Sermon for First Sunday of Advent – Luke 21:25-36

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. It’s the beginning of a new year for the church. So, it’s worth reminding ourselves what Advent means, because if you go by stores and radio stations and Black Friday and the Hallmark Channel, you’d think it was just a 4-week tailgater to get ready for Christmas. And this year’s really special, because the global supply chain is messed up. There are a lot of folks out there weeping and gnashing their teeth because some things are out of stock. Now, here’s what’s funny. That’s kind of what Advent is about. Not the capitalism part, but the anxiety. Advent is about the coming of the Lord, for desperate folks dying for a sign.

Our Gospels were written decades AFTER Jesus was crucified, risen, and ascended. That’s decades of tensions rising between Jews and Romans. Finally things explode. Roman armies attack. They build a wall around Jerusalem to starve the Jewish people to death. They go in and massacre folks. And they destroy the Temple. So, try to imagine the thunder of hoofbeats and armies. The sounds of people trying to flee for their lives. The flash of swords. The cries of pregnant and nursing mothers whose children will be no more. It’s savage and tragic.

This is when our gospel was written. To remember Jesus. To remember the stories and words that you’re dying to hear when your world was ending. This is why we hear Jesus talking about the end of the world. “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” Where was their help going to come from? From the Lord? Even now? It’s always the same story. They forget God. Their sins overwhelm them with death and destruction. They’re swept into exile. They repent in tears and ashes, and long for the Messiah. So our gospel remembers Jesus giving signs, by the sun, moon, and stars. By the distress of the nations and the roaring of the sea. The Messiah is coming. Not in prosperity, but in crisis, because God hears the cry of the afflicted. But this is a hard sign to hold, because it doesn’t look like promise. It looks like wrath.

How do our lives compare to that? For American Christians in 2021?

A lot of us think the world’s ending when the barista at Starbucks wishes us “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”. Or we talk about “those so-called Christians” because we want folks to know that we’re better. Somehow we’ve become so insulated from struggle and uncertainty that we start creating these artificial controversies. And we don’t really worry about the Messiah coming because our stores and Hallmark Channel constantly remind us what’s coming in 4 weeks. Our kind of Christianity seems more cultural than a matter of life and death. And to folks outside the church, we all kind of look the same. You know, we didn’t always celebrate Advent with the color blue. We used to use the same purple as Lent, for repentance. Somewhere along the way we switched to blue for hope and anticipation. Sure, hope and anticipation are important, but maybe we lost something in the process. And, what if we’re so comfortable that we’re not really waiting for anything at all?

So perhaps Jesus’ words swing a different way for us. They’re apocalyptic. They feel judgmental. He talks about signs in the sun, moon, and stars. We might think about the millions of pieces of space junk orbiting the earth. Right above our heads. Did you know that about 100 tons of debris fall to earth every year? Mostly into the ocean. Except back in 1996 in Oklahoma, a 6-inch piece of aluminum hit some poor woman who was just minding her own business in a park. The sky is literally falling, and it’s a miracle that doesn’t happen more often. We don’t know how to clean up the mess. Yet, we keep sending up more.

Jesus talks about nations distressed by the roaring of the sea. We might think about climate change. Temperatures rise. Polar icecaps melt. Oceans rise, and we get devastating floods in places that aren’t supposed to do that, like New York City or Germany or Belgium. Billions of dollars in damage. Some lives lost. Or a carbon dioxide overload that damages food crops. Is this our new normal? No one knows. It’s complicated. So we shouldn’t be surprised by all the folks in denial. And the massive changes we have to make to halt pollution are staggering. We’re not prepared for that kind of sacrifice. Covid has shown that we’re not such a sacrificial kind of people, even when it’s easy.

So maybe we’re in more danger than we want to admit. Not to mention the new omicron Covid variant, racism, war with China, the 2024 presidential election. A lot of things that leave us feeling thrown around by powers beyond our control. So this broken world drives all of us into survival mode. How else can we bear all this evil? But at the same time, it binds us. We hunker down. We blame others. We’re quick to condemn, because we’re convinced that there’s no way we could hold any guilt for something we don’t understand. So our problem is that these crises always drive us to self-justification. We don’t have neighbors. Only enemies. Jesus says “pray that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” But if there’s no escape, then how could we even begin to pray such a prayer?

We can’t. But Jesus can and does. He knows what crisis feels like. Last week we heard how the temple priests finagled Jesus’ crucifixion, because they feared Roman anger. Jesus had every right to condemn them. But he didn’t. From the cross, in agony and suffering, he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.” And he died. But after three days he rose, with power and great glory. Not to raise an army or start a rebellion, but to give us his word of forgiveness. His word that raises us with him, to new life and redemption in his blood.

This word means everything to us, because it makes faith in us. The kind of faith that sustains us with hope. Hope that’s stronger than all of these crises that would destroy us. The kind of hope that says, “not today Satan,” because our God is not dead and our God does not sleep. That’s why we don’t pray to escape all these things that are taking place. We don’t want to escape. We want to be right here in the middle of all the chaos because this is where all of our neighbors are. And this is where they need us. That’s how we know that God is still up to something, because we were born for a time such as this. A time to abide with each other in the midst of chaos. And that can only be the power of God at work. This is why Jesus says, “when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.”

So how does that fix climate change or space junk or Covid or war? I don’t know. But I do know that community is the only thing that makes us care about the lives that always hang in the balance. The thing that leads us to different decisions. To different ways of being in the world with each other. To letting go of fear and clinging tightly to all of God’s promises. Because we know God’s not done with us yet. Just wait and see!