A sermon preached by The Reverend Canon Dr. David Anderson at St. Jude’s Anglican Church, Oakville, on the First Sunday of Advent. Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36)
I speak to you in the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
As the church begins the holy season of Advent, the images of Christmastime have already begun to appear all around us in our every day lives. Admittedly, much of what we see is driven by the commercialization of Christmas: the tinselled trees, Santa Claus, and all the rest. And there are the sounds as well. As someone said to me recently, “if I hear ‘Felice Navidad’ one more time I am going to scream.” But the more religious images also begin to appear along with the rest; we see peaceful nativity scenes with docile donkeys and sheep.
Much in contrast, today’s Gospel Reading highlights cosmic catastrophe, apocalyptic urgency, and warnings of peril to come. With such a kickoff to this new season, it is no wonder some might be happy to skip the church’s celebration of Advent altogether and prefer to stay home to watch a Hallmark Christmas movie.
There are several features in today’s Gospel Reading that might put us off, such as its cosmic scope, cryptic references, and dire sense of urgency. But its message is one of hope. Amid a world filled with chaos and a future marked by uncertainty, Jesus reminds hearers: “Stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (v. 28).
Today’s Gospel Reading borrows language from the ancient prophets to portray the Son of Man’s arrival as a day fulfills God’s ancient purposes. Many of the images are associated with what the prophets referred to as “the Day of the Lord,” a time when God would intervene to redeem God’s people (Isaiah 13:4–13; Joel 2:28–32). Today’s First Reading includes this sort of language of promise, “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfil the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah” (Jeremiah 33:14).
With this First Sunday of Advent, we begin not only a new season of the church, but a new liturgical year. In the three-year cycle of our lectionary, this is the year of Luke. Throughout Luke, Jesus identifies himself as the Son of Man, a title with various associations. The ‘Son of Man’ is not only a human being, but a prophetic figure, and even a divine person. The imagery of the Son of Man arriving “in the clouds” promises the return of Jesus in the fullness of his reign, and his arrival as a day of reckoning and salvation. In short, all of this dramatic language is meant to communicate that this event will turn all earthly norms on their heads and secure ultimate redemption for God’s people.
In the second section of our reading, we move from the dramatic prophetic language to more practical encouragement. It begins with a parable about a fig tree, which expands to include “all the trees” (vv. 29-33). Just as their new growth signifies summer’s arrival, so do “these things” signify the arrival of God’s kingdom. What strikes me is the simplicity of this parable. The leaves on the trees are there for all to see. The promise of summer comes to us with a palpable sense of new life and growth. To me this suggests that we do not need any secret Bible knowledge or complicated calculations to discern the arrival of our redemption. I think that the TV end-times preachers have it wrong. God’s coming in the Son of Man will be like a change of seasons we will all witness.
The next portion of today’s Gospel Reading of encouragement (vv. 34-36), calls for our alertness and prayer. The language of this section is fierce at times. We are told that the coming day might “catch [us] … like a trap” (vv. 34b-35a), that day will “come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth” (v. 34b), and that we should pray for “strength to escape” (v. 36b). But the point of all this is clear. It is a call to “be alert at all times” (v. 36), so that we may embrace the day of this salvation when it arrives with confident trust.
A sticking point in our reading might be this. Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place” (v. 32). For some, these words have been viewed as problematic. It is hard for us to agree that “all [these] things have taken place” in any previous generation, or (yet) in our own. Biblical scholars propose a several interpretations in an attempt to explain this. In the end I think that the best way to understand this saying—in light of the type of language used here—is that Jesus is being more hyperbolic than literal. Jesus is not seeking to give a clear chronological timetable here as much as he is trying to call us to vigilance. Jesus’ words call all hearers and readers—in Luke’s day and in ours—to faithfulness in the present, not to confident assertions of when the end will happen.
All of this talk about ‘the end-times’ can be polarizing. On the one hand, Christians have used texts like this to make specific end-time predictions based on spurious connections to today—none of which have (so far) proven true. On the other hand, in reaction to these predictions and the challenges of this kind of imagery, others have practically rejected all promises of end-time events, deeming them to be merely a product of ancient mythological thinking. In the words of a former parishioner of mine, “Do we still really believe that anymore?”
It seems to me that it is false to believe that we have only two choices, that we can use these texts to predict the future, or that we should at best take them only figuratively, or at worst ignore them entirely. The better option is to take these words—as I believe Jesus offered them—as a word of hope to encourage our faithfulness in the present moment in which we find ourselves. Jesus does promise a day when the Son of Man will arrive, a just reckoning will happen, and the faithful will see redemption—and these words of promise will not pass away. But this promise calls not for strategic predictions, as much as for realizing that our faith, practiced here in our time, is not in vain.
In view of this, the season of Advent which we celebrate today and until our celebration of Christmas, rightly focuses neither simply on Jesus’ future return nor on his arrival at Christmas, but also on his arrival today in our daily lives and the practices of our faith. We do not need to wait for Christmas Day on December 25, or for the end of all things, for someone to encounter Jesus in a profound way. We are, after all, gathered today to share in Holy Eucharist. We do, after all, seek to live into our Baptismal Covenant, where we promise to “seek and serve Christ in all persons.” And these encounters with the divine are worth looking for and embracing now.
The gist of today’s Gospel Reading is a message of profound hope—one that is sorely needed today. Our world is riddled with uncertainty, injustice, conflict, indifference, pain, judgement, and condemnation of anyone who thinks differently. Because this is the way of the world, it is also the experience of our lives. However chaotic and uncertain our world is—and however chaotic and uncertain our lives seem to be—Jesus promises a day when his return will bring about lasting salvation, justice, redemption, and healing. This changes everything! A sure future hope inspires our faith here and now. And that means more than can be conveyed by even the finest nativity scenes and Christmas cards. The arrival of Jesus among us—whenever and however it happens—is a word of profound hope. We rightly focus on its significance throughout Advent. +
