Living Between the Now and Not Yet

First Sunday of Advent

Matthew 24:36-44   Isaiah 2:1-5                     Rev. Todd B. Freeman

Bethany Presbyterian Church, Dallas                               November 28, 2004

         It is important to remind ourselves of what this Season of Advent is all about. So here’s a bit of history. The early church saw that humankind had waited a long time for the coming of the Savior that was promised during the Old Testament times of the Hebrew prophets. They believed that Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish rabbi, teacher, and prophet, fulfilled these old prophesies. Therefore, the celebration of Advent, the four Sundays before Christmas, was to be associated with the experience of waiting.

The Season of Advent (a word that means ‘coming’) was directed specifically toward the preparation of Christians for the celebration of the coming of the Lord at Christmas. It is much the same way as the season of Lent prepares Christians for the events of Holy Week and Easter.

         Throughout history, the Church has assigned a twofold message to Advent. As mentioned, it is a season that prepares Christians for the celebration of the remembering of Christ’s first coming, as an infant. It does so, however, by focusing the attention of the believer on the need to direct the mind and the heart to await Christ’s second coming at the end of time. This is a theme that runs throughout the Bible. Theologians call it eschatology - the study of the end times, as described in ancient Hebrew and Christian literature. I agree with a majority of modern biblical scholars that believe that this language is to be interpreted figuratively and metaphorically, not literally. The currently popular Left Behind book series is fiction and fantasy loosely based on a literal approach to the Second Coming of Christ.

         The scripture passages assigned by the lectionary for the four Sundays of Advent are meant to remind the believing individual and community of faith that we are living in an in-between time: the time between Jesus’ first coming and Christ’s final return. Or, as many theologians prefer to state it: Advent celebrates the tension between the now and the not yet. The Christ-event extends across these two “comings.”

         As an aside, let me remind those of you who are getting a bit uncomfortable about all this “second coming” talk, I’m referring to church tradition. After all, it helps to remind ourselves of our traditional roots before we can hope to reclaim much of the ancient language and find how God’s Spirit is guiding us now to new understandings of ancient concepts.

         The readings that we just heard for this first Sunday of Advent focus almost exclusively upon the theme of the final appearance of the Messiah and Savior. Isaiah 2:1-5 speaks of the ideal time in the future when all hostilities will cease and all the nations will stream to the Temple of the Lord. If world peace and non-violence describe what it will be like at the ‘end of time,’ then we certainly don’t seem anywhere close to that.

         The great world powers, and especially the United States, continue to manufacture swords and spears - or their modern, more deadly equivalents. Unfortunately, fighting a war arouses more interest, budgetary considerations, and scientific research than the development of plowshares and pruning hooks - the implements that will till the soil and feed the hungry with the fruit of the earth.

         The word of the Lord, it seems, continues to fall upon deaf ears. We must recognize that our ‘now’ of retaliation, violence, division, prejudice, hatred, starvation, war, and dramatic distinctions between those who have and those who do not have is challenged as we prepare for the coming of the Lord. Advent is a time when we are called to look carefully at the ambiguities of our ‘now.’

         The New Testament epistle lesson, Romans 13:11-14, was written to a Christian community already living in the in-between-time, warning its church members that they must pay attention to the quality of their lives. They are reminded that the second coming of the Lord may be nearer now, with the passing of time, than it was at the time of their conversion to Christianity.

         The first Christians believed that the second coming of Christ was imminent, that it would come in their lifetime, and that it was, in fact, delayed for some reason. The fact that we are still waiting almost 2000 years later should cause us to rethink the literalness of this ancient belief.

         In the Gospel passage, Matthew 24:36-44, the same theme dominates: the need for Christians to live good lives, to be awake and ready for the unexpected coming of Christ. In Matthew’s version of Jesus’ discourse on the end of the world, Jesus insists that only God knows when “that day” will come. But that it will come is certain, according to the gospel writers. The gospel message, as a whole, informs us that we, as believers, are called to go on doing what we are best able to do in this world on a daily basis. It is the way we do these things that matter.

         Jesus teaches that there is a quality of life asked of us that transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. So as we begin the season of Advent, Jesus calls us to “Stay awake!” To heed this call is to live the time given to us between the two comings of Christ (however you choose to understand that) in a way that reflects the love of God already made known to us in the person of Jesus and to allow God to draw us more deeply into the mysterious future known only to God.

         So in the context of the Gospel of Matthew, living in this in-between-time means doing the deeds of compassion, forgiveness, non-violence and peace that characterize the people of God.

         I do want to read one paragraph, however, from a book entitled, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium, by Walter Wink. Concerning the end times, Wink writes:

Jesus understood judgment not as an end but as a beginning. The penitential river of fire was not to consume but purify, not annihilate but redeem (Luke 15:1-32, 18:9-14). Divine judgment is intended not to destroy but to awaken people to the devastating truth about their lives. Jesus seizes the apocalyptic vision of impending doom and hurls it into present time, into the present encounter with God’s unexpected and unaccountable forgiveness. Judgment no longer is the last crushing word on a failed life, but the first word on a new creation.  (pg. 163)

         Throughout church history, there have always been groups that were convinced that they knew when the world would end. So they would quit their jobs and wait with eager anticipation for Christ’s appearance. In Matthew’s understanding of the Christian faith, the second coming doesn’t cause us to quit the job of being the church in the world; rather, it calls us to take up our responsibilities with even more urgency.

         So, the important questions about Advent aren’t really about the second coming itself, but rather: how are we bringing the light of God’s truth and love and peace into this world’s darkness? How are you and I going to do that today and everyday? During the season of Advent think about how you live in this in-between time, between the now and not yet.

Amen.