Mark 13:24-37
I saw a t-shirt recently that said, “I miss precedented times.” I have to agree; this year, “unprecedented” has worn out its welcome. But here we are in the season of Advent – a season that tells us to expect unprecedented things. The sun and moon will go dark, stars will fall from the sky, the Son of Man will come in the clouds, and no one knows the day or the hour.
Every year it feels a little strange to begin the Advent season, because it’s a thing that most of the world doesn’t recognize. To most people, this is the Christmas season, or maybe the Thanksgiving leftovers season. It is the time of the year when the church is the most out of sync with the world around us, because we are waiting for Jesus – in a world that detests having to wait for anything. But also because it seems as though we are waiting for the end of the world.
It is complicated, and sort of mystifying. In Advent we are simultaneously waiting for Jesus to be born and waiting for him to return. We are waiting for the moment when the Kingdom of God is quietly ushered in, in a Bethlehem stable, and we are waiting for the time when the Kingdom is here in its fullness...the end times, as they are often called. Two completely separate and different times that we are waiting for at once.
And, in general, I would venture to say, we are fine with the first part but not so much with the second part. Jesus born in Bethlehem, 2000 years ago, baby in a manger – all good. But Jesus coming back, well, that makes us a little nervous. If Jesus coming back means all the things he describes in this passage, we’re not really sure we’re comfortable with that.
Although, some people are. Periodically, someone comes along announcing that the end of the world will take place on such and such date. That they have read the stars, calculated the numbers, interpreted the scriptures and … the world will end on May 21.
That’s what Harold Camping said. Do you remember that name? He had his five minutes of fame about a decade ago when he made some big, splashy predictions about the end of the world. May 21, 2011 would bring the beginning of end of the world according the Mr. Camping. May 21 would be the eve of destruction, after which we would see an onslaught of fire and brimstone, plagues and death. He had interpreted the clues in the scriptures, and he was quite confident.
May 21 came and went, and he offered a revision. He said, well, actually, the world experienced a spiritual death on May 21, but the physical destruction would occur a few months later – October 21.
I was working as a campus minister at that time. Some of the students I worked with were prone to anxiety and were somewhat unnerved by this prediction, which, for reasons beyond me, was getting a lot of play time in the media. So we decided the best thing to do was to face our fears head on. We planned an end-of-the-world party on October 20, 2011.
We had our end of the world playlist on the iPod: that old 60’s song, “Eve of Destruction;” Prince’s song, “1999,” that other doomsday that came and went; “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door;” “Time to Say Goodbye,” that pretty love song by Andrea Bocelli, that takes on a whole new meaning when you put it in this mix. We ate lots of junk food because, why not? If it’s the end of the world. And we talked.
What they told me was that while they knew Christians shouldn’t be afraid of the end, they really did feel some distress about it because all their stock was in tomorrow. As college students, they felt like everything they were doing was for some day down the road when they graduated. They were in the habit of preparing for some future here on earth – and if that future was not even going to happen, they would feel massively cheated.
Intellectually, they knew that Harold Camping didn’t really have any idea what he was talking about; no one knows when the last days will come. We talked about the scriptures, the stories Jesus tells his disciples where he says again and again: no one knows the day or time. No one knows, not even the Son of Man and the angels in heaven. So enough with the predictions, already! Yes, you have to do your homework assignment that’s due tomorrow, and you have to study for that scheduled quiz. The world’s not going to end tomorrow, right? That’s just silly, we know.
Although...it could.
It’s like a master who has gone on a journey and left his slaves in charge of the estate. They don’t know when he will return, but he will return. It could be any time of the day or night, so they simply have to watch and be ready. Be awake.
It’s like the wedding party waiting for the groom to arrive – they don’t know when he will get there but they need to be ready when he arrives – watch...stay awake for that time no one knows.
You know, Mark’s gospel was the earliest of the four gospels. It’s also the shortest, and it seems almost like it was written down in a hurry – to get it down on paper so the church would have a written account of things. It’s written simply, without a lot of theologizing or analysis. Just the facts. People often say that when you read Mark’s gospel you feel the urgency, the immediacy of it.
Particularly, reading this section of Mark’s gospel, which is sometimes called the “Little Apocalypse,” you hear that the important thing to know – is that Jesus is coming back. He’s going to come back. And, the people Mark was writing for were really yearning for Jesus’ return...because they missed him. They missed him.
It’s not about fear. It’s about longing and hope.
They were so full of yearning for his return, they were easily led astray by false prophets, those types that we still have among us even today, the Harold Campings, who would like to have us believe that they possess some secret knowledge, that allows them to interpret the signs that no one else can, not even the Son and the angels in heaven.
For most of us, it’s different. There isn’t the same feeling about his return as there was in the first century when they really truly expected that he was coming right back. It’s all so terribly remote to us now. But I want to tell you something: I would really love to know what it feels like to miss Jesus and long desperately for him to come back. To be waiting and hoping each day for his return.
All these years later, we’ve learned a different kind of waiting.
We wait in a way that acknowledges the belief that he will come again someday but in the meantime the focus of our life is elsewhere. We wait as a sort of an afterthought; an epilogue to our statement of faith – that Jesus will come again in glory, etc, etc. We wait in a manner that would fool anyone into thinking that we’re not waiting for anything at all.
But there is a better way.
The waiting we are invited into is something different. The waiting we are invited to practice is a hopeful expectation that because he came once, he will come again, and in the meantime he is as near as the next breath.
After all is said and done, the purpose of Advent is to channel our hopes and expectations in a direction that will serve God. Pay attention to the signs. Be awake to the suffering around you. Know that, in the midst of all kinds of false hopes, the Son of Man, the Christ, is our best hope – and the world very badly needs this hope.
In the interest of fairness, I want to tell you something more about Harold Camping. Early in 2012 he said in an interview that he had been wrong. No kidding, right? He also said that he realized now that his efforts to nail down the date of the second coming had been sinful. He said that he had turned his attention to the task of living more faithfully. Perhaps he had finally realized the most urgent meaning of these words of the gospel.
During this season of Advent, let us be awake to Jesus in our midst. Let us prepare the way for him to be born, a child of flesh and blood, just like us. Let us prepare for him to return at any time and let us prepare for the joy that will be ours at that moment. And let us prepare to receive him in our hearts at this moment...and at every moment. Be awake to the present moment, to every breath, because this is where Jesus is.
No matter what else you are expecting this season, make room in yourselves to expect this miracle of God’s love.
Be alert, watchful, stay awake to each moment, because Jesus is in it.
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