Watching and Waiting
36 “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son,[a] but only the Father. 37 For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.38 For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39 and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so, too, will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken, and one will be left. 42 Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day[b] your Lord is coming. 43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
– Matthew 24:36-44
Happy New Year!
It’s the first Sunday in Advent, the beginning of the Christian calendar year.
I love the waiting time of Advent. When I was a parish priest, with the gracious indulgence of the altar guild, we savored Advent–putting off the “greening” of the church until the last possible minute. We took our stand against the monumental energy of commerce, to defend the Christian tradition. Christmas is a twelve-day season that begins on Christmas Eve and ends at Epiphany. My mother weaned us on that fact, and repeated it– no matter what the wider world and everyone of our friends and neighbors were doing and saying. Against that grain, she did let us decorate the tree a few days before Christmas Eve. And it stayed up until Twelfth night!
Back then, the commercial Christmas season began about now. Sales on the day after Thanksgiving tipped American businesses’ account balances into to black for the time in the year. Today, both Black Friday and Christmas sales begin whenever, and wherever!
What’s an Advent lover to do?
For a child in the 1950s there was magic and mystery in the waiting, in the small treat of opening the numbered day’s flap in the cardboard Advent calendar to reveal another surprise ‘gift”. Back then, with the 1928 BCP, Advent Sunday readings were the same every year. They laid out Luke’s long build up to the Nativity: the annunciation to Zacharias that his wife Elizabeth was carrying John the Baptist in her womb; the Annunciation to Mary; Elizabeth’s Visitation to her; Mary’s song the Magnificat; and Zacharias’ song, the Benedictus. Frankly I miss hearing those beautiful words, and with them the orderly unfolding of God’s plan, preparing for the tender birth of our Savior.
Now, we have different readings every Sunday as we rotate through the three-year lectionary cycle we share with Christian churches worldwide. Our lectionary Advent readings are no longer focused on the Incarnation. Instead, they are about waiting, watching, and preparing ourselves for God’s appearance in all times and all places.
Second Coming
Today we heard Jesus foretelling the second coming.
If any of you are visiting today for the first time looking for some Christmas joy…stay with us; come back. We will get there: I promise!
Meanwhile, fasten your seatbelt.
But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son,[a] but only the Father. 37 For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.38 For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39 and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so, too, will be the coming of the Son of Man.
During the holiday, friends and I read that text to each other and shared our responses. It scared the bejesus out of us.
We didn’t even read about the thief in the night or about one person being taken and another left behind. Recalling the Great Flood’s destruction was hard enough. In our seventies, we live on an island, for heaven’s sake. And on a planet whose weather is ever more deadly and whose sea levels are indisputably rising. So the three of us spent more than an hour voicing our fears, our sense of helplessness about what we can do facing the global reality of climate change.
It was easy to identify with the disciples’ fear hearing today’s gospel. Those verses are part of a long chapter, Matthew 24, where Jesus lays out even more terrors: natural disasters, social and political chaos, and cosmological cataclysm.
Jesus was letting the disciples know the kind of trials they might have to face after he was gone. They needed to hear the worst so that he could help them prepare to get through whatever might come. And—from time to time–we need to hear it, too.
Overwhelming
It’s overwhelming. And that’s the point. My friends and I realized—as the disciples surely did–that there is no way to prepare for every catastrophe that might befall us, or our community as a whole. People have always lived with uncertainty and sudden changes. Didn’t we get that lesson lately with the Covid pandemic? Then ordinary life changed completely, shut down from one day to the next worldwide Remember when we thought it would be over in a couple of months! Instead we got two plus years of Covid limbo.
And we got medical miracles. A scientist in China mapped the virus’s genome very quickly, and shared it online with colleagues around the world. They, in turn, created tests and vaccines that saved millions of lives. We are blessed that modern science and technology help us to understand disruptive natural, social, and political forces, help us prepare and respond to them.
But science and technology cannot decode the mysteries of love or faith; they cannot answer questions like the meaning and purpose of life. Nor can they ever eliminate uncertainty and change.
Like the disciples, we live in the meantime—between the Resurrection and whatever awaits us at the end of life, or the end of days. In Matthew 25, the chapter following today’s readings, Jesus used parables to teach us all how to live through whatever may come: be awake, pay attention, do our best every day, be good stewards of what we receive, live faithfully with love for God and one another. Hope and trust in God.
Jesus’ Resurrection brought in a new age, a new chapter in God’s loving outreach to the world that God created. Now, in the long meantime, we are waiting for something far greater, something unfathomable. Only God knows what, and when, and how.
As scary as our gospel words may sound for the present age, the future coming of the Son of Man is not a threat. It’s a promise! The promise of eternal life with God and “the glorious company of the saints in light.”
In the meantime, God’s Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is alive in each of us and among us—here and now. Whatever happens, with God’s help, we can live with intention, with gratitude, hope, and humility. We can look for signs of God’s ever-present Spirit as She appears—often in the most unlikely people and places. We can do our best to bear and share God’s light and love. God is here, now. God will be there, then. All will be well. All is well.
Amen.