Advent

Matthew 24:36-44 (NRSV)

The Necessity for Watchfulness:

36 ‘But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son,^* but only the Father. ³⁷For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, ³⁹and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. ⁴⁰Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. ⁴¹Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. ⁴²Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day^* your Lord is coming. ⁴³But 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. ⁴⁴Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Romans 13.11-end: (NRSV) An Urgent Appeal

¹¹ Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; ¹²the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; ¹³let us live honourably as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy.¹⁴Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. 

As is often the case, I am indebted to Barclay for his commentaries on Matthew and Romans for this homily.

My text this evening is written in Matthew 24:44

⁴⁴Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

The Gospel for Advent Sunday echoes the theme of the Advent Hope coupled with the idea that Christ’s first Advent also comes with a promise of the Second Coming. I have to confess that I am never too concerned about the Second Coming and in my earlier more evangelical days even, I could not see the point of arguing if one was premill, postmill or amill! What matters more is the fact that Jesus is with us now by his Spirit and that we are charged with following him in love and obedience, where we have been placed, by his grace. I think our Lord was probably addressing this issue as reported here by Matthew for the same reasons, knowing that humans like to be side-tracked into displacement thinking that deflects them from the real task at hand. (I often find that I tidy my study when I should be marking countless essays!!!)

Jesus says that no-one knows when it will happen – even he did not know – only the Father. I know it is an oversimplification, but that does it for me. If no one knows, just get on with what we can know. William Barclay is much more forceful and states that ‘... speculation regarding the time of the Second Coming is nothing less than blasphemy, for the man who so speculates is seeking to wrest from God secrets which belong to God alone.’ I do not believe it is our place to speculate; rather it is our duty to be faithful to what we have been called to do.

These verses also tell us that then time will come with ‘shattering suddenness’ especially for those who are immersed in material things. Noah prepared himself and so was ready while the rest of humanity was immersed in their eating and drinking and marrying, and they were caught completely unawares. Barclay comments: “These verses are a warning never to become immersed in time that we forget eternity ...”

We are also told in these verses that the coming of Christ will be a time of separation and judgement, when Jesus will gather to himself those who are his own, Barclay concludes: “Beyond these things we cannot go – for God has kept the ultimate knowledge to Himself and to his wisdom.”

If we do not know the time when this will all happen, then we need to be prepared – in fact all our life should be a constant preparation for that coming. Jesus will return like a thief in the night in the sense that a thief does not send a letter on ahead to warn the owner of the house he intends to rob, because his principle weapon is the element of surprise. The owner of a house that contains precious things must be on their guard. But our watching is different in the sense that we are not afraid; our watching is an eager expectation for the coming of the glory and joy that will mark meeting our Lord face to face.

Being prepared is a wonderful challenge. We cannot tell the time or the place of many things. I well remember when I was struck with a pancreatic tumour, there was no warning, just sudden soaring pain – and for some time – death seemed imminent.

What will we be found doing if our Lord were to return suddenly? I believe the challenge is to be doing what he has called us to do, by being faithful to our calling wherever we find ourselves.

Martin, the Cobbler, is Leo Tolstoy's story about a lonely shoemaker who is promised in a dream that Christ will come to visit his shop. The next day Martin rises early, gets his shop ready, prepares a meal and waits. The only one who showed up in the morning was an old beggar who came by and asked for rest. Martin gave him a room he had prepared for his divine guest. The only one to show up in the afternoon was an old lady with a heavy load of wood. She was hungry and asked for food. He gave her the food he had prepared for his divine guest. As evening came, a lost boy wandered by. Martin took him home, afraid all the while he would miss the Christ. That night in his prayers he asks the Lord, "Where were You? I waited all day for You."

The Lord said to Martin:

"Three times I came to your friendly door,
Three times my shadow was on your floor.
I was a beggar with bruised feet.
I was the woman you gave to eat.
I was the homeless child on the street."

Watch out! Christ may be closer than you can imagine.

This same theme is picked up in the Epistle appointed for today.

It was these verses that brought St Augustine of Hippo to faith. After years of living it up, denying himself no pleasure of the world, he heard a little girl reciting these verses and the Holy Spirit used them to convict him of his sinful ways, and brought him to faith. I love this story, because it so graphically shows us how God uses the Scriptures to touch our lives at their very core. As Coleridge observed, the Bible is inspired, not so much in every word contained in it is perfect (for we know this is not true), but because ‘It finds me.’ God’s Word finds the human heart.

When we prayerfully read Scripture, we often find that they wake us up from a sort of sleep; we see things different, afresh, anew, as we have never seen them before, and we become aware of what is happening. The imminence of our salvation is not chronological, a matter of time, it is theological, something that happens to us at the core of our being. The image of ‘putting on’ is nothing new. Isaiah used it (11.5) as did the Psalmist (132.9) as did Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 5, Galatians 3.27 and Ephesians 6.13-18 speaks of putting on the whole armour of God.

In this Advent season, we encounter the lovely imagery of darkness and light – and it is the season of light shining in the darkness and the darkness never putting it out. This armour of light that we put on symbolises the virtues that we can have to, ‘... protect us from the assault of evil ...’ In effect we need to put of the Lord Jesus. We should not linger in sin, but show every seriousness by living lives of righteousness and goodness. God’s way of righting wrong has been revealed, and so there is some urgency: are we going to respond in faith or not? Our lives are short, and so there is not much time for us to serve Christ.

There is a sense that we live in the new age, but at the same time we await its full coming, and while we wait, we need to display the behaviour of the new age, and so attract others to it. Best explains: “In wearing Jesus Christ the Christian puts on the character and ways of Jesus.” Christians are “... now called to let the world see the clothes they have already been given ...”

Simply put, the most effective way of showing Christ to the world is to live differently. Paul explains in verse 13:

¹³let us live honourably as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy.

We should avoid revelry – the Greek word komos – which refers to the sort of revelling that lowers a person’s sense of self and is a disturbance and nuisance to others. This is obviously linked to drunkenness which is shameful and disgraceful. Immorality – where one shows no sense of self-control, but takes pleasure when and where one can. Shamefulness is an interesting one in our present times. Don’t you feel so sorry for the way in which some young people no longer seem to feel any shame, as they stumble through our streets, half naked and out of control. Gone is the sense of shame, where people are not bothered anymore by what others think!

Our whole economy seems to rest on contention what some refer to as jealousy. We are told that we should not be unhappy with what we have because wanting and greed are good for the economy. This has been translated into a modern virtue where competition is seen as always good and the desire for place, power and prestige are praised; where people are taught to hate being surpassed and that second place is no good. This envy is what drives things on.

Living in the light is living differently, is being dignified, living for others and not ourselves alone, reaching out in love and forgiveness, and being content with what we have. It is living in the light, it is being like Jesus, clothed with him, living his life where we are. This is what brings light and this is what brings hope to ourselves and to the world we live in. This is what Paul believed is ‘... putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.’ Jesus put it this way:

⁴⁴Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Amen.

The Feast of Christ the King

 Colossians 1:11-20 (NRSV)

¹¹May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully ¹²giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled^* you^* to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. ¹³He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, ¹⁴in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.^*

The Supremacy of Christ

 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; ¹⁶for in^* him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷He himself is before all things, and in^* him all things hold together. ¹⁸He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. ¹⁹For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

My text this morning is written in Colossians 1:15: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation ...”

How are people to live in such a way that they get the most out of life? In his letter to the Colossians, Paul suggests that we need to be made strong because life sometimes requires us to endure difficult things and we need to be able to see them through to the end, especially if we are going to face injustices and wrongs. This is not all: Paul adds that we need to add joy to the process. Hunter comments: “The temper called for is no gray and close-lipped Stoicism which can only grin and bear it, but true Christian serenity which, born in suffering, meets the world with cheerfulness and abounds in thanksgiving.”

We see then that Paul adds to strength and joy the need to always be thankful – a central theme of all his writings. This thankfulness ought to be part of our lives because of God’s inestimable love shown to us in our redemption. Paul explains from verse 13:

“¹³He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, ¹⁴in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.^*”

This is not something we have earned and it is not something we deserve, God has qualified us for this by His grace.

To live in such a way that we see meaning and purpose in our lives and how we can live with a sense of fulfilment therefore implies that our lives need to be in a state of constant transformation; a process that is dynamic and continuous. We need to do those things that enable us to gain strength. We need spiritual nourishment that comes from a regular study of Scripture, regular participation in the Sacrament of Holy Communion, and daily to be found at the source of strength, in a time of quite reflection and prayer. In order to be made strong we need to be in the presence of God who can make us strong; in order to be able to endure and even find joy in all times of our lives, especially the difficult times, we need to be found in the presence of God, because we need to be rescued from the power of darkness and, to use Paul’s lovely image, we need to be transferred into the kingdom of light. Since the 1960s people have been told that you can be a Christian and never attend church. I would challenge this for unless we are found with God’s people, being nourished by the Word and Sacraments, we are in danger of dying spiritually, or only just surviving because we are trying to live on starvation rations.

Our salvation is not merely a future hope; it is a present blessing – we have been rescued from the power of darkness. I pause here because this is something that seems foreign to many modern people in the UK and Europe. For Paul, this kingdom of darkness was a realm full of sinister, superhuman forces menacing people’s lives, and Paul identified them with the Devil and his minions. But, as A M Hunter points out, we hardly use this sort of language anymore and we talk rather of people being in the grip of economic forces, things that can more easily be explained. But this does not make what Paul is saying an outmoded myth. Hunter continues: “We have begun again to talk of the ‘demonic’ in our world, as well they might who have seen with their own eyes the depths of devilry to which great nations can descend and the savage bestiality of men to their fellow men.” Is this not sadly most vivid at this time when we have remembered the horrors of war in our Remembrance Services? Is it not also true that the word ‘evil’ is being used more in law courts (and elsewhere) to describe some of the terrible things people are doing to others?

But Paul has stressed that we are no longer at the mercy of this kingdom of darkness because we have been transferred to the ‘kingdom of his beloved Son.’ This means that our sins have been forgiven; the chains that once bound us have been broken and we have been set free from our guilt. This is especially foreign in the minds of most in our society because, while they might have a renewed understanding of the notions of ‘evil’ and the ‘realms of darkness’ there is little awareness of personal sin.

A reason for this is that modern people tend to see sin as being only about “doing”. While it is true that there are actions that cause hurt and suffering to others and from which we need to repent, but it is more; sin is about “being”; it is because of whom we are that we fail in our love for God and others. It is the selfishness that makes people think that we live in a vacuum, and that we do not need to care about the plight of others, that plunges one into darkness. I believe we in the west need to repent of our arrogance in thinking that we are so superior to others in the world; I think our bankers and their obscene bonuses are just an extreme example of the sickness that prevails.

Some people think life is all about getting, when it is meant to be all about giving. How many children are encouraged to be acquisitive because of the way we have allowed Christmas to lose its real focus of sacrifice and care and become something that plunges poor families into even greater debt because they do not want their children to feel left out? Even our economy is based on debt and spending and selfishness because at the core of capitalism is the notion that if you are looking after yourself first and foremost, you will indirectly be looking after others. I believe that too many still think that our current economic plight is the fault of others – like the bankers – “doing” and not the system itself – “being”.

The kingdom of darkness seems attractive because it does not appear to be darkness at all. It is like Plato’s allegory of the cave: because this is all people know, they seem quite contented with it and when one wants to show them the light, they rebel and reject it. But we have a duty of love to reveal the nature of the darkness and to show the world the kingdom of God’s son, not by dumbing things down, and trying to give people what they think they want, but by honestly speaking in a language that people understand and which reveals the world without Christ as it really is.

The joy of it all comes from knowing that the status quo is not what it has to be. It is also not that we are left to guess or experiment to try to find the secret, or achieve enlightenment or nirvana. The truth of God, humanity and human existence has been revealed to the world in Jesus Christ and is explained in our reading. God has been made known to the world in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Verses 15-20 must rank as some of the most profound truths ever expressed and I never tire of reading them here and as they are expressed elsewhere, most notably Hebrews 1:3 which reads:

^“He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains^* all things by his powerful word.”

The NEB does really capture the essence of this truth in the most wonderful way, translating this verse as:

“… the Son who is the effulgence of God’s splendour and the stamp of God’s very being, and sustains the universe by his word of power …”

“Effulgence” refers to “shining brightly” and therefore more than a mere reflection, but more a highlighting of the nature of God. Jesus, the Son, is the perfect representation of God, the perfect revelation of who God really is – he is the visible likeness of the invisible God as the TEV translates it.

I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the nature and existence of God. As a teacher of philosophy, we explore the various arguments and ponder the imponderable. We define God and struggle to get our heads around “… that, than which nothing can be conceived or thought or even imagined …”

But God is not understood because this is impossible; it is impossible for our finite minds ever to understand the infinity of God – the truth of God is revealed. The infinite God, who is beyond our comprehension, became one of us and made Himself known to us – revealed Himself to the world - in the person of Jesus of Nazareth – the Messiah of God. This does not mean that that we do not have to grapple with this because we do; we do not turn our minds off as we enter Church and suspend our intellect – we leave it all on in fact we amplify all our senses. We know that we are not mere bodies and minds; we are souls and spirits as well, and in order to know truth we need to approach it with all that we are, and not mere compartments. The world seems to have lost sight that we are much more than mere rational minds alone.

As Barclay reminds us, salvation is not found through intellectual knowledge; it is rather redemption and the forgiveness of sins. We know through reason but we also know through faith; the one is not better than the other, they are just different, and both are vital. I believe that there are certain things that we will never understand using reason, no matter how human knowledge develops, simply because being human, our knowledge is going to be finite and flawed and imperfect; and ultimate truth is infinite and beyond our reach. Paul, in this passage acknowledges the mystery of God. Simply expressed: “To see what God is like, you must look at Jesus …”

This is most explicitly explained in claiming that it was Jesus who created the world and it is for Him that it is created and that He was before all things and in Him all things hold together.

Everything else is contingent –  which means it does not have to exist – but the only thing that has necessary existence is that which brought all contingent things into being – Jesus! Jesus ‘… holds all things together …’ because what we know as the laws of science which make sense of the universe are in fact an expression of the thought of God and are therefore divine laws.

I believe the essence of what it means to live is, to quote C S Lewis, ‘… to love and be loved …’ God is love – and this is always going to be non-cognitive and beyond rational explanation. What can be known has therefore been given a practical demonstration in the life teaching and ministry of Jesus. To make life full and meaningful, we need to be reconciled to God and to others. Paul puts everything into a nutshell in the last two verses of this passage where we read:

“¹⁹For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

Many modern people really struggle with the last phrase: “… making peace through the blood of the cross …” To the modern reader the whole idea of Jesus’ death being a sacrifice seems bizarre. Why should that be necessary? Here again, Barclay provides some useful insight. He writes:

“In the death of Jesus, God is saying to us, ‘I love you like that. I love you enough to see my Son suffer and die for you. I love you enough to bear the Cross on my heart, if only it will win you to myself.’ … the Cross is the final proof of the love of God … If the Cross will not waken love and wonder in men’s hearts, nothing will.”

Now, as always, perhaps more than for many years, the world needs to hear the truth of salvation in Jesus, but not in language that they cannot identify with or understand, language that confronts head on the reality of modern existence and with it the challenge that it can be different, it can be better, it can be transformed, we can move from darkness into the light, because God has revealed the way in Jesus Christ our Lord for he is “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation ...”

Amen.