Text: Mark 13:24-37
When I woke up on Thursday morning it didn’t really feel
like thanksgiving morning. I have so much going through my head it was hard for
me to focus on the day. When I was a kid I would wake up to the smell of bread
in the house – bread my mom left all over the counters the night before to
stale overnight to be used for stuffing the next morning. I would wake up to
this familiar Thanksgiving morning smell and head into the front room where my
sister and I would watch the Thanksgiving day parade. My mom would cook and
yell for us to get dressed before all her brothers and sisters and their
spouses and their kids and my grandparents come over. By the time everyone
filled our house and the feast was ready we had a table set for 20 people.
After dinner we would have pie and watch football or play board games and just
talk and spend time together until it got too late and families would start the
drive back to their homes. When I was a kid Thanksgiving was an event and I
loved the day.
But this year it was so different for me. There is no bread
drying on the counter, instead we use bread crumbs from a bag. There is no
parade on the TV, my kids are too small to watch it and Isaac actually doesn’t
enjoy it. The family has grown too big to celebrate together and my aunts and
uncles each have their own celebrations so dinner is now my family: my parents,
nephews and my sisters. My husband does all the cooking and he doesn’t cook
things the way my taste buds remember the food tasting. After dinner we have
pie and we sit around looking at the sale papers talking about Black Friday
deals. Because, you know, just moments before when we sat around the table we
said grace and gave thanks for all we are blessed with and that we are thankful
for all we have – but after dinner we have to sit around and talk about what we
are missing and what we don’t have.
I’m sure it really wasn’t the way I describe – but on
Thursday I just wasn’t in the mood for it. The holiday isn’t how I remember it,
it’s not the way my memory expects it to be and it disappointed me. I had a
hard week, an emotional week, and I was having a hard time mustering up the
holiday joy for the day. The night before I wrote out a rough draft of the
resolution to be voted on next Sunday and I went out for drinks with a friend
going through a divorce. Sad, depressing, and I am finding it is hard for me to
get out of the funk and really step into the holiday cheer.
Then, I read the texts for the day. We are in advent now,
the time we wait for the coming of Jesus. The time we sing Oh Come Oh Come
Emmanuel. We prepare our hearts and minds for our savior, something life
changing and exciting. We wait with anticipation for the birth of Christ – an
exciting time, a joyous time, a time to sing and rejoice. But, these texts
don’t really give off that feeling. Instead, they feel much like I did on
Thursday morning – full of lament.
The people in Isaiah are begging to see God’s face. They
feel so distant from God and they are desperate sounding. In their lament they
place the blame on God. They say that God turned away from them and because of
that they transgressed and sinned. At this point in Isaiah the people are tired
and they just want things to go back to the way they once were. They want the
temple restored and they want to feel God’s presence again. They say, “O Lord,
that you would tear open the heavens and come down”, they just want to see a
glimmer of hope – a taste of the light of God in their midst because they
really do feel abandoned and alone.
Then the gospel isn’t much better. There is no feel of “Joy
to the World” which we sing in Advent. Here again, we see lament and confusion.
Jesus descripes how the disciples are feeling – how I felt on Thursday, and I’m
sure how many of you are feeling as we head toward the Special Congregational
Meeting next week. Jesus says, “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not
give it’s light”. Jesus acknowledge that things are rough, things are not fair.
Jesus tells the disciples that although the temple will one day be destroyed, although it seems
the sun is dark and the moon is not giving light, to not fear because God is
still with us. God is forever near us, even amongst the hardship. And, that is
exactly what Jesus is trying to get his disciples to understand. That, even if
our expectations are not met – even if Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t exactly what
I hoped for, even if the temple doesn’t last forever and is destroyed, even if
Jesus dies on the cross, even if the congregation votes in favor of the
resolution next Sunday, even if we find it hard to feel God’s presence… Jesus
reminds us that that whisper of light is coming. The people in Isaiah were
begging for that light to come in through a tear in the heavens. Christians are
longing for that light as we worship through the Advent season waiting for the
birth of Christ. We are longing for that light as we pray this week to prepare
for the meeting next Sunday.
These texts, although full of lament, are also full of hope.
They remind us that there is still more, that God is still present. Know it,
feel it. God is with us, even in our lament. Our community will hold us
together until we are able to see the light. Our church community here will be
there for us, to hear our frustrations our heartache, our sadness. Our
neighboring community will be with us to help us see God at work all over. We
will visit other congregations and we will see God working through people, we
will see the Holy Spirit pushing places so they can share the light of Christ
with others. We will be held in prayer and people will come to celebrate new
life with us. There is light all around us – but sometimes the days are too
short and the darkness last too long for us to see it.
The end of an era does not mean the end of God’s promises.
We can see that in Isaiah, the destruction of the temple did not stop God or
God’s plan. We see that in Mark, Jesus knows that he must die so that others
can live. In fact we see that over and over again in the bible. God takes
people and gives them tasks. God does amazing ministry through so many – but
then God also creates a time for the ministry to be passed on. Moses eventually
died and Joshua was raised up to continue the ministry. Abraham died and passed
the blessing on to Isaac. Elisha died and his ministry continued on. Paul’s
ministry continued on through Cornealious and the Gentiles. We have
expectations, that a ministry will last forever, that things will not change,
that what was once beautiful will always remain so. We place these unrealistic
expectations of God and when they are not met we lament – we feel God’s
presence is distant. But, that is far from the case.
God is ever present, God is always moving and just wants us
to move along in this marvelous kingdom building plan of God’s. Jesus reminds
us to keep awake – to always be on the look out for the next turn, the next
showing of God’s faithfulness to us, of where God is moving in our lives, where
the light is shining through the darkness.
This is the very reason Jesus comes as a babe in Bethlehem,
the very reason God comes in the Holy Spirit to us day after day after day, the
very reason God comes again to make all things new is so the shadows do not
dominate our lives, but we might live in hope in the midst of the shadows – in
the midst of our lament.
We watch for the light this Advent season. We watch knowing
all our responsibilities are taken care of in anticipation of Jesus coming. We
watch obeying and serving, stewarding and honoring. We watch excited and ready
to burst out the door. We watch up on tippy toes looking out the window of the
future – even though we don’t know exactly what that will look like and it
scares it, it makes us sad about our present. We do this because we shout:
Jesus has come, is coming, and will come again. We know that reality to be
true. We may not always recognize Him or understand His coming, but we know it
to be promised and true. So we wait and we watch and we invest our hope in Him!
When we light the candles of the Advent season, we take
seriously the message of Mark 13, and we anticipate, watching and waiting,
waiting and watching. We anticipate His coming in hope. This is the
significance of Advent and Christmas. Jesus is coming. He has come, is coming,
and will come again. And in His coming, may hope be reborn in us today.
Some wording borrowed from:
A sermon by Derrik Acre, "Hope in the Shadows"
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