The first Sunday in Advent, 12/01/2013

Sermon on Matthew 24:36-44, by Hubert Beck

But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master 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. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. English Standard Version

THE "NOW" IN THE "THEN"

THE "THEN" IN THE "NOW"

It is one thing to know that something is going to happen but to be quite unsure of when that would take place or even what will happen. Surprise parties on a day around a birthday rather than on the birthday itself take place on such a premise. It is quite another thing, however, to know exactly when or even how "something" is going to happen so that one can prepare for it.

Even Certainties Do Not Guarantee Preparedness

Students provide examples of this when they know a paper will be due at such and such a date. Seeing it as a distant event even though they know the paper will certainly come due at the appointed time, though, they manage to put off working on the paper until the very last moment - often an overnight rush job the night before it is due. The certainty of the due date does not necessarily lead to preparedness.

A far better and more relevant example on this First Day of Advent, however, lies in the certainty that December 25 is coming in another twenty-four days - God willing, of course. Since nobody knows "concerning that day and hour" when the Father shall call an end to everything we must live with at least something of an uncertain sense of whether December 25 will arrive or not. Stlll, we anticipate with considerable certainty that December 25 will arrive! Jesus, speaking to such uncertain certainties, put it this way: Just as were "the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man." Such an uncertainty does not prevent us from preparing for Christmas, though.

Does anyone here admit to wondering if it will, indeed, arrive or not? Does anyone here expect to see the Son of Man's return before December 25? Yet, whether it will arrive or not depends entirely on the Father. Our earthly certainties must always be ready to give way to divine disruptions.

There is no escaping the fact, though, that our expectation of Christmas Day's arrival demands a huge amount of activity between now and then for the vast majority of people in our society. It means shopping and baking, wrapping and secret planning, hurry-scurrying and preparing, stocking shelves and employing temporary workers for the arrival of that one singular day. They are all forms of that which took place in the days of Noah when "they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day" of God's coming arrived - although for them it arrived in quite an unexpected way. Few people today are getting ready for December 27 or 28, though. The deadline is December 25 and the days are or soon will be getting more and more feverish in preparation for that cut-off date. Stores and markets are already now preparing advertisements and personnel for that last great push to be sure that the last minute shoppers will be served as well as possible.

Children can hardly wait for the day to arrive and parents in general wish they had more time before that day arrives. All that will take place between now and then will be totally governed by-and-large with the certainty that December 25 will arrive on time, however, just as the calendar tells us it will. Time marches on. There is no stopping it - nor hurrying it -- until the day arrives.

That, however, is a certainty without any uncertainty whatever attached to it, earthly speaking. The precise due date for a paper commands a student's attention just as a child's eager thoughts and a parent's weary planning for Christmas commands their attention. That attention admittedly may be diverted to the very last minute by circumstances beyond one's control. But the last minute is the last minute, no matter what may intervene, and all preparations are regulated by that one day.

Certainties With UNcertainties Are Quite Another Thing, Though

On quite another level - and a very important level it is! - is a basic fact: one knows for certain that one is going to die some day. The uncertainty concerning an exact date and time when that will happen, on the other hand, leaves room for a considerable amount of lackadaisicalness in preparation for that final moment. The younger one is, in fact, the less care one exercises toward such preparedness. After all, death seems a long way off, barring an accident or some other such unexpected intervention.

The older one gets, however, - particularly when the aches and pains of age begin to be felt with increasing intensity by the aging one - the more likely it is that one begins to take greater care and exercise more attention toward that time when death will claim that person. Even at that, though, until a more precise sign of imminent death - a timetable set by a doctor for a cancer victim; an awareness that one's driver's license will soon be taken away due to failing eyesight; an increasing forgetfulness causing one to wonder if Alzheimer's may be creeping up on one - there remains a strange dragging of one's feet to make important preparations for the future both of one's own self and those around one.

That may be a "defense mechanism" against doom and dread and fear or it may be due to a realization that death is being pushed off ever so little day by day through medical advances, reinforcing a false sense of vitality that resides within most of us. Until our end is clearly and undeniably in sight, we tend to disallow its inevitability.

Jesus Insists That We Recognize the One Ultimate Certainty That Nothing Wlll Endure

The entire chapter from which the few verses of our text are taken begins with Jesus' response to the disciples awe-filled expressions of wonder at the sacred buildings of the temple. He said, "You see all these, do you not? Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." (vv. 1, 2) This raised the request from the disciples, "Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?" (v. 3)

The remainder of the chapter then intermingles Jesus' musings over the temple's destruction, the end of the nation of Israel, the final chapter of the entire world's existence, including, in fact, the future of the church that was on the verge of coming into being. And mixed into all this were personal warnings of various sorts concerning one's preparation for the close of one's individual life. These ruminations of Jesus are presented to us in the midst of a number of parables and reports of the final moments before Jesus' trial, death sentence, and crucifixion. At times it is difficult to separate which theme is dominant in this chapter, but one thing above all is certain, namely, that nothing on this earth is without end. All will be reclaimed by him from whom it was originally brought into being. And that includes every one of those with him in his time, not to speak of us gathered here or throughout the world on this day.

Thus, our text, two-thirds or more toward the end of this particular chapter, is a reflection on that inevitable end-time. Up to this point Jesus has spoken in a manner like this: "Just look around you and see how many ways it is evident that the best of times is consumed by the worst of times and in how many ways the beauty of creation is destroyed by forces residing within its very midst. Can you see any end to all this? Surely not! It is all caving in on itself. Nothing on earth continues forever." So he insists that his listeners pay attention to the signs of time. "From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that the end is near, at the very gates." (v. 32)

The disciples wanted to know how near? "Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place." We ask, "But did not that generation and hundreds of generations since then come into being and pass away? What generation, then?" Is the "generation" basically a physical generation, or is it a generation of faith, a generation of God's children carrying the word of grace and mercy to one physical generation after another?

The very next words of Jesus suggest exactly that: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." Is it not a "generation of gospel proclamation" that is at issue? Within all the time between the then and now - or between the now and then - these "signs of the time" of which Jesus spoke have been and will continue to be seen, heard, interpreted, feared. Yet Jesus suggests that they should be greeted with joy, for "he is near." As near as the word proclaimed, the waters poured in the name of the Father and the + Son and the Holy Spirit, the bread and wine distributed within which his body and blood are as near as "for you" can possibly be. This is the generation that will continue until the Father calls an end to all things.

This "nearness" of the day of the Lord is the most "certain" thing imaginable! It is the one and only thing that can be "known."

Jesus Confounded the Disciples - and Us - By His Apparent Unwillingness to Exercise His Divinity

"But concerning that day and hour" - the day and hour about which the disciples had inquired much earlier in this chapter - "no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only." That such things should be hidden from the "angels of heaven" is at least a bit understandable. But the one who spoke those words did not know? Is he not the Lord of heaven in human flesh? Did he who was promising to return not know when all this would take place?

Here we are confronted with the central paradox of the entire gospel proclamation. Taking on the flesh of a human the Son, at least for the moments of his incarnation, laid aside such divine knowledge and faculty. It lay hidden deep within or under his conscious existence as he became so much one of us that the timing of the future lay buried and concealed from him just as it is hidden from all other humans so far as he was concerned. Just as he would plead to the Father in Gethsemane for reprieve from the extreme demands of redemption requiring his death on the cross, so also, save for those "snapshots" of his miracles and teachings, divine knowledge and power was for only the Father to know and exercise.

This is, in fact, as just suggested, the crucial center of Christian faith and understanding. In Christ we discover the deep love and care and concern of the Father for all of us, his creatures. At the same time, the one who bore all that awareness and revelation to us in his body lived and died as one who sinlessly exercised an implicit and total confidence in the Father's will for him by laying aside all self-interest, carrying out, instead, a concern for the welfare of the Father's children - as the Father had intended it from the beginning to be in all of us. In all other respects he was so much like any of us that even those who walked and talked with him could not discern it at the moment. The sinlessness of our Lord lay in his simple unwavering faith and conviction that the very thing for which he was sent into the world in his fleshly form would, in the end, be the turning point of all human history. He had to commit his suffering and dying to the Father as the full redemptive act for all human fallenness from the beginning of time.

Did he "know" what was taking place in and through him in the way we humans speak of "knowing things?" Maybe. But his dying words suggest that he did all that in the simple faith that, if this was his Father's will for him to die in this way, the Father would turn his excruciating agony into a saving act in behalf of the world! "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46) was coupled with "Into your hands I commit my spirit." (Luke 23:46) Together those last words speak of his total confidence that he was carrying out the will of the Father even though, at the time, externally speaking, everything looked to be and seemed to be so hopeless. To believe and trust that what he was doing was in accord with the Father's will was the sole word upon which he could rely - and he was faithful to that word that was sending him to his final breath on the cross.

It is true, of course, that in his resurrection his confidence that the Father would not ultimately forsake him in spite of all appearances to the contrary was fully vindicated. The single thing that drove him to the cross was this - the certainty that the purpose for his being formed into human flesh was precisely so that the same flesh could and would die in behalf of all flesh that the Father had ever made. (John 3:16) Any seeming "uncertainty" accompanying his dying moments was laid aside by trusting the "certainty" of the Father's promise.

So What is More Certain Than That the WORLD'S Future Lies in the Hands of the Father?

So we hear the one in our text who was at the time only days away from that cross telling his disciples that the one thing that should govern their lives was to be this: Just as the end of the world, the end of the temple, the end of Israel, the end of their very own lives were certain things that one could anticipate without doubt even in the midst of the uncertainty of when it would take place, they should not see that uncertain certainty as something to be feared, but something to be anticipated, something that should, in fact, govern the very way they lived.

For many - and perhaps for the disciples at that time - this uncertainty weighed heavily on them in spite of Jesus' reassurances. They saw that future only like a householder who lived in constant fear of a thief entering and taking away his most precious possessions. It was true that "If the master 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." But if he had to live in such an uncertain manner that he devoted every night, every day, every moment, to such a watch he would soon become a prisoner in his own house. He would not be able to sleep peacefully or leave confidently for fear of the thief. The thief would control his life by controlling his future.

This was not to be the case for Jesus' followers, though. If the householder thought a thief might enter at some uncertain time the one thing the householder could do would be to secure the house as best he could - to "prepare" it in such a way that the thief could not safely enter it. He would be sure all places of entry were safely locked, that an alarm system would be in place and set (that is really bringing the future into the present, is it not?), and that every precaution against such a forced and loathsome entry would be made. Then the householder could sleep in peace, go about the business required of him, enjoying a peaceable and quiet life in spite of the thief. In a way the thief governed how he established his household, but he did not govern all of his life.

"Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect." Thus spoke Jesus. Did that mean one must be ever "on one's toes," ever "fearfully waiting with gun in hand to protect one's property," ever "vigilant with weapon near, ready for discharge"? Hardly! To "be ready" is to live faithfully apart from fear - in accord with one's baptismal grace which carries all the promises of God's love as our constant companion.

The reference to the men in the field and the women at the mill is often portrayed as a time when the godly will be "raptured," to use the verb frequently heard, into the gracious presence of God while the ungodly will be "left behind," to use the other word often used. But one can read it in just the opposite way also - and perhaps even more correctly - as though those who are properly prepared will be left in the field and at the mill where they were quietly carrying out their lives in the confident assurance of God's loving care while those who had no concern for God's place in their lives would be carried off into the place where God would no longer be available to them then or ever.

After all, isn't the best picture of hell the picture of a godless place, a place of darkness where no grace, no mercy, nothing even remotely signifying the presence of light and joy and blessedness, all marks of God's presence, is to be found? It is to such a place that those who are "unprepared," unaware of and unconcerned about the one from whom the field and the mill has come, will be taken while those awaiting the coming of the master of the house and the owner of the mill will rejoice to see him coming, continuing in peace the faithful lives that they have long and faithfully been living before this time of his return

This is the "Now" in the "Then"

In short, this is to say that what we do now is always being done as though the "then" had already arrived! Whatever you intend and hope to be doing when the Father comes is what you should be doing already now. Martin Luther was once asked how he would "prepare" for the coming of that day if he were told in no uncertain terms that it would take place tomorrow. I.e., what would he do between now and then to prepare for it?

His response was really quite simple. "I would go out and plant an apple tree and then sit back and enjoy a good glass of Wittenberg beer." His preparation would be to do what he would be doing if he didn't know it was coming tomorrow - planting a tree for the future and enjoying the day given him this day. He would do what living always calls for. The future lies in God's hands, so one may as well take pleasure in whatever time is still allotted to one as though it were blessedly available to the very last minute.

It is true, is it not? Whatever you have not done to prepare for the coming of the Lord's day when it arrives - even were you alerted to its coming a day earlier - cannot be done in the next twenty-four hours! One is simply called to live responsibly today as though the future were already securely in hand. One cannot make up a lifetime of unpreparedness by a single day of preparation!

This is Also the "Then" in the "Now"

All of this is to say in a reverse form that our uncertainty about when that day of the Lord will come is simply the way by which we are being told to live responsible godly lives every day that is allotted to us! When we know a certain day is coming, as we said at the beginning of this sermon, our lives are governed by the very thing concerning which we know is going to take place. But that is a kind of "moment by moment" type of living. We live toward December 25. Then we live toward the New Year's Day celebration. Then we live toward a birthday. Then we live toward a wedding anniversary. Then we live toward a vacation. But whatever is certain to come in that fashion governs our lives in a "prison-like" way. Our lives are not free in such circumstances to do the larger things in life, for they are always governed by some particular kind of certainty lying just ahead of one. Our appointment books are our prisons!

To live with the "UNcertainty" of when the "then" will take place, however, is to establish a pattern of living that is constantly and perpetually prepared by virtue of living as though it could come at any time. We live as though a thief will come in the night, which, put in another way, means that we live as though it is indeed possible that a thief may come in the middle of the night. But that only calls for us to be responsibly vigilant with locks, house alarms, neighborhood watches, etc. But that is not a now and then, moment by moment kind of life. It is an every moment kind of life, a life lived with the unknown future as a factor in all that we do . . . rising every day to do what is necessary to be done, but doing it in such a way as though it were a doing for God. Everything from morning to night, day after day, month after month, year after year is a time granted us to serve the Lord. That is all that counts! But it is everything that counts, also! For although the "then" belongs to God, he calls us to live our lives "now" as though the "then" has already arrived!

Advent - A Then and Now Time

So in Advent we remember a time when people lived with an anticipation of a Savior, a Redeemer, a Child yet to be born who would change the course of world history. Our First Lessons during this season recount those times. The people of those days couldn't hurry the time. Nor could they hinder the time. They could only live as though what God had promised them sometime in the "then" of world history would take place. Their certainty was surrounded by uncertainty.

But while they waited they served the Lord in their own "now" while anticipating the "then," much as we live today. The "then" they waited for has taken place, but it has given way to a new "then" in our day - a time when "the coming of the Son of Man" will take place. "Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming....You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect."

The child of Bethlehem burst upon a scene that was oblivious to his coming even though plenty of warning had been given. But nobody knew the time when he would come and they were woefully unprepared for his arrival in spite of all that warning. He promised to come again, however, in a way that will be clearly obvious to the whole world, whether it is prepared or not. He will come upon the scene "as in those days before the flood when they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. . . Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect."

Maybe even before December 25! That would be a surprise, wouldn't it? Are you preparing for such a possibility?

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Retired Lutheran Pastor Hubert Beck
Austin, Texas
E-Mail: hbeck@austin.rr.com

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