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Karen Hollis | December 1, 2024 Advent 1
Luke 21:25-36 Watch for the coming of the Son of Man "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. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."
Then he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. "Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth.
Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man."
And with that reading, Advent begins. Let's proceed with prayer.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be reflections of your word to us today, in Christ’s name we pray. Amen
This text is not the gentle welcome into Advent that one might have received from a gathering like the Hanging of the Greens. It’s not a text that gathers us together in the light of the Advent wreath with warm feelings. It’s actually a bit startling. I think it means to get our attention. I think it invites us to look around at our world . . . notice what we see, and find a way to view it through the eyes of our faith.
We’ve been looking at our world . . . real hard . . . especially for the past few weeks. We’ve been watching the stream of news, sometimes taking media breaks, connecting with people, shaking our heads, managing our anxiety or full on numbing out. We usually receive the apocalyptic images that appear on the first Sunday of Advent a little more metaphorically, you know, sun darkening, moon falling from the sky. This year, for some reason it’s a bit easier to connect with the images. Jesus says: “There will be 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.”1 Yeah, resonates.
The text invites us to look at the big picture . . . look beyond daily life, look beyond community, the relationships between nations, look bigger still. This Advent, this beginning . . . is a cosmic event. We are invited widen our view enough to include what God is doing.
While Advent is the beginning of something, beginnings are paired with endings . . . and both can be scary. This text, with its apocalyptic imagery is in response to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. What other images will suffice when the Jerusalem Temple is destroyed, causing the lives of the Jewish people to be utterly reordered? It was the end of their world.
I had a relationship that ended years ago, and I remember sitting in my living room wondering why the floor was still supporting me, after I had so clearly fallen into the sink hole that had opened up in the floor beneath me.
I heard someone describe a cancer diagnosis as standing with the phone in their hand as the house burned down around them. Perhaps you have your own story of images that took over your senses to convey to your whole person the magnitude of what was happening.
This kind of language feels appropriate when the foundational norms of our individual or collective lives are threatened. Norms that we rely on for our way of life, our survival, are now a little less certain.
This apocalyptic language – apocalyptic meaning the end of the world as we know it, rather than the end of the world, period – this language meets us on an emotional level and connects with that which is difficult to name. It meets that need of acknowledging that which we can’t quite put into words.
In another layer of self, there are some things we probably can put into words about how the trajectory of the world is impacting us . . . though being that honest may not be our first choice. In the opening chapter of his book, In the Shelter, Pádraig Ó Tuama invites us to consider our inclination to watch something unfold without naming it . . . perhaps hoping that in doing so, we will somehow escape the reality of it. 2 O Tuama writes: “Much of our desire to not-name a place is because we fear that in naming it we are giving it power, and by giving it power we are saying we may not escape. It’s a valid fear.”3 Our rational minds know that to name something doesn’t impact its ultimate reality, but in making it real for us, our relationship to it changes. Jesus encourages us this morning to acknowledge our relationship to what is happening in the world around us . . . naming our own truth actually sets us free to respond.
It occurred to me the other day that the US election happens every 4 years right before the beginning of Advent. I'm sure it's not exactly by design, but it is a gift in this case to be able to align our concern about the future with the cosmic beginning of Advent . . . stay with me with this image – if the primary narrative operating in our minds is that of world politics, perhaps we can unhook that and move it over a bit and hook in its place the unfolding of God’s world.
What kind of claims can we make about who God is and how God is present in the unfolding of the world?4 The Jewish tradition, out of which our faith was born had a turning point in their development, which may indeed be useful for us to think about. For a long time the people held the belief that they needed to use the ritual practice of the Temple to ask God to intercede in the unfolding of history. Into that context, the prophets, like Isaiah, spoke of God in a different way . . . instead of interceding in history, the God they knew served God’s people precisely in the unfolding of history.5 In God’s body, nothing happens outside of God’s self, so God is ultimately in charge.
When we see the world unfold in the way it is right now, we worry that everything is spinning out of control, that the future is bleak, and there is no reason to hope. We get confused sometimes and forget that God’s promise is in the continuity of life, it is not about preventing the end. God’s promise is a cycle of renewal. Without endings, there is no pathway for new life to emerge. This is how God’s world works. We find ourselves living in the midst of renewal, in the ever increasing tension of becoming, of life, death, into new life . . . which brings us finally to hope.
Tension is very important to the Jewish understanding of hope. One of the words for hope in Hebrew is Qvah. It's a hope that is not based on current circumstances – we could use some of that about now – rather it is a tension that is waiting in anticipation. Like a rubber band that has been stretched, qvah is a state of waiting for release.
Here, as we approach the darkest time of the year, when the world feels darker than it has in a long time, we begin this season of waiting.
Jesus meets us here and invites us to look again. Now that we have looked at the cosmic view, look at the details. Look at the signs of new life that are already visible, even as the world we know is ending. Look at the greening, but most importantly, look at the people. Have the strength, Jesus says, to escape these things and stand before the Son of Man. It sounds like a title – Son of Man – sounds very official. But Son of Man, just means human. Our challenge, invitation, is to keep God’s unfolding world as our primary narrative so that we can be present with our fellow humans. So we can walk through this together, holding hands, holding together that tension of hope. Thanks be to God
1 Luke 21
2 https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2018-when-you-see-these-things Nov 30, 2024
3 O Tuama, In the Shelter
4 enfleshed Dec 2, 2018
5 Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic, p. 18