Jesus Comes

Isaiah 64:1-9, Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19. 1 Corinthians 1:3-9, Mark 13:24-37

First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2005

Heritage Congregational Church, Madison, WI

Welcome to the season of Advent! During this season we read how wonderful things are with the people of God! Everyone is happy and singing Christmas Carols! The people are filled with joy and feel close to God! Woman, man and child are consumed with good will toward one another and are fully focused on the season! All we read in worship between now and Christmas weekend is uplifting and magical, reminiscent of the holiday we are preparing to celebrate! NOT!

How many of us were surprised to hear today’s passages? In the Old Testament we find God’s people crying out to be saved. Restore us, they cry in the psalm! O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, the people exclaim in Isaiah! The New Testament is no different. The people of Corinth are divided--they have forgotten the gifts given to them by God through Christ. And in Matthew we find apocalyptic words, warning God’s people to keep awake, lest they not be ready when the world falls apart and Christ comes again. These are pretty intense passages. There is an urgency in these passages. Where in them do we find the joy of looking forward to the birth of our Savior?

Advent is the season of waiting. In Biblical times, they were waiting for the Messiah to come. That was Advent number one. Now we wait for Christ to come again in glory. That is Advent number two. In reality, like the people of Corinth, we are living in the time between Advents. As Paul says in today’s Epistle, we are waiting for the revealing of Jesus. We are waiting for Jesus to come. That is what Advent is all about.

So why the intense passages? How do they help us to wait? How do they make our hearts ready to receive Jesus when He comes?

To me, today’s passages are all about salvation, what it means to each of us as individuals and what it means to us as a community. The word salvation, as used in the Biblical witness, has a broad range of meanings. In today’s passages from the Old Testament, the cry of the people to be saved reflects to a definition similar to that of the Harper Collins Bible Dictionary, which says: a broadening or enlarging the creation of space in the community for life and conduct, created with divine help, especially in adverse situations, God rescues and delivers from opposition and recovers spaciousness, prosperity and well-being, deliverance of many kinds (redemption, atonement, reconciliation, pardon, expiation), the purpose of which is to establish God’s reign among all people. In other words, when the people cry to God to be saved, for God to tear open the heavens and come down, they are asking to be saved in the here and now. They want their situation on the earth to be better. They want to be delivered from poverty and enemies. They want to have a life here on this earth that is whole and complete. They want God to attend to their well-being while blood pulses through their bodies and they breathe the air of God’s creation.

The people of Isaiah’s prophecy are suffering terribly. They are in distress. Their temple has been destroyed and their land is occupied by the ungodly. They feel alienated from God, as if they never belonged to God at all. They yearn to feel God’s presence again, for they are utterly lost. Shape us, they say. You are the potter and we are the clay. Consider, they plead, we are all your people. The people beg God to remember them. And God, reliably faithful, remarkably forgiving, unbelievably loving, remembers the people and answers their prayers.

In the New Testament, the word salvation refers to a wholeness of a different kind. The Harper Collins text continues by saying: in the New Testament the gospel is the essence of salvation—restored wholeness and soundness, death and resurrection of Christ is the focal moment of the dawn of salvation, present significance and future deliverance, deliverance now to ensure life and well-being in the future. Salvation in gospel terms means wholeness for all eternity, the promise now of a future with our Creator for eternity. Jesus, as well as Paul, urges God’s people to focus on their future salvation as they live this life on earth.

Jesus presses God’s people to keep awake, for the time is coming when this world will change. There will be suffering, darkness will fall. The stars will fall from the sky and the powers of Heaven will be shaken! In Mark’s little apocalypse, only the Father knows this time, so we must be awake at all times. Don’t let yourself take what I have taught you for granted, Jesus says. Don’t fall asleep! There will be suffering, but I will come again. (I’d like to remind everyone that apocalyptical language is not meant to bring despair, but hope! Jesus will come again!)

According to Paul, we have been given the grace of Christ, so we are challenged to live our lives as if Christ is here with us at right now. We have been enriched in speech and knowledge, in spiritual gifts, in strength of faith and in fellowship. Don’t waste your time squabbling over unimportant things, but focus your lives on what God has given you. Look forward to the time when Christ will come again. Live life as a community who has experienced the first Advent, who has learned of God’s saving power through Christ. Live life as a community who looks forward to the time when Christ will come again, the second Advent.

These two views of salvation are not mutually exclusive. As far as I can see, they work hand in hand. Many a wise person has observed that in order to respond to God, one’s stomach must be full. We need to be whole; our human needs met, before we can venture into active faith, before we can devote our energy to staying awake as Jesus says. Or, think of it this way: as Elton Trueblood, the renowned Quaker theologian once said, and is the most important word in the Bible. It is not either this/or that. Rather it is this and that. Both definitions of salvation are in the Bible. Both speak to us today. Both prepare us for what God would have us do in this time of Advent.

When I look at these passages, the despair shared by God’s people and the prediction of the end times yet to come, I see how they serve to put us in the perfect position to be an Advent people. In Advent, we yearn for Christ to come. We acknowledge our need for God. We realize that we cannot do it alone. We trust that God is the source of our salvation. Our only hope is in our God. Without this need, would we ever turn to God and ask God to come and save us? Without despair would we ever turn to God instead of ourselves?

Jesus came down, as our Advent Candle song said, that we may have hope. God’s people in the Old Testament were crying for God to come and save them, and God responded in faithfulness. The people’s cries were heard and answered compassionately. They are saved.

We wait still, as the people of Corinth and those hearing Matthew’s gospel for the first time, for Christ to come again. We live in the in-between times. And, as Paul reminds us, God’s gifts to us are more than sufficient for us to live lives of wholeness as we continue to wait.

During this season of Advent, may we remember our God’s saving action throughout time with all people. May we live as those who know of the first Advent and look forward to the second. May we ponder the meaning of salvation for each of us, for our church and for our world. And may we revel in God’s great gifts to us and live our lives as those who are the recipients of God’s gift of salvation. Our hope is in Christ. May He come again. Amen.