncertainty and fear. Only Jesus can do that, for he carried our uncertainty, our fear, and yes our unbelief with him to the cross. He took the wrath of God, the wrath we deserve and in doing so he gave us his certainty, lessened our fear, and strengthened our unbelief. We now have the sure hope of God’s promises, not the maybe it will happen hope of unbelievers, but the sure it will happen hope in that we know God will do what he has promised even if it looks like the world and everything in it is coming apart. Remember in the sometimes craziness and unreal expectations of the Christmas season that this will all pass away, but God’s promises will not. All praise to God; our certainty, our peace, our hope in the uncertainty of our lives. Amen.