Jeremiah 33:14-16 / Ps. 25:1-10 / 1 Thess. 3:9-13 / Luke 21:25-36
Well friends, today is the first Sunday of Advent, and I’m very sad to not be there in person with all of you to see the church colors change and to light that first Advent candle. As most of you know by now, God always seems to have a dry sense of humor about which gospel passages I get assigned to preach, and today is a double whammy: (1.) today’s gospel is a rough one, and (2.) I’m too sick to actually be there to preach about it! Please say a big thank you to whoever was kind enough to stand up this morning and read this meditation on my behalf.
Starting today, we enter into the season of Advent. The word ‘advent’ means ‘coming’, and it refers to the incarnation — the coming of Christ into the world as a little baby in a manger in 1st Century Palestine. Advent is a season of preparation, where we try to enter into those long, dark centuries before the birth of Jesus when the people of God lived in exile and then under foreign occupation. In these years the people of God were alienated from their home, their temple, and so many of the things that connected them to God and one another; these were years of uncertainty and pain, when it must have seemed that all was lost and when prophecies of restoration and hope must have felt like dimly burning candles in a dark, cold night.
And so it’s no wonder that when Jesus comes onto the scene, he is born into an Israel where the people are desperate for a Savior — where the long years of suffering have taken their toll and the people of God are hoping for a Messiah to come along not just to set things to rights, but to violently overthrow the Roman oppressors and finally make the other nations suffer just like Israel has been suffering. They are hoping for a day when Israel will be lifted up above all the other nations, and when they all will bow down and come to the Temple in Jerusalem as subjects to pay tribute to Israel and Israel's God, as some of the prophets write about.
But this is not the way that Jesus comes into the world to restore it. In fact, our gospel today is the last section of a longer passage where Jesus is predicting that the Temple in Jerusalem will be destroyed and where he tells them what things will be like in the years leading up to that destruction. Of course, Jesus is right, and the temple is actually destroyed about 40 years later in 70AD, but for the disciples and other Jews who hear this, this is impossible news. The temple is the main way that Jews at the time interacted with God; it is where they believed they drew near to God, where God met them. It was THE sign and proof of God’s presence with them. The Messiah was supposed to come into the world to liberate the temple and lift it up to glory, not prophesy about its destruction.
Yet somehow, Jesus says, this time of destruction will be a time when ‘the Son of Man’ is revealed, when God’s glory is made known, and when the disciples are going to “stand up and raise [their] heads, because [their] redemption is drawing near.”
Now, this is a tough passage, and I’m not going to pretend that I fully understand exactly what Jesus is saying here. What I do understand is that when Jesus was born, God’s people were so fixated on their particular understanding of God’s promises, so fixated on the temple and their particular rituals and all of the different things that they looked to for security and strength that when God showed up in the person of Jesus, they misunderstood him entirely. When he threatened the security and stability that they held dear, they entreated the Romans to put him to death.
What I do understand is that sometimes when we are wounded and afraid, we put our trust and security in all sorts of things that we believe will save and protect us — let’s call these things ‘temples’ — and we do all sorts of terrible things to one another instead of facing our fears and handing them over to God. But here’s the thing: God is the only one in whom we can truly rest, in whom there is true healing and security and peace. And sometimes the only way we can be set free and finally give ourselves over to God is when those ‘temples’ that we cling to are taken away and come crashing down around us — when we are forced to see that they were never able to save or protect us all along.
This first Sunday of Advent is traditionally meant to focus on ‘Hope’, so based on everything I’ve written so far, this gospel passage might seem like a bad fit. It’s certainly not warm and fuzzy, and it’s not obviously comforting and hopeful at first glance. But here’s the thing — I think that it says something about what true hope looks like.
As many of you know, my Mom had a heart attack last weekend, she’s in the hospital right now recovering from open heart surgery. My wife, Rachel, has a severe chronic illness, my Dad has cancer, and to top it all off, I have a nasty cold. I’m not having a good week over here. And, often, when someone is going through times like this, it’s tempting to tell them not to worry because ‘everything is going to be alright’ and ‘God’s going to take care of it’ and ‘God has a plan,’ and just to ‘have faith’ — because we don’t like to see people suffering. And in some sense, all of those statements are true, but as I’m sure you know, words like that are cold comfort to someone who is really in darkness, because the truth is that God doesn’t promise that we won’t suffer, that we won’t hurt and grieve and lose many of the things and people that we love.
The ‘hope’ that Christ offers, and that our Gospel this morning offers, is that somehow, even when everything we hold dear seems to be crashing down around us and all things seem dark — somehow, Christ will come. It may be in the kindness of a friend or stranger, in a sudden word from God in prayer or in something we read, or it may be something else entirely, but somehow, even in the depths of our pain, Christ will reveal himself to us and we will discover that all is not lost. The hope of today’s gospel and the hope of Advent is that somehow, someday, despite everything we might lose, darkness and death will not get the last word — all things will, at last, be made well.
This is what we try to remember in this Advent season: that God has come among us — that Christ has been, is now, and will be always with us — and that he often comes to us unexpectedly, when all things seem dark.
This Advent, may we learn to wait in hope for Christ’s coming, and may the Holy Spirit make us the hands and feet of Jesus to those who feel trapped in the dark.
Amen.