Tag: Advent Sunday

Sermon for Advent Sunday: The Ordinary Second Coming (Advent 1 Year A)

Matthew 24:36-44

A few months ago, Debbie and I went to the G Live venue in Guildford to see a concert by a band that had been popular in the 1970s, namely 10cc. Like many such bands today, there was only one original member left, the rest mainly having been replaced over the years by talented but not well-known session musicians.

They launched the concert with a track from one of their biggest albums, ‘The Original Soundtrack.’ It was a song called ‘The Second Sitting For The Last Supper.’ The lyrics mock the fact that Jesus has not returned, as he promised, and meanwhile the world continues to go to hell in a handcart.

Two thousand years and he ain’t come yet
We kept his seat warm and the table set
The second sitting for the Last Supper[1]

And it may be that the doctrine of the Second Coming of Jesus, which we traditionally mark on Advent Sunday, is one that has brought Christianity into disrepute. For one thing, we have proclaimed that Jesus is coming back but he hasn’t. For another, some Christians and some cults have predicted dates for his return, only to be proved wrong when the date passed. Further, it has been used to scare people into following Jesus, making them fearful disciples rather than full of love.

But for all of that, we shouldn’t throw it out. Misuse isn’t an argument for disuse; it’s an argument for right use.

And in fact, although the event is often hyped up by many, I want to focus in today on the ordinariness of the circumstances leading up to it.

So the first point I want to make today is about the lack of signs.

Many people who write or speak about the Second Coming will talk about all sorts of portents in the heavens or in earthly events. As a young Christian, I got caught up in all that. I remember enthusiastically talking about how I thought the Second Coming was close when I was a teenager, and cited writers who said that one sign of the lead-up would be a crisis in the Middle East.

Someone in my youth group quickly put me in my place. “There is always a crisis in the Middle East,” they said.

How else do you interpret Jesus saying,

36 ‘But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.’?

If Jesus doesn’t know when he’s appearing again, how can he detail any signs? Yes, there are signs he speaks about earlier in this chapter, but they all relate to the coming fall of Jerusalem to Roman armies in AD 70. Remember that this whole conversation began when the disciples asked Jesus two questions rolled into one:

3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. ‘Tell us,’ they said, ‘when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’

‘When will this happen?’ is about the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, because Jesus had just mentioned it. Then the second question is about Jesus’ coming again and the end of the age, which is what Jesus begins to answer in today’s reading.

No signs. Don’t look for them. Don’t think that the time when you have to get your life together is when spectacular signs indicate that Jesus is going to return soon. It won’t be like that.

And that leads us to our second point: people will be living ordinary lives.

37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Life will just be continuing fairly normally. In the biblical story of the Flood, no-one has a clue except Noah about the disaster soon to befall the ancient world. So people just chug along as they always did.

Today, in a time of declining Christianity, at least in the West, fewer and fewer people therefore live with the expectation and hope we have. People go through the ordinary motions of life as best they can. For many, there is little more to life than that, even if they try on occasion to do something that feels good and worthwhile.

Debbie and I saw a version of that recently. We went to see the acclaimed musical play ‘Girl From The North Country.’ It features the songs of Bob Dylan, which was the attraction for me. They are given startling new arrangements and sung brilliantly by the cast. But the actual play in which they are set is bleak. It is a story of ordinary townsfolk in Duluth, Minnesota (Dylan’s hometown) in 1934 (a few years before Dylan was born – he doesn’t feature in the story). As we watch their lives unfold and then hear the summary at the end, we discover that most of them have lived and died in a sense of hopelessness.

When the play finished, there was thunderous applause. Several audience members gave the cast a standing ovation. And it was well done. But there was no hope, no redemption.

And today, that’s how many people live. They may be periodically happy, but there is little sense of hope other than a folk belief that when they die they think they will be reunited with their loved ones.

It will be into a world like that, painted in grey and flavoured with vanilla, that Jesus will come again.

But that day will come, says Jesus, and it will be like when an army invades and takes some people away:

40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

It’s not that the righteous will be taken away to heaven as in the questionable doctrine of ‘The Rapture’ which some Christians teach. Those who are taken away are those who are judged and found wanting. The righteous are left behind on the earth that God will renew.

So what is to be done to be among the righteous?

Well, that’s our third and final point: the way to prepare is to be watchful and ready.

42 ‘Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

But how can you be watchful and ready if there are no signs of Christ’s coming and that he’s just as likely to come again in the middle of ordinariness rather than in cataclysmic times?

Well, it all depends what Jesus means by ‘watch’ and ‘be ready.’ Watchfulness and readiness are images of the ethical quality of our lives in following Jesus.

In other words, if we want to be ready for the coming of Jesus, it’s simple. We need to get on with doing the right things. Some of that may look like the ordinariness of the people who will be caught out, hence Martin Luther’s famous quote,

‘If I knew Jesus was coming tomorrow, I would still plant an apple tree and collect the rent.’

But it’s about doing everything that is consistent with being a disciple of Jesus. It’s about being a faithful servant of the Master, something Jesus goes on to speak about next.

So once more, there’s no need to be spectacular. There is no reason to engage in lurid speculation. The key to being ready for the coming of Jesus is a form of spiritual ordinariness. We read the Gospels to learn what Jesus wants of his disciples, and then that’s what we set our minds, hearts, and wills to doing.

We’ll still be shocked and surprised when he turns up, but we’ll be ready for life in the new heaven and new earth.

[1] Words and music: Lol Creme, Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley, Eric Stewart, published by Man-Ken Music, 1975.

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Advent Sunday: The Most Miserable Time of the Year? (1 Thessalonians 3:9-13, Advent 1, Year C)

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

The other year on Advent Sunday I railed against the rise of luxury Advent calendars. Well,, no need for me to be original this year, because this week the Irish journalist Melanie McDonagh did exactly that in The Spectator magazine. This year, she writes,

There are tea or coffee Advent calendars with a different flavour for each day – see Whittard’s Tea or Pact Coffee or Fortnum’s – there are beauty advent calendars like the Space NK one for £199 with a different skincare product for each day or the one from Dior for £400; a gin advent calendar from the Craft Gin Club; there are cheese versions, pork scratching versions and there are, of course chocolate advent calendars, which are everywhere: Charbonnel et Walker does one for £75; Cadbury’s Dairy Milk for £2.19 (‘make every day in the run-up to Christmas magical’).

And in fairness, Ms McDonagh also rages against ordinary chocolate Advent calendars. Why?

Advent generally is about expectation (actually it’s partly about preparing for the Day of Judgment); it’s the reverse of a binge.

That’s right: Advent isn’t a time of preparation in the sense that we prepare by buying presents, getting the decorations out of the garage, and putting up the tree. It’s a time when we prepare not only for the humble coming of Christ in the manger, but also for his future coming in glory, when he will judge the living and the dead, as the Creed says.

No, this is not ‘The most wonderful time of the year’. If anything, it’s ‘The most miserable time of the year,’ and I don’t mean that purely for those who find this season hard due to the anniversaries of bereavements and other tragedies.

So let me be the first person this year to wish you a thoroughly dismal Advent.

Er, no, not really. In our reading from 1 Thessalonians Paul is anxious not only to visit his beloved friends in Thessalonica, but also to help them prepare for Christ’s coming as judge. And while he wants them to be serious about that preparation, we can hardly call his desires for them miserable.

There are two ways Paul urges the Thessalonians to prepare for Christ’s coming. As we explore them, I hope you’ll agree with me that they require seriousness but they don’t necessitate being miserable.

Firstly, says Paul, love one another.

12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.

Love each other (presumably those are the church members) and love everyone else (all those Jesus would have called our neighbour).

Love. Easy to state, hard to do. But that’s the calling.

Love one another in the church, because when Jesus comes again the new creation is going to be a place of love. Nobody will be having a little dig at someone else in the kingdom of God. Nobody will be stabbing someone else in the back when Jesus comes again. Nobody will disregard or ignore their brother or sister when Jesus returns. The actions of the community will entirely be driven by love.

Love your neighbour. Because the world needs a witness to the redeeming and unconditional love of God in Christ. If someone is hurt, we do not look for an excuse by pondering whether they deserve help before deciding whether or not to do something. If their need is an interruption to our routine, then rather than worrying about our routine we consider their need as putting our routine into perspective. How can we expect the world to believe in a God who loves them if the community that professes to believe in that love doesn’t show it to them?

But as I said, all that is easy to state but hard to do. We may struggle to love some people in the church. Just as it is said that we can choose our friends but not our family members, so the same is true about the church family. There are some people here whom we honestly would not pick as fellow church members if we had the choice.

And we just don’t seem to fit together naturally all the time, do we? Many years ago a couple of writers described building the church as like ‘building with bananas.’ Imagine trying to build an edifice out of bananas. Their shape would make it very tricky! Growing the church feels like that at times!

And as for that ‘love your neighbour’ stuff – well, what if we don’t approve of their lifestyle and we don’t think God does, either? What if they hold political views we don’t like? If people inside the church can be hard to love, it can be doubly difficult to love some people who don’t share our faith.

So maybe this is miserable after all?

Let’s re-read verse 12:

12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow. That’s the key. It’s not that we can do this on our own. That would be drudgery and failure. Our challenge to love as a sign of the coming kingdom is one that the Lord enables us to do, and he does not expect us to achieve without him.

So here’s a prayer thought for those times when we struggle to love someone, either in the church or the community, and yet we know Jesus wants us to show them his love. I once heard a preacher tell a story where he said that God challenged him to do something difficult, and he said, ‘No, Lord, I’m not wiling.’

But then he heard the Lord’s reply to him. ‘Are you willing to be made willing?’

Are we willing to be made willing to love? Let us say ‘yes’ to Christ increasing our love.

Secondly, says Paul, be holy.

13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

Oh dear, holiness. Well, that must be dour and it must be hard work. Doesn’t it make you think of those Christians who think the closer you get to God, the more sour-faced you will be?

If that’s your image, then let me speak to you about the famous preacher and devotional writer of a hundred or so years ago, Oswald Chambers. Famed for his preaching that led people to repentance and new life, he was also known for his joy and laughter. Many of his converts may have wept for his sins, but they laughed for joy at their realisation of how great God’s love for them was.

D W Lambert, who as a child knew Chambers as a friend of his parents, wrote a book about him. Here is one story he recounts of him:

On one occasion when my mother was preparing the tea, to which a number of local ministers had been invited to meet Chambers, there came gales of laughter from the study. I, with the priggishness of a small boy, looked shocked, thinking that such holy men should not indulge in laughter. My mother, with quiet insight, remarked, “When God makes you holy He gives you a sense of humour.”[1]

Indeed, Chambers was often asked to babysit for some couples – something remarkable, given that he and his wife Biddy lost their only child Kathleen when she was just four years old. The children would tell their parents that Chambers didn’t preach to them, he was a playmate, and he taught them funny rhymes. I don’t have time for more stories today about him, but if you go on the Internet and search for ‘Oswald Chambers laughter children’ you will find several anecdotes that support this.

Sure, holiness can be tough, challenging and painful. But at its heart it is about becoming more like Jesus. And we remember that Jesus loved weddings and banquets, and he promised abundant life to his followers. If you come across one of those Christians who gives you the impression that the most devout Christians are the most miserable ones, it’s usually because they are miserable people and they don’t realise just how good Jesus is.

But I can’t deny the difficulties in being blameless and holy. Which one of us hasn’t had that sense of failure that we are so very far from being like Jesus? Isn’t the call to be holy a counsel of despair? We may understand that it makes sense, because surely when Jesus comes again all will good, true, pure, and right, and we need to be in harmony with that, but many of us are so conscious of our shortcomings and our besetting sins.

So note that there is good news in this verse. Let’s read it again:

13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

May he strengthen your hearts. Just as we found the command to love to be challenging but we discovered that God enables us, so the same is true of the call to holiness. May he strengthen our hearts.

So our prayer for holiness is similar to our prayer for greater love. Lord, I’m not always willing, but you can make me willing. I take responsibility for my own actions, but you can give me the strength I need in order to be holy, to be more like Jesus.

Yes, love and holiness are both marks of what life will be like when Christ returns. As Christians, we hear the call to conform to the life of the age to come while we live in the midst of this age which will pass away. This is all very demanding.

But in both cases, God is on hand and he waits for us to pray and ask him to give us the increase and the strength to fulfil his commands.

If we truly want to use Advent as a season of preparation, then let us prepare for Christ’s coming again by praying that God will give us more of himself so that we can be more truly loving and more deeply holy.

[1] D W Lambert, Oswald Chambers: An Unbridled Soul, p7f.

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Sermon: Holy Suspense (Advent Sunday)

As with last week and throughout Advent I won’t be able to post the video of my devotional talk for the week. However, here is the text as I explore the Lectionary Gospel (Year B) and tackle that sense of suspense and tension that confronts us at Advent and throughout our Christian lives.

Mark 13:24-37 NRSV

In the lead-up to family birthdays and to Christmas, there is a noticeable difference between the males and the females in my immediate family.

My wife and daughter cannot stand not knowing what their presents will be. They want to know in advance. In particular, I often subjected to intense lobbying from my daughter to know what we’ve bought her.

My son and I are different. Both of us are content to wait and find out on the day. That’s part of the pleasure for us. If we knew in advance, it would be an anti-climax.

Advent – and particularly Advent Sunday itself – is about how you deal with suspense. That’s why this week’s theme in the series I’m following is called ‘Holy Suspense’.

We are living in between times in a sense of tension and hope about what is to come, not satisfied with life as it is and longing for it to be different.

We are in the hour before dawn, the time when the temperature is usually at its coldest, but when the complete darkness begins to be replaced by a blue light. As twilight before dawn beckons, indirect light from the Sun below the horizon takes on a blue shade. It is sometimes called ‘blue hour’.

The ancient Celts used to talk about living in ‘The time between the times’, and while some of their expressions of that would not be helpful to us, I think we can at least affirm those words.

For that is where the holy suspense of Advent, in the hour before dawn, places us: in the time between the times.

But what times are we in between? There are two in Mark chapter 13.

You may be surprised to hear that, because for a long time people have wrongly assumed this chapter is entirely about the Second Coming and the events leading up to it. However, there is a real tension between two ‘comings’ in this chapter, and the Lectionary verses we have today give us the cusp between the two.

So – what is the first coming in Mark 13?

You might assume it is Jesus’ first coming, the Incarnation, the great event to which we are building up.

But you would be mistaken.

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.

26Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in clouds” with great power and glory. 27Then 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.

Now some of you will jump on that language and say it’s talking about the Second Coming. My one-word answer to that is ‘no’, but bear with me as I explain what it is.

For one thing, language about the sun being darkened, the moon not giving its light, stars falling from heaven, and powers in heaven being shaken is not to be taken literally. This is neither Carol Kirkwood giving the weather forecast on BBC Breakfast, nor is it Brian May or Brian Cox describing an astronomical event on The Sky At Night. This is special language that we call ‘apocalyptic language’, which was a veiled way of speaking so that enemies like the Romans would not understand what they were on about.

But, you say, the verses go on to speak about the Son of Man coming in clouds and sending his angels to gather his elect from the four winds. That must be the Second Coming, mustn’t it?

Only if you don’t recognise your biblical quotes, I respond. ‘The Son of Man coming in clouds’ is a direct citation of Daniel chapter 7. In that chapter the Son of Man does indeed come in clouds – but not to earth. He comes to the Ancient of Days, that is, Almighty God.

It would seem therefore that what Jesus is talking about here isn’t his first coming, nor is it his return, but his ascension to the right hand of the Father, where, as it says in Daniel 7, he receives the kingdom.

And Jesus’ statement

30Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place

makes it quite clear he is talking about an event that is very close at hand, not in the distant future.

What then about the Son of Man sending out the angels to gather the elect? That surely is the evangelistic mission of the church that Jesus commissions his disciples to undertake. He gives that command just before he ascends, and it begins at Pentecost.

Hold onto those thoughts for a moment, while we ask – what is the second coming in Mark 13?

Well – er – it’s the Second Coming! Not that the Bible ever uses that expression. Normally it uses a word that means not ‘coming’ but ‘appearing’ or maybe ‘presence’. Jesus will appear again on earth after his ascension, and we need to be ready.

That’s why he tells the little vignette at the end of the reading about the master who goes away (the ascension again) and leaves his slaves in charge of his property. However, those slaves need to be ready for whenever the master returns. They don’t know when that will be, so they need to be ‘on the watch’ and ‘keep[ing] awake’ (verses 32-37).

That’s all rather more straightforward than what I called the ‘first coming’, isn’t it?

The only strange thing about as far as I’m concerned is that all of Jesus’ teaching in this chapter is a response to him prophesying that the Jerusalem Temple will be destroyed, and Peter asking him when this will happen and what the signs will be (verses 1-3). So why would Jesus go on to talk about his return in glory?

I think it must be something like this: Jesus has solemnly spoken about the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple as a sign of judgment. But he goes on to warn that a greater judgment is waiting in the wings for the end of time.

Right – now that I’ve outlined what I think is the right way to understand this passage, we can answer some practical questions about how we live during holy suspense.

For the suspense in which we live is this: at the ascension, Jesus sat down at the right hand of the Father and was given the kingdom of God. He reigns.

Yet not all is well, and we await his appearing (a.k.a. the Second Coming) when everything will be put under his feet.

Just as the Queen reigns but not everyone obeys the law of the land, so we live in a time like that. Jesus is in charge of the universe, but not everyone acknowledges that. Such a state of affairs creates a sense of tension for us as followers of Jesus.

Two applications, then:

Firstly, the gathering of the elect: because not everyone willingly lives under the reign of King Jesus we are given the Great Commission to proclaim the Gospel. In the Roman Empire when a herald came announcing ‘good news’ it was usually the good news of a new Emperor or of great victories.

Well, that is our message in the Great Commission. There is a new king on the throne, and his name is Jesus. What’s more, he has won the greatest victories of all time – over sin and over death.

As we live with this great tension between Jesus receiving his kingdom and it being completely fulfilled, we call more people to bow the knee to King Jesus.

Secondly, the slaves staying alert and awake in the master’s house: because Jesus will appear again and everything and everyone will acknowledge him as Lord and King, we need to be ready for that. In other words, we need to live as if that future is already here. The call to obey Jesus now is critical, because it’s the consequence of proclaiming the Good News that he is King and has won those victories over sin and death.

Now that creates more of the tension with the world we live in, where to live like that may not be popular. But discipleship is not an option. And if we proclaim to the world that Jesus is King, then a necessary part of our witness to back up our words is to live as if Jesus is King. Which he is.

To conclude: do we know what our present is on the Great Day of Christ’s Appearing? Yes and no. Yes, we know in general terms that his new creation will be full of truth, beauty, and love, and there will no longer be anything to spoil it.

But also no, because how can we imagine such a gift with accuracy and detail? We might just as well also be surprised.

What we know is that Jesus will reign without any further opposition.

Meanwhile, we live as citizens of his kingdom and proclaim his reign, even though that brings tension.

But one day, the suspense will be over and all will be well.

That is the Advent hope.

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Sermon For Advent Sunday: It’s The End Of The World As We Know It

Mark 13:24-37

Do you check the weather forecast first thing in the morning? I may be doing so in order to urge one of the children to wear an appropriate coat for school. So I may check the weather app on my phone, or I may look on the BBC website. I may just catch the forecast in the regional news on BBC Breakfast, or I may see a video of that same regional forecast in my Facebook updates.

But whatever method I use, I have yet to hear a forecast include the words,

“the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
25 the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.” (Verses 24b-25)

Even Ian McCaskill at his most dramatic never came up with those lines, and nor do these words come from a missing script of The Sky At Night.

Instead, we’re in the territory of dramatic prophetic language. Prophecies of future events in the Bible seldom use prosaic newspaper-reporting-type language: they tend to use coded, strange, disturbing picture language instead. And for his purposes here, Jesus draws on words originally used by Isaiah to foretell the downfall of Babylon and Edom.

And we commonly assume here that Jesus is deploying this apocalyptic language to talk about the end of the world. But at that point, we have to be careful.

Because Jesus speaks in the passage we heard read about two different ends of the world, if I may put it that way. His prophetic weather forecast is not talking about the end of all things – we’ll come to that later as the second ‘end of the world’ – but the end of the Jerusalem Temple.

For that is where the whole of Mark 13 begins. Jesus’ disciples are admiring the beauty of the Temple, only for Jesus to warn them that it will be destroyed, and that Rome will invade it and set up a pagan idol there, a devastating blasphemy for the Jewish people.

We need to begin, then, this morning, with this first end of the world, the end of the Jerusalem Temple. And you may say that shouldn’t be classed as an end of the world. But it was the end of the world at the time for the chosen people. Their whole system of sacrifice and worship was undone by its destruction (even if later they would develop the synagogue approach to faith that was already in existence).

Think of it as a parallel to the old song ‘Don’t they know it’s the end of the world’, where Skeeter Davis sang,

Don’t they know it’s the end of the world,
It ended when I lost your love.

As a romantic break-up can be a personal catastrophe, so much more Jesus knows when prophesying the failure of the Jewish revolt that the carnage and slaughter of life, combined with the annihilation of the central symbol of their faith will be as good as ‘the end of the world’ for his people.

But he also tells his followers that this awful obliteration of the Jewish hope that will come forty years after he speaks will constitute a vindication of him and his ministry. It prompts him to speak about his coming.

Yet – again, we have to be careful! Just as there are two ‘ends of the world’ in this passage, so there are also two comings of Jesus in these verses. And the coming of Jesus associated with the end of the Jerusalem Temple is not what we commonly call his ‘Second Coming’, his appearing again on Earth.

Listen to how he describes it:

At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. (Verse 26)

We have assumed that means his visible return to Earth, but the moment you recognise what Jesus is quoting here from the Old Testament, you will begin to see it differently. Jesus is quoting from Daniel 7 where the Son of Man comes on the clouds of heaven. But he doesn’t come on the clouds of heaven to Earth, he comes on the clouds of heaven to the presence of the Ancient of Days, Almighty God. I believe this is the triumph and vindication Jesus receives after his resurrection when he ascends to the Father’s right hand. His life and ministry receive the big ‘thumbs up’ from his Father.

And in that context, we have a job to do – although again, it’s easy for us, with our wrong assumptions that this is about the Second Coming, to miss that fact. For Jesus says next,

And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens. (Verse 27)

We have commonly thought that to mean that God will bring his own people home. But that doesn’t stand up if this is what follows the ascension, Jesus’ coming to his Father, rather than his coming back to Earth.

Why? Remember that ‘angels’ is a word that can also mean ‘messengers’. This is about the proclamation of the Gospel. It is about Jesus’ disciples joining in God’s mission of gathering in his people from everywhere. Christian mission is always the mission of God, in which we are called to participate.

The end of the Jerusalem Temple world and the coming of Jesus to his Father point to the call of the church to engage in the mission of God. Ours is the call to herald the world the One who has been vindicated by Almighty God through his resurrection and ascension. It is our noble call to share in this task, following in the steps of the Early Church. They are the ones Jesus has in mind when he says,

Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. (Verse 30)

It is not that Jesus expected his Second Coming to be early and that he was wrong in his prediction, because these words do not anticipate his return. They are about the mission of God taking place after his ascension.

Perhaps this has particular application for churches today. As churches decline and age, there are fewer ministers to go around, and – as we know here – it becomes harder to maintain the building. But these things are our parallel to the Jerusalem Temple – we thought they were essential to the practice of our faith, but they are not. They are props, albeit sometimes helpful props. But God is taking the props away, and we have to focus on the essential call for this age in history. That call is to engage in the mission of God.

So – to sum up this first point – Jesus prophesies the ultimate failure of Jewish revolts against Rome, and knows that many of his fellow Jews will see the destruction of the Temple as the end of their world. God the Father vindicates his unpalatable message and his suffering on the Cross through the resurrection and ascension, in which he is the Son of Man, coming on the clouds of heaven to God. We, knowing that Jesus has been vindicated by the Father, are to hear and respond to the Father’s call to share in his mission of calling people to place their allegiance with the Vindicated One, Jesus Christ.

I said there were two ‘ends of the world’ in this passage. The second I might call any end of the world. That probably sounds absurd to you, but I mean this to be all-encompassing: it can be any personal or corporate disaster where all that we assumed and everything we cherished has collapsed, like the fall of the Jerusalem Temple for the Jews or the collapse of inherited forms of Christianity that we are experiencing. But it could also be the end of all things. I take this view from these words of Jesus in the second half of the reading:

‘But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Be on guard! Be alert[c]! You do not know when that time will come. 34 It’s like a man going away: he leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.

35 ‘Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back – whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the cock crows, or at dawn. 36 If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. 37 What I say to you, I say to everyone: “Watch!”’ (Verses 32-37)

On the one hand, Jesus points back to what he has just talked about, when he begins by saying, ‘But about that day’[1]. But on the other hand, his story about waiting for an owner to come back to a house is different. The servants are not waiting for a catastrophe; rather, they are going to be held to account for their stewardship of what the master has left when he returns.

And that is where we find ourselves. One day, all our opportunities to witness to the kingdom of God and his love in Jesus will be over. Ultimately, that will be when Christ appears to judge the living and the dead. If we die before that day, then that will be closure for us. But it could be earlier. What if I suffer a stroke and my speech and physical mobility are severely impaired? What if I am diagnosed with a grave illness? What if a tragedy befalls a loved one, and I have to give all my time as a carer, no longer having the chance to be much of a witness in the world? Or maybe my world will close in, due to unemployment. What then?

Jesus calls his servants to ‘watch’ for such times, and that doesn’t mean some passive kind of waiting, it means an active waiting. Servants are stewards of what the master has left in their charge. And we are stewards of the gifts God has entrusted to us. This means our talents, our possessions, our relationships, our work – just about anything we are involved in from day to day. If our lives were interrupted today by Christ’s return, or if our lives were shattered by a turn of events, could we say that we have faithfully been using all that God has put in our hands in a way that gives him glory?

I realised that when I was recently granted the extension to my appointment here, it is most probable that after I leave here in several years’ time, I shall likely only have one more appointment as an active Methodist minister. The question of whether I am ‘watching’ over my gifts and calling to make a difference weighs on my mind.

Those of you who are older, and who have made it to retirement may also need the challenge. Will you be able to say that you have made a difference for the kingdom of God when the master of the house comes back, or will you have been sleeping on your talents? It isn’t too late to do something – our Bible contains enough stories of older people responding to a divine call, from Abraham to Moses, from Zechariah and Elizabeth to Simeon and Anna. But do not wait in a leisurely fashion.

Around the time I was finishing this sermon, a friend posted a video on Facebook. He has been posting two songs a day: one to depress you, and one to be uplifting. Last night’s depressing song seemed apposite to what I am saying here: the late Sandy Denny’s ‘Who Knows Where The Time Goes?’

As we contemplate the ends of our own worlds, or even the end of the world as we know it, may we not look back at a frittered life and wonder where the time went.

[1] Italics mine.

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Sermon: The Advent Hope

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 

A fortnight ago I preached on Mark 13:1-8 and said that despite certain appearances that chapter wasn’t about the Second Coming. Today, Advent Sunday, we start a new year in the Lectionary and we switch our main Gospel readings from Mark to Luke. The Luke reading set for today is the end of his equivalent chapter to Mark 13, and I would still contend that – despite appearances – it is more to do with the fall of Jerusalem to Rome than it is with the Second Coming.

Yet the Second Coming is a traditional theme for Advent Sunday. As we enter the season where we prepare to mark Jesus’ first coming, we also look forward to his appearing again – this time, in glory.

It was in remembering that emphasis for Advent Sunday that I decided instead to preach from today’s Lectionary epistle in 1 Thessalonians. There is no doubt that both of Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians have plenty of sane things to say to Christians about the return of Christ, and so I want to take verse 13 from our reading as a text this morning to explore this theme.

Let’s read it again:

And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Firstly, let us think about Paul’s statement that Jesus is coming. We have to get beyond some of the silliness around the doctrine of the Second Coming in order to see that actually this is a wonderful and beautiful truth. We shouldn’t be distracted by the lurid interpretations of this. We should pay no attention to those who claim to have made elaborate deductions from Scripture about the relevance of present-day events to a heavenly timetable for Christ’s return. We should ignore those who use this doctrine as a way of scaring people. And I know that last one, having been subjected as a teenager to an American film called A Thief In The Night, which basically tried to frighten young people into following Jesus. It gave the members of some youth groups who watched it nightmares for years afterwards. Its effect was more like a religious horror film than an instrument for the Gospel.

But just because the fruitcake brigade exists doesn’t mean that sane interpretations don’t also exist. To believe in Christ’s return is to have real hope for our lives and for all creation. It is like the mirror image of Christmas. For just as his incarnation was announced by angels, so here Paul envisages his return, flanked by the entire army of angels. Paul refers to ‘the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints’, where ‘saints’ is literally ‘holy ones’ and in this case that probably means angels, not Christians. Jesus is coming back to wrap up what he began. Like Magnus Magnusson or John Humphrys on Mastermind, he is saying, “I’ve started, so I’ll finish.”

To put it another way, let us remember how Jesus came, proclaiming that the kingdom of God was at hand, and indeed had come. The evidence was seen in the healing of the sick, the release of the demonised and the preaching of the good news to the poor.

But it didn’t all come. Evil resisted Jesus, and still does. We do not live in a society where sickness, death and injustice have been conquered. We await that day. In other words, the kingdom of God has come, but not fully. In the words of some, it is both ‘now’ and ‘not yet’. When Jesus comes again, it is, as I said, to finish what he started. It was promised in the ministry of Jesus. It was guaranteed in his resurrection.

How does this affect us now, as we continue to live in a world where we are surrounded by suffering? One answer is that it fortifies us with hope. Other people are driven to despair, but we who live in the light of the resurrection and the hope of the Second Coming know that God will one day make all things new. He will banish all tears and pain.

I am fond at this time of year of telling a story about Tony Campolo, the American preacher, social activist and sociologist. He tells of how someone asked him how come he wasn’t despondent when faced with all the pain and wickedness of the world. He replied, “I’ve got the book and I’ve taken a peek at the final page, so I know the ending: Jesus wins!”

On Advent Sunday, we are the people who believe that Jesus wins, and we, too, are strengthened with that hope as we too live for him in a world that is often otherwise grim.

Secondly, we need to think about a fitting response to the news that Jesus is coming back to complete the coming of his kingdom. How might we be in harmony with God’s kingdom, fully come? Paul certainly anticipates something like that when he talks of us being ‘blameless’ when Jesus comes again with the angels.

What would it mean to be blameless before God? Well, this too is a matter of the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’ of God’s kingdom. There is a sense in which we are already blameless, and a way in which we are not yet blameless. What do I mean?

We are already blameless in that we are forgiven by God in Jesus Christ. Our sins are forgiven, we are proclaimed ‘not guilty’ before God and the Great Judge has ‘justified’ us – he has declared us to be ‘in the right’ before him. As the Psalmist says, ‘As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.’ Not only have we been pardoned from all our sins, the record is wiped clean. There is nothing left on our record before God. All has been dealt with at the Cross. ‘He remembers our sins no more.’ That much is our ‘already.’ This is what we already have.

But to hear the word ‘blameless’ is to feel the force of the ‘not yet’ as well. We are not yet fully blameless in the way we conduct our lives. Forgiven and justified we may be, but we do not live in perfect harmony with the will of God. Sometimes we are only too conscious of the ways in which we continue to fail God and disappoint Jesus. We have a long way to go to become blameless in our everyday lives.

Yet what would be more fitting and appropriate in the kingdom of God but to be utterly blameless? If Christ returns to make all things new, to make a new creation where not only is there no more sickness and pain, there is also no more sin and evil, then how would we fit in if we continue to be sinners? Does it not follow, then, that although God has already declared us blameless in his sight, he also wants to make us blameless in practice?

It therefore becomes our aspiration, as Paul says here, to seek greater holiness in our lives. Just because we have been forgiven we cannot sit back and say, “I’m OK, I have my ticket for heaven.” Rather, if we know we have been forgiven by such love and at such cost to Jesus, our response will surely want to be one of gratitude. What can I do to please such a Saviour? What can I do to demonstrate my thankfulness for receiving such a priceless gift? We shall never want to settle for some idea that we have already arrived in the Christian life. There is no room for complacency in the life of the disciple. Disciples are always learning, and not simply learning religious facts. Disciples are learning more how to live after the pattern of their Teacher, Jesus.

The story is told of a little girl who saw her grandma reading her Bible. “Grandma, why are you still reading the Bible at your age?” asked the girl. “Surely you’ve read it all by now. Why do you keep doing it?”

Because I’m studying for my finals,” replied grandma.

This leads us to the third and final theme this morning. How can we achieve such blamelessness? Surely it’s beyond us.

Paul knows that, and he doesn’t expect us to manage it ourselves. Remember how the verse began:

And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless … (emphasis mine)

The third theme is that God makes us ready for his kingdom.

Let me tell you a pretty open secret. You may disagree with me, but one Christmas carol I truly dislike is ‘Away in a manger.’ It’s that silly line, ‘But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes’, that always gets to me. If Jesus were fully human, he would have cried! It ranks alongside ‘How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given’ from ‘O little town of Bethlehem’ – words clearly written by someone who had never attended the birth of a child.

But how does ‘Away in a manger’ end? ‘And fit us for heaven, to live with thee there.’ Now while I would still like to finesse that line a little too, because technically in the New Testament heaven is where we go between our death and our resurrection, but after our resurrection we live in God’s new creation, but nevertheless I like the thought that God fits us for eternity. ‘And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness’ indeed.

If God strengthens us, then that usually indicates the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the power of God. Jesus is coming again and will make all things new. We need to be ready for that, yet we are unable to be. But just as God has provided for our forgiveness, so he has also provided for our holiness. When we respond to the grace and mercy he lovingly offers us in Christ and we find redemption, he then grants us the gift of the Holy Spirit so that he can begin his work of fitting us for eternity. The power of God is available to us.

This doesn’t mean we become perfect overnight. Experience tells us that. But let us dwell on that image of being ‘fitted’ for eternity, and let that inform Paul’s teaching that God strengthens us in holiness. Think of someone who goes for a fitting for some clothes – perhaps a bride for her wedding dress. It takes a number of sessions over a period of months. A design is chosen. The bride is measured. She goes back a while later and the measurements have to be retaken, because she is making an effort to lose weight, ready for her wedding day. The dressmaker makes some adjustments, and notes what needs to be changed. And so it goes on, until the great day when the bride walks down the aisle, and stuns everyone with her beauty.

I think that what God does in strengthening us in holiness is a little like that. It is a process over a long time. It involves adjustments and changes. Eventually, one day, we – not as individuals but corporately as part of the Church, which is the Bride of Christ – will walk down the aisle for the marriage to Jesus the Bridegroom, and we shall stun people with our beauty – the beauty of holiness, as the hymn writer put it.

And let us remember also that the fact that God strengthens us in holiness does not absolve us from personal responsibility. We do not sit back and let God take the strain while we have an easy, quiet existence. Oh no. We need to co-operate with the Holy Spirit. The dressmaker would not be able to make the bride look beautiful unless that young woman co-operated with her work. We need to be open to the Holy Spirit, not closed.

This, then, describes some of the Advent hope. Jesus is coming again. He will finish what he started, by making all things new. It is only fitting that we seek holy lives in accordance with his kingdom purposes. However, we cannot do that on our own. Thankfully, God steps in with his Holy Spirit to strengthen us and fit us for eternity.

Our Advent calling, then, is to co-operate with the Spirit’s work in our lives. The same Spirit who brought Jesus into the world is available to us, so that we might live to please the One who came and who is coming.

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