November 28,
1999
"HOW TO GET READY FOR THE END OF TIME"
Mark 13:24-37
The text: "But in those days, after that suffering, the
sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in
the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of
Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory. Then he
will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four
winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven…"
From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch
becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that
summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking
place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I
tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these
things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will not pass away. "But about that day or hour
no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but
only the Father. Beware, keep alert, for you do not know
when the time will come. It is like a man going on a
journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge,
each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the
watch. Therefore, keep awake---for you do not know when the
master of the house will come, in the evening, or at
midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find
you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I
say to all: Keep awake."
This sermon was delivered by the Reverend Gene R. Preston
on Sunday, November 28 - the first Advent Sunday of the last
Advent season of our millennium - at Community Church Hong
Kong. The speaker is attempting to examine useful and
healthy attitudes for Advent, the season of waiting for
Jesus, and in the broader context of the end of our
millennium and the dawning of what too many fear and dread.
Mark's collection of Jesus' prophetic comments about the
end of time make up in Mark, chapter 3 what is known as the
"Little Apocalypse." It's called "little" as contrast to the
"big" apocalyptic Book of Revelation.
In Mark l3, Jesus uses a variety of illustrations to
evidence how God would consummate his purpose in history.
The variety of these illustrations suggests to me that Jesus
was more intuitive than categorical in his understanding of
how divine will would disclose itself in our future.
Jesus' illustration of the fig tree is a happy example
with its images of flowering and maturing fruit and also
suggests that the end of days would be imminent. A little
later Jesus confides that he doesn't know God's timing so
his advice is just to remain alert.
Some signs are natural but horrendous like earthquakes
and heavenly disasters to signal the end of time. One
instance is historical: The destruction of the temple in
Jerusalem, which had in fact occurred by the time Mark put
together this collection. And some of Jesus examples seem to
me purely spiritual like the defeat and collapse of the
devil and evil.
II
A great many seasons of fig tree flowering and fruiting
have passed since Jesus came upon that fig tree on the
outskirts of Jerusalem and no dramatic closure of history
has taken place. The human race has gone through numerous
earthquakes and other natural disasters and we are still
very much alive. We have experienced truly apocalyptic
historical events like wars, persecutions, and plagues, but
they have not brought the end days.
Jesus and his generation were highly end days oriented.
We, by contrast, have grown indifferent to the original
sobriety and passion, which Jesus evidenced regarding the
end of times.
Not all Christians, even now, are indifferent because I
read that the millennium nearly upon us has caused some
Christians to build bunkers and stock them with bottled
water and food. But most of us, even though we are about to
experience that which no Christians have known for a
thousand years, are content to just slip into the
millennium.
Although millennial fervor is unscriptural, the advent of
rounded numbers like the year 1000, and 1500 and now 2000,
have generated Christian fears and hopes, most of them
within cultic movements. Some of these cults like the
Heaven's Gate group have proven deadly to their adherents;
most of them like the Millerite movement of the last century
have simply proven disappointing to those who were confident
they knew the divine timetable for the end of history and
the Second Coming of Jesus.
III
And yet we should not pass glibly over the scriptural
texts, which show Jesus had a heightened sense of our human
destiny coming to conclusion under God's judgement and
within his purpose. This is the beginning of the Advent
season of the four Sundays before Christmas, and I have
often used the theme of the baby Jesus for this beginning of
the church year. But our leccionary confronts us with these
rock-em and sock-em texts about the Last Judgement and
Second Coming, instead of the baby in the manger images.
Why? I believe it is to reawaken our eyes and wills to
the transcendent power of God, which our submersion in
temporal and secular time, has clouded. I think we need this
Little Apocalypse word from Mark. The world will not always
be business as usual, for God has promised to intervene once
more to complete the work of redemption God began in his
first intervention in our history with Jesus Christ's
earthly life, death and Resurrection.
The sun will grow dark and the moon will fail to shed its
light. The stars will be shaken from the heavens. In terms
of natural physics, we know these very phenomena are likely
to happen. But we project the collapse of the universe
billions of years ahead, just as we project our own physical
demise into the unexamined future, and do both for the same
reason that we prefer to deny God's authority over our
lives.
The apocalyptic vision reminds us that the Lord who flung
the heavens into being will tumble them down; but the
catalyst for this implosion will not be the natural collapse
of all matter but the complete revelation of the Son of God.
Christians are not just waiting around for something
interesting, or awful, to happen. We are expecting Jesus'
return and we are working for His Kingdom in the meanwhile.
Like a farmer who plants and tills and waters and runs the
farm while also waiting patiently for the crops to grow, we
actively work for God's new world while we await Jesus'
promised return.
Advent hope is about impatient waiting. In this Advent
season Christians are called to work well for that for which
we must wait. The Kingdom is coming in fulfilment and thus
it is not clearly with us; yet the Kingdom has begun and we
are Kingdom workers. Harvard University Chaplain Peter Gomes
points out that there is no great market demand to trade in
Advent impatience. Everyone is interested in impatience. Why
not when one can get a return of 30 or 300% in current
internet investing. But waiting? No one wants to wait for
their return on their investments or their desires or their
careers. Most folks want to buy only into a market which
seems definite, clear and materially promising to them.
How do we explain a Second Coming to folks who know
nothing of Jesus' First Coming. How do we alert others that
God will act decisively in history when they have no
knowledge that God has ever acted in history.
IV
Well, let me suggest three stances appropriate for those
who wait on God to complete what God has begun and those who
wait for the Return of the One who in one real sense has
never left us.
First, let us look inward! During the long wait of human
history most members of our race have turned their attention
away from the skies, and away from their own spirits, in
pursuit of other goals: The pursuit of wealth and things and
power and the hedonistic enjoyment of every day. Even the
church universal has grown passive about Jesus' coming and
engaged in divisive quarrels over questions of leadership
and worship styles and the "correct" interpretation of
scriptures and many other quite secondary issues which, if
the Church really believed Jesus was returning, would be
seen for what they are: merely rearranging church chairs.
We need to look inward to cultivate that confessional
honesty essential for any one who waits upon God. This last
week in the lovely northern Chinese city of Suchow, I
enjoyed visiting several of the classical Chinese gardens.
In the Humble Administrator's Garden, I was struck with this
insight about "Five Kinds of Moon Watchers."
…The banqueters in the garden, dressed in their finery,
enjoy their music, food and drink. They say they are
watching the moon, but they do not watch it. They watch each
other.
…The Courtesans and their customers stroll along, looking
for an engagement. They say they are watching the moon, but
they do not watch it. They are looking for business.
…The Monks and Scholars ostentatiously watch the moon.
They say they are watching the moon, but they want to be
seen watching it.
…The Poor People watch, not the moon, but the people who
say they are watching the moon and are not watching it.
…The Lone Moon Watcher, perhaps in a small boat, might
invite the moon to join in a cup of tea - these truly watch
the moon, but no one sees them watching it.
We must not be like the hypocritical moon watchers when
we are watching for the return of the Son of God.
In anticipation of the first millennium Europe saw the
launching of a great monastic movement. Monasticism was not
so much a call for Christians to withdraw fearfully from the
world as it was a regrouping of believers to share in a
renewed emphasis upon meditation, prayer, worship and
generally letting the spiritual life shape their lifestyles
instead of being dominated by he temptations of society.
It is unlikely the modern church will succeed in
relaunching monasticism but we certainly are reimaging it in
our development of Christian groups so essential in the life
of every congregation. It is in fellowship groups that we
can arrive at the confessional honesty necessary to get
ready for Jesus' return.
I believe Jesus would want us to cultivate inner peace as
the appropriate way to wait for His Coming. And in doing
that we discover we are not entirely bereft of Jesus now. We
are simply waiting for a fuller or more radical revelation
of a Jesus who is always with us and especially when we seek
his presence in our inner hearts and share his presence with
others.
Secondly, let us look up! God is in control of the
universe as of history. God has always been active since the
first creation. God keeps doing new things and reviving old
things. If God is directing his handiwork, and as we are his
highest creation, we are called to look up for the challenge
of acting upon our stewardship over the earth and the skies
and ourselves.
There is much work to be done. Is that not why Jesus' own
sense of destiny is filled with calls to remain awake, keep
alert, work hard. Jesus knew how much remained to be done.
Anywhere we look we see fields ripe for tending. Nations are
groping toward reconciliation and need help; bombs and
bullets target innocent victims with regularity; they need
banning and stilling; children are shooting their
classmates; our schools need reordering and our children
need loving and caring for. Homes are broken by deceit and
lives are shattered by selfishness. They need truth.
Prejudice blinds us to the goodness and gifts within others;
we need liberty in the Holy Spirit. A continent on our
doorstep struggles toward greater opportunity and economic
equality and yearns for greater light. Let us pray for China
and believe and work for its future.
And then let us look out! On the horizon of the
millennium are new phenomena with which our faithful
expectation will come to terms.
…There, stretching before us, is cyberspace: The Church
will be in new ways an electronic church and must join the
new technology for recommunicating our truths to a world
which though it knows nothing of the end days feels mightily
the emptiness of modern living.
… Also stretching before us is a new era of religious
truths and insights competing and existing at close
quarters. I was disappointed that the Christian leaders of
Israel closed down all churches this past week for two days
as a protest against the Israeli government's permission for
the building of a mosque in Nazareth near the church, which
honors the home of Jesus. This parochial protest comes from
a Christian community which itself is scandalously divided
and competitive.
If we are going to work with God in the new millennium,
we are going to need to adjust to a bigger God, a God who
encompasses cyberspace and multi-faith tolerance and nearly
uncountable other new occasions happening now before us.
Too often has the Church tried to straitjacket God into a
moral absolutism, which ended up producing intolerance,
group hatred, political and religious imperialism
co-operating hand in hand, and theological wars.
Perhaps through sharing cyberspace and by sharing
dwindling holy real estate, we will come to see the human
race as resident on the same earth with all of us subject to
the same standards of decency and respect and mutual care
which can only arise from and be respected because God has
given us His will and way.
Those who wait for the Lord, impatiently, hopefully,
faithfully, will receive power to act in His name. As we
enter another Advent season, the last one at the dawn of a
new millennium, we announce not only that Christ has come
into our world of darkness but that he will come again
bringing a greater light than humanity has ever known.
And so we wait: looking inward, looking upward, looking
out, and acting because we are waiting impatiently.
Pastor
Gene Preston
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