First Sunday of Advent

Matthew 24:36-44

For a very long time the only countdowns I ever heard were on space shuttle launches aired from the Kennedy Space Center or the countdown that happens when they drop the ball in New York City’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve. But now we have countdowns until movie and video game releases, countdowns to elections, and at this time of year, countdowns to Black Friday and Christmas as stores tell us how many shopping days remain. Even in the Church our Advent calendars numbered one to twenty-four or twenty-five create a countdown to the birth of the baby Jesus. But Advent didn’t begin as a countdown to Christmas; these four weeks anticipate the Second Coming of the Christ.

On this first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the church year begins with the end in mind. The gospel of Matthew was written about fifty years after Christ’s ascension and the gospel writer was speaking to people who, like us, were in an in-between time. We have experienced salvation in Jesus Christ – God living among us in the flesh and taking on all that is ours so that we might have all that is his. But we are living in the “already but not yet” because the fullness of the Kingdom of God is not yet realized.

Living here and now in this world, this Word of God speaks to us.

Jesus is on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem and he gives the disciples a description of what the coming of the Son of Man will be like, recalling what it was like when the earth was flooded in the days of Noah. Ironically, in the rapture theology promoted by popular fiction like the Left Behind books, these verses have been misused to turn God into a body snatcher. But if we can listen again to what Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel, it becomes clear that the layers of judgment about who is righteous and who isn’t is something we have added. It’s not in the text. Jesus does say that like those who were swept away in the floodwaters at the time of Noah, some will be taken and some will be left. But we don’t know the reason anymore than we know the day it will happen.

When Jesus says the Second Coming will be unexpected, I think we hear it as a sudden and unpredictable, an unwanted interruption and maybe even a threat. After all the people Jesus describes are “eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage.” They are living their everyday lives.

What if we could be more childlike in our anticipation of the unexpected? Could we delight with the thrill of being surprised by a loving parent who has been deployed appearing out of nowhere in the classroom? Could we prepare for the return of the Son of Man without trying to put it on a schedule? Could we ditch the “chronos” understanding of time and adopt more wonder and confidence in the “kairos” of God’s timing?

There is Good News in not knowing. It forces us to depend on God. We cannot know when God’s kingdom will come in fullness, but we can trust the grace we have been given by God that we are enough. God is not a body snatcher and God is not a caricature of a schoolmaster who is out to catch us out when we fall short. God knows each us wholly in all our brokenness and sin, and, in God’s abundant mercy, God loves us, forgives us and gives us eternal life.

But what does Jesus mean when he tells us to prepare or be ready, to stay alert or keep watch? Well, he doesn’t mean we should never rest. And he doesn’t call us all to live a cloistered life immersed in monastic prayer. Like the people Jesus describes, we must continue the work of everyday life: eating and drinking, working and living in community together and caring for our families and neighbors. The Good News is that God gives us opportunities to help accomplish God’s work here on earth in this in-between time.

Shunning complacency, we can be alert for the ways God is calling us to live our lives, be aware of the gifts we have been given that equip us to serve and be attentive to the needs that still exist in our community and in the world.

Just this past week we saw glimpses of the kingdom right here in Shelby. One was when we shared our gifts of space and hospitality and hosted the community Thanksgiving worship here on Tuesday night. Some 90 people were here with the Episcopal Church’s choir and other musicians from Eskridge Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Aldersgate United Methodist and Living Waters Ministry. People shared testimonies of gratitude and named people and situations to include in prayers, and it was holy ground that encompassed the fellowship hall where people gathered for dessert and conversation after worship.

Then on Wednesday we donated desserts and loaned tables and chairs, chafing dishes and cornhole to the Community Table Meal held at Graham School and shared a meal with people we didn’t know. I met a woman and her children from Boiling Springs who were there for the first time; it’s the third year Graham has hosted a meal but this family wouldn’t have known about it if Cleveland County Schools hadn’t sent out a phone message on their system. The whole meal was like the story of the loaves and fishes, and in addition to the others who ate at the school that day, we had enough food to send boxes home with that family for 13 people. Surely, we were on holy ground that day.

As we begin this Advent may we be alert and attentive and aware to what God is doing already and how we are invited to participate in God’s kingdom here on earth, even now. Amen.