Göttinger Predigten
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First Sunday in Advent, 11/30/2014
Sermon on Mark 13:24-37, by Luke Bouman
Mark 13:24 "But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25 and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. 26 Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory. 27 Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. 28 "From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. 29 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 30 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 32 "But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. 34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35 Therefore, keep awake-- for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 36 or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 37 And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake."
Losing Focus
All of his family members were asleep in the car. Jim was driving the lonely hours of the night without anyone's company to help him as his family traveled north for his grandfather's funeral. The day had long been expected, "Granddad" had been suffering for a long time from heart disease. Yet it seemed that when the day came the family was ill prepared. There had been the hurried arrangements for the trip, collecting assignments from school for the kids, packing everything they needed for the few days they would be gone, including food to eat along the way. Everything seemed so rushed that Jim had no time to think about what lay ahead: the emotional reunion with his mom's family, always bittersweet these days, since the family seemed to gather only for a funeral anymore; saying goodbye to the man who had taught him what it meant to work a farm for a living, or to fish your way into retirement; the inevitable stress of the trip with everyone tired and emotions frayed.
Jim found, suddenly that in the quiet of the 3am drive, all of these emotions and more he couldn't even name, gathered into his consciousness. He noticed the tears slowly dripping down his cheeks as he struggled to keep his eyes on the road. The one thing he did not worry about was sleeping. All the same, he struggled to focus on the road and the trip ahead. At one point he missed the exit for his freeway north and had to turn around at the next interchange. At another point he found himself going much slower than he wanted, following the hypnotic tail light pattern of the slow-moving semi in front of him. It was not problem to keep awake. Staying alert was another thing altogether.
In the midst of it all of his meandering thoughts, Jim discovered that he had paused to reflect on his own life and mortality. He enjoyed is life, but was far from happy about everything. Work had become so much more involved that when he first took the job with his company. It was now not uncommon for him to be at the office sixty or seventy hours a week, and still there was never a moment where he felt everything had been done and he could relax. His family life was strained. He came home so tired every day that he seemed to have no energy for his wife and kids. It seemed like they were only living together in a house. It didn't feel like a family. He found himself envying his grandfather, who probably worked harder than Jim, but still had time for family, church, and even his friends. His grandfather had a kind of life that Jim despaired of ever knowing. This thought brought more tears, tears that were still evident when his wife woke with the first pre-dawn light. She said nothing, but reached out instinctively to take his hand. He was thankful for her touch. It brought him a flicker of hope. There had been little of that of late. "Isn't there more to life than this waiting, searching for something better?" he thought to himself, as tears flowed again.
When Life Makes Us Wait
I often wonder if the first generation of disciples didn't have it worse than us. Sure, some of them had seen Jesus, so there was that. But the earliest writings in the New Testament, including today's Gospel reading from Mark sound to me like they were having a hard time waiting. I wonder if they expected something more from Jesus' death and resurrection. Perhaps they now hoped their world-altering expectations would happen when Jesus would return. Whatever they were expecting, these words from Jesus were both important enough for them to remember, and confusing enough to have puzzled disciples through the ages, from them to us. Jesus describes a cataclysmic event of cosmic proportions and suggests that, like the seasons of the year, the signs that such things were about to happen would be easy to read and recognize. At least people today, the religious among them, seem to operate under the understanding that such things are not likely in our lifetimes. It must have been very discouraging in the first century when folks started dying before Jesus' words of return would be fulfilled.
Here we are, these many centuries later, still waiting. The waiting is spiritually challenging. We are tempted to lose focus and as a result we turn to many things that distract us from our calling to be the Body of Christ in the world. More importantly, these distractions, as they become our focus of attention, replace God in our lives. They become the gods to which we bow and to whom we look for our identity and purpose. And there are so many such gods: the gods of self satisfaction, the gods of material wealth, the gods of family or relationship, the gods of addiction, the gods of work, even the gods of play. We are capable of making anything, everything, into a false god to worship. And this is not new. When the people of Israel tired of waiting for Moses, who was meeting with God on the mountain in the wilderness, they made a golden calf to worship. So I ask, in my own life, where are my golden calves? Where are the things I make to give me meaning apart from God? And though I ask this question often, I find every time that the answer is, simply, everywhere.
It is for this reason that Advent comes as a welcome season for me every year. The blessing of Advent is that it invites me into a focused time of waiting. I am invited back into the intimate mystery of my adoption into the family of God, the Body of Christ, and there to renew my awareness of God's activities in the world and for the world. My cluttered heart requires sweeping, no more than that, requires wholesale emptying, if it is to become a place fit for the habitation of God. Fortunately for me, God has given me the very things for that cleansing: confession, forgiveness, renewal, new life every day.
In the process, I find that God's cleansing gives me fresh eyes to see. Indeed, the signs of God's new life and action are all around me (just as the false gods were all around me). The difficulty is that I have been looking in the wrong places. I have been looking for signs and wonders, but earth changing moments. But God's revolution happens one changed heart at a time, and for me that happens daily in my own life of drowning to my sin and being raised to new life in Christ. The thing is, that when we become accustomed to God only acting in the big things, then we lose sight of God acting in the small, the mundane.
But it is in the small and mundane that God's promises come true. Is God present only in the large gatherings, or is it rather where "two or three are gathered" in Christ's name? Is God present in the uncommonly miraculous or rather in the smallest, most common of elements, water, bread, wine, and a word of love spoken and shared? Ah, now, see! God comes, as promised, every day. God's coming is not delayed. The final fulfillment may yet be far off, but the coming is timely and daily, as promised. Is it not these things that we should be alert for? Is it not this coming that should be the focus of our attention? Is there not more to be found as we experience and share God's great love in small ways than in the large headline grabbing ways that we might long for? We know, we know, we truly know when God is coming. Now, this very moment! Daily, weekly, on time as promised!
Will not Day Come Soon?
The funeral was over and Jim and his family were driving home again. Again, it was night and Jim was driving alone. The stars had come out after a brief thunderstorm. Once the flashes of lightning were off the distant horizon he could see the immense and awesome stretch of the milky way over the lonesome highway and it was beautiful. Jim blinked once or twice at the sky as he thought he saw one, then another streak of light cross the slowly circling constellations. There could be no mistake. Each "shooting star" was a sign of the ongoing meteor shower. But somehow, it gave Jim pause and to think of something the pastor had said at his grandfather's funeral. Each life is precious to God. Somehow it had sunk in. God's deep love for him was there all the time, even though he didn't see it. But now that he did, everything seemed more alive to him. The sky was alive tonight. But so was the heavy breathing of each child and his wife in the car with him. The miles passed slowly and he inhaled the wonders of the night. He looked forward to work when he returned, seeing possibilities and new ways to engage as he thought about it. He thought, too, about things he would like to do with his children. One day he, too, would be gone. But it wouldn't be until he had lived at least a few days of his life with his eyes wide open, taking in all the marvelous wonder that each day could bring, sharing that wonder with his children. He looked with a bit of longing to the east. Would it be daylight soon? He was eager for it!