Advent One/Hope 2022
Advent One/Hope 2022Worship with Zion/Knox - Advent One/Hope 2022
Gospel of Matthew 24: 36 - 44 // ‘Any moment now …’
In the early ‘60’s, a foursome of brilliant gentlemen → Dudley Moore, Peter
Cook, Jonathan Miller, Allen Bennett → each with a degree or 2 from
Oxford & Cambridge, came together to create, ‘Beyond the Fringe’. Their
comedy troupe was in response to the high-brow, artsy Edinburgh ‘Fringe
Festival’ of theatre. These four blokes took the world by storm & toured
extensively in Europe & North America. I got a free ticket - was literally
present in-utero when my parents saw them at the old O’Keefe Centre in
Toronto. One of my favourite skits deals with the end of the world, as 3 men
gather with their ‘guru’ philosopher on a mountaintop. This is just a tiny
snippet:
“How will it be?”; “Yes, how will it be?”
“Well, the mountains shall fall and the valleys shall rise, and great shall be
the tumult thereof, I should think.”
“And will there be a mighty wind?” “‘Course there’ll be a mighty wind, if the
word of God is anything to go by.”
“And when will it be?”; “Yes, when will it be?”
“In about 10 seconds time, according to the ancient pyramidic scrolls & my
Timex.”
They count down – 10 - 9 -8 -7 - [“have you got the picnic basket?”] - 5 - 4 -
3 - 2- 1. Nothing.
“Never mind lads, same time tomorrow. We must get a winner one day.”
When will it be? When will come the end of this earth as we know it, the
very end of time? The disciples listening to Jesus, hearing this in the
Master’s own voice, didn’t figure it out. Biblical scholars with more letters
after their names than IN their names have never come to an airtight
conclusion. A few preachers & prophets through the centuries have
claimed to know the exact date, but each of those predictions have expired.
Why haven’t we figured this out?
Jesus didn’t keep from us the two most important commands if we’re to live
in harmony & contentment: love the Lord our God with everything we’ve
got; love one another as ourselves. It’s actually 3 commands, but that’s a
whole other sermon series. Jesus told us about the highest purpose of
earthly life: to love others as selflessly & humbly & with as pure an intention
as He loves us. Our Lord even told His friends, warned them repeatedly,
about His arrest, crucifixion and triumphal rise from death. Jesus has been
open & forthcoming about everything we need to know. Just. Not. This.
“No one knows, not the angels in Heaven” - God’s trusted messengers –
“nor the Son”. This part has always surprised me, that Jesus doesn’t know
ALL, as does our Creator. This detail indicates that although the Trinity of
Creator, Redeemer & Spirit share the same loving, gracious nature, They
each have distinct roles & responsibilities. H2O maintains that elemental
make-up, no matter what, but no farmer ever prayed for ice in a dry
summer, and no one has ever played hockey on steam. The dynamic of the
Trinity is the ultimate argument for the individuality of our purpose in Their
Name.
And yes, I’m aware that we’re still on the first verse of the reading but
scripture is too rich to rush through. We need to read it carefully, slowly,
and often.
Jesus freely admits that this knowledge is not for Him. What further
assurance could we possibly need that this knowledge is not for us either?
And honestly, what would we DO with this knowledge? Would knowing the
last day encourage us in our relationship with Christ, but perhaps out of
fear? Depending on the date, would we kick back & relax because there’s
lots of time to kill before we need to worry? A student at seminary had a
lapel button that read: “Jesus is coming. Look busy!” For the folks who
prefer to work to deadlines, knowing the date won’t motivate them to accept
God’s call. And for other folks, knowing the date would paralyze them into a
non-functioning ‘why bother?’ attitude. God knows what is best for us, and
we’re better in every way, not knowing.
And besides, there’s no way of knowing. Jesus confirms that there won’t be
any signs, & He references the time of Noah. He says the people carried
on with the hum & busyness & comfortable routine of their lives, eating,
drinking, marrying. Jesus doesn’t hold up those activities as sinful, merely
day to day ordinary.
We don’t really pay attention to regular daily tasks until something happens
to make us acutely aware of the minutiae around an event. I know precisely
where I was, who I was with, what we were doing, when the twin towers
came down. Do you remember the details around the news, ‘Kennedy’s
been shot!’, or ‘That’s one small step for mankind …’, or “Henderson
scores!”
Do you remember the day you joined Christ’s Church, or your children were
baptized, or the very first time you came to the Lord’s Table? Do you
remember the first time that you inexplicably KNEW, deep down, that your
words or an extraordinary kindness were being guided by God’s own Spirit?
How do we mark the GOD moments? Maybe we journal our gratitude, or
keep the bulletin from worship that day, or spend more time in prayer &
meditation because we don’t want to leave His wondrous presence. Maybe
there are so many God moments that we can’t keep track.
Back to Noah for a bit. The eating & drinking didn’t offend God. It was the
wilful, outright exclusion of God from the everyday ordinary. They had
stopped seeking His wisdom, stopped acknowledging His goodness to
them with praise & thanksgiving; stopped coming to God with their needs &
offerings, joys & sorrows; stopped sharing their life with Him - even though
our life comes from God. The day to day blessings, the big happy so-called
coincidences, were all ignored as no one knew or cared about God in their
lives.
Jesus goes on to speak about an unexpected end and I’ve always
struggled with this. So I took a careful look at the ancient Greek language,
noting that our English translations are not wrong, but they may be
incomplete & can’t always capture the full meaning of the original writings.
The controversial verses, for many, are 40 & 41: “one will be taken and the
other left”. The Greek verb ‘taken’ means ‘carried or lead away’ as we
would expect, but also, ‘driven along by the wind’. We know that the
ancients often used ‘wind’ to reference the Holy Spirit. This suggests a
more beautiful, purposeful, transformational moment than simply ‘one is
taken’.
However, the Greek definitions really threw me when I looked at the
phrase, “the other left”. The meanings that we assume – ‘forsaken,
neglected’ – are actually specific to Matthew 27 & Mark 15, and refer to
Jesus on the cross, ‘left alone to die’. Otherwise, the use of the word ‘left’ in
Greek means – are you sitting down? – ‘to forgive, to cancel a debt, to let
be’.
One will be ‘taken’ - ‘moved along by the wind’. The other will be ‘left’ -
‘debts canceled’.
Do we really need to know when? Is it not enough, right now, to have a full
& ongoing relationship with God, & His Son, & His Spirit, each fulfilling
Their role in our earthly lives, if we’ll let them in? Is it not sufficient, today, to
watch for & to include the Divine in our simplest gesture of grace, in our
most grandiose schemes, in our mundane pleasures and in the thousands
cuts of the callus exchange, in our regrettable replay of mistakes & in our
striving to be our best selves when we uplift one another?
This scripture appears on the Advent Sunday of Hope because we are, in
truth, waiting for a beginning, not an end. We wait in hope for the pivotal
change, the ground-shifting, life-giving start to the world as we don’t yet
know it. When will it be? Any moment now … .
With all things to God’s glory, Amen