Jeremiah 33:14-16
Luke 21: 25-36
1st Sunday of Advent
Jeremiah
Jeremiah has long been one of my
favorite prophets because mostly Biblical prophets were unusual characters, to
say the least and Jeremiah fits that bill. They were everyday sort of guys usually with some sort
of impairment for doing God’s work, and so they argued with God about why they
should NOT speak on behalf of God.
And, rightly so, they were up against a system that was oppressive and
failing and hurting people. It’s
hard to tell people to change their ways even if their ways just aren’t working
for them anymore, no body wants to hear that. You won’t win any popularity contests by being a
prophet. And, to top it all off,
for a prophet, this nagging voice of God just won’t let up on them.
Jeremiah’s prophetic career coincided
with very critical events in the history of the southern kingdom of Judah. There was horrible political turmoil,
the past monarchy under the rule of David had failed and finally fell. It divided into two kingdoms. The northern kingdom, Israel, fell and
in 627 BCE the southern kingdom of Judah also fell and the people were taken to
Babylonia into exile. It was a
mess.
So in the passage that we just heard,
Jeremiah is reassuring the people (prophets continually warn and then reassure,
warn and reassure). He is
reassuring them, that yes, God will restore their people back in their land,
yes, they will return from Babylonia, yes, there will be someone who will
execute justice and righteousness, yes, Jerusalem will be the heart and soul of
her people again, and yes….everything will be ok. Sweet words of comfort this must have been for the people
who lives had been turned upside down.
This passage from Jeremiah has long
been used to foreshadow the coming of Jesus and while I loathe to use it solely
as such it does lend its comfort and reassurance to us just when we need it most
in the darkest time of the year as we prepare for the birth of a tiny baby. We
all need such words of comfort when our own lives are topsy-turvy don’t
we? Relax, it’s in God’s capable
hands now, everything will be ok, you just need to wait it out. And then finally the light will come.
We know that some people returned to
Israel and some stayed in Babylonia because they had reoriented their lives and
after a few generations thought, why bother, it’s not so bad here. But the people who decided to go home
again must have had questions.
What must they do to prepare?
What should they do with their time waiting it out while the camels were
being packed? That was their
question not unlike ours for today, what must we do to prepare now that we know
that the birth of Christ will happen soon? How will we ‘wait it out’?
Advent
We too, now are in a season of waiting
and preparation of our hearts.
Advent. It’s joyful everywhere you turn out there yet here in the
church, we won’t be singing many of those happy and joyous carols just yet,
that’s in the future. If you need
to hear them you can tune to into some radio station for all the Christmas
cheer that you need or go to Shoprite.
I was recently shopping with a friend at Shoprite and she was singing
along with the musak and she said she comes to Shoprite just for the musak!
You see, for us, Advent is a study in
minor musical keys, it’s not joy filled but it is soul filled. Music in minor keys has a different
sound and emotional feel, and develops differently than music in a major key. Music in a minor key sounds more solemn,
mysterious, or ominous than music that is in a major key. It aptly describes this time of waiting and
anticipation.
O Come, O Come Emmanuel, God be with us
and ransom us from our captivity.
There is longing in the sound and the words and the music is a
reflection of that. This is
Advent, it is not Christmas. Call me a ‘Debby Downer’, I’ve been called worse
but this is tone for the four weeks before the Christ event in Bethlehem that
we will celebrate. So what must we
do to prepare?
Lukan Context
Jesus knew nothing of Advent. He didn’t know about the sweet story
that we tell every Christmas Eve - about the inn and the lowing cattle and the
shepherd’s keeping watch or even the star that lead the Magi to the
stable. All he knew was what he
saw and what he saw was political oppression, an occupied country, torture and
crucifixion. He saw people begging
in the streets and people with leprosy and other such diseases who were cast
aside as untouchables. This was
his reality.
Today’s reading from the Gospel is not
a sentimental musical passage in a lovely opera. It’s harsh.
It’s scary. It’s not comforting at all like Jeremiah’s words. It’s a vision of apocalypse and that’s
always disconcerting when spoken by someone with influence, like Jesus!
In fact, you might wonder, what in the
world is this text doing here, when we are patiently waiting for the birth of
our sweet little Jesus? What you
need to know about this passage, and to put it in context is that Christ’s
birth, the coming of the Messiah is not an isolated event but it is part of God’s
salvific work that is ongoing, that it is God’s saving grace of humankind. From the flood and the rainbow to Moses
leading the Israelites out of Egypt, to Jeremiah bringing the people out of
exile, God saves. Here now the
words of Jesus as recorded by Luke in the 21st Chapter……
The Coming of the Son of Man
25 ‘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. 26People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon
the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27Then they will see “the
Son of Man coming in a cloud” with power and great glory. 28Now when these
things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption
is drawing near.’
The Lesson of the Fig Tree
29Then he told them a parable: ‘Look at the fig tree and all the
trees; 30as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that
summer is already near. 31So also, when you see these things taking place, you
know that the kingdom of God is near. 32Truly I tell you, this generation will
not pass away until all things have taken place. 33Heaven and earth will pass
away, but my words will not pass away.
Exhortation to Watch
34 ‘Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with
dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not
catch you unexpectedly, 35like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on
the face of the whole earth. 36Be 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.’
Mini-Exegesis
Some good news, eh?
Those are some words to begin our Advent time of waiting and
preparation, right? But they show us the tension that we sit in. We sit in the tension of ‘now’ and ‘not yet’. Jesus knew what he saw, and what he saw wasn’t good. He knows that what we have here on
earth is nothing in comparison to what God has in store for us in the
future. There eventually WILL be a
time when the kingdom will be restored to righteousness, right living and there
will be justice and equality for each and every person…everyone, it’s just not
now, but it will come. And that’s
Advent. It is the tension of
living in the reality of our times knowing the future will be better. The now and not yet.
In their book, “The
First Christmas”, John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg state: “The Christmas
stories are not about spectacular series of miraculous events that happened in
the past that we are to believe in for the sake of going to heaven. Rather, they are about God’s passion,
God’s dream for a transformed world.”
They are yet another beginning in God’s ongoing work revealing God’s
salvation. Christ’s birth, another
beginning. God tries over and over
again to save us. It’s God’s story
of redemption.
God’s dream for a transformed world just hasn’t happened yet and
this is what Jesus was trying to say back then, and the message that we must
hear for today. God’s dream is
still alive thank goodness, God hasn’t given up on us that this world and our
lives will be transformed into something much better all when the figs begin to
blossom. The tension of Advent is
that we wait for Christmas - that’s the yearly short term wait. But we also wait in expectation for a
much greater gift through the coming of God’s effable kingdom and that’s the
long term wait that we carefully balance.
Waitin’ Around
And how are we to wait?
How do we sit patiently and watch and wait for the fig blossoms to
appear? How do we stay alert and
watch? We do this by giving prayerful
attention to the people around us and our daily activities. We do this by living vitally in the
here and now, missing not one opportunity to lift another person up or to
repair the world, tikkum olam in
Hebrew, in the many ways in which it needs repair. We remain alert at all times so that we can live in the
present knowing that the best is yet to come.
Christmas will be here before you know it. Don’t rush it, don’t miss those
abundant opportunities of growth and love that will appear between now and
then, the now and not yet. May the
love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit be with you today.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment