The Coming of Christ

Isaiah 2:1-5

The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!

Matthew 24:36-44

“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Here we are this beautiful morning, gathered together as people whose stomachs are a bit bigger due to Thanksgiving and Iron Bowl food and Advent breakfast food, as thankful people who have spent the last few days surrounded by family and friends and loved ones, as people who love the beauty of this sanctuary decorated so tenderly for the Advent and Christmas season, as people ready to hear the stories and sing the carols of our Christ coming into the world as a child bundled up in the warmth of swaddled clothes. But we are greeted instead with these words from Matthew’s gospel, strange upon their first hearing, these words of Biblical apocalyptic literature where we are not reminded of a baby being born into a stable in Bethlehem, but instead given the image of a grown Christ coming back into the world to judge, to take, to steal, to break in.

We are given the images of Christ’s second coming into the world, a Christ who is coming back to “judge the quick and the dead,” as we will soon remember and proclaim again as we recite the Apostles’ Creed together. These images of Christ are not quiet and peaceful as we commonly expect and hope our Advent images to be, but they are instead harsh and scary, hard for us to hear and understand. Jesus says that the promised day of the Lord, the cataclysmic ending of the old world and the beginning of a new one, will steal in among and through us like a kidnapper in the day and a thief by night. Jesus begins these images by sharing an Old Testament reference to Noah’s story, not just the part of the story we like to talk about with cute animals coming in two by two, the story that ends with a covenant rainbow, but a story of death where a flood comes in to wash away the lives of people who are celebrating, going about their everyday existence, but people who are not taking care of each other or their world. Noah and his family are spared, but God comes in in the midst of the rain and floods and steals everyone else away like a thief, without even giving them an opportunity to repent and seek forgiveness. And then we hear about two people going about their lives and working hard in a field; about two women grinding their meal together. Jesus says that God will come in and take one life away, leaving the other worker wondering what in the world happened to her friend, wondering why she is the one left standing. Finally, Jesus talks about God breaking into a home into the middle of the night, prompting us to think about our own homes, our own safe havens, where most of us are sleeping peacefully and not expecting anything bad to happen—but like a thief, Christ breaks in and takes livelihoods away, our peace away, leaving us scared and insecure and feeling violated as our most personal space has been invaded.

“Keep awake,” Jesus warns, for none of us knows on what day or in what hour our Lord will be coming. We must stay awake and always be ready for the Son of God will always come in an unexpected way, in a way we could never imagine, at an unexpected hour we could never set our alarms on our phones for. We are not given the image here of God as a prodigal parent running to welcome us home, not given the image of Jesus opening his arms wide to welcome the little children and bless them. We are not given the image of Jesus eating at the table with a sinner or healing a person who has been bleeding for years with no relief, and we are not given the image of a God who lovingly and painstakingly creates the world. Matthew has Jesus saying that, like it or not, we should be prepared to meet a kidnapping, thieving God, a God who has little regard for the feelings or fears of the ones left behind. No doubt about it—this is a shocking and disturbing call for us to be ready, to be watchful, to be alert for Jesus’ return and the inbreaking of the kingdom.

Jesus’ words and images here are strange for us to hear, shocking to hear, but perhaps they need to be that way in this season. During these days, we so often find ourselves so busy running around and scurrying, making sure our children are ready for their Christmas plays, making sure that we have the perfect gifts for the people in our lives, making sure our tables and hearths and homes are decorated perfectly. We are so busy, too busy, that we so often get lost in all of the hurrying and we forget, or ignore even, who we are to be and who we are to be about—the Christ child who is being born into our world again. Perhaps we need these words and images Matthew gives us to shock us out of the normalness of our routines and the busyness of what we think we need to be ready for, to remind us that the only thing we truly need to ready for is Christ’s birth in the Bethlehem stable.

You know, it can be dangerous thing for two preachers to be in the same house for several days over Thanksgiving because we share our words and ideas and sermons, driving everyone else around us nuts—if we try hard enough we can even make someone else roll their eyes and find an excuse to get our of the house like my mom is so tempted to do. As we were sharing ideas this week, my dad shared one of his sermons on this passage with me. I love one of the things he says:

Advent is…a time of staying alert for something that has yet to happen, something totally new and different, something that will only happen in the fullness of God’s time. It will be a time like no other, and the images used to describe it are not [truly] troublesome at all. On the contrary, they are full of hope for something that threatens like a storm brewing on the horizon but that somehow brings peace, justice, and security to this world of war, earthquakes, famine, and disease.

I love how my dad says that—that the return of Christ has to be clothed in shocking words and images because we need shocked in order to truly open our eyes, awake to what is happening in our world. Look around us—in our world there is a long raging war in Syria where the last hospital is being bombed and nurses are being forced to make the decision whether to take babies off of breathing machines to search for cover or leave them where they are, breathing until they get bombed, still uncovered; in our world, there are families just 3 hours away from us who are mourning the loss of their babies in a horrific school bus accident; in our world, we are trying to understand the implications of our recent election and the words we have said to each other, the things we have done to each other; in our world, there are so many people who are mourning and lonely and sad, so many people suffering from depression, especially as we journey through this long holiday season. But in the midst of all of this chaos and confusion in this world, God promises a Son who will break into the darkness and chaos, a Son who will be born to us once again, who will come into our world to make things different, to make things new again.

Advent is a reminder that Christ comes into our world again, and this Advent season teems with the promise that the world will be renewed and made whole again. As the prophet Isaiah shares with us: “In the days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and the nations shall stream to it.” Advent will dawn and Christ will come and the people “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Christ will return and we will walk and live and love in his light. Maybe we need shocking words to shock us out of our world and to shock us into a world where Christ breaks in with no notice so that we can revel in his life and in his light, revel in the new world he is creating for us and calling us to. We need to stay awake, to be ready, to be hopeful, to be watchful.

During each Advent season, I turn to the beautiful poetry of the writer Ann Weems during my devotional time. Her very first devotional poemi is called “The Coming of God.” Let us listen to her words:

            Our God is the one who comes to us in a burning bush, in an angel’s song, in a newborn child.

            Our God is the One who cannot be found locked in the church, not even in the sanctuary.

            Our God will be where God will be with no constraints, no predictability.

            Our God lives where our God lives, and destruction has no power and even death cannot stop the living.

            Our God will be born where God will be born, but there is no place to look for the One who comes to us.

            When God is ready God will come even to a godforsaken place like a stable in Bethlehem.

            Watch…for you know not when God comes.

            Watch, that you might be found whenever, wherever God comes.

Amen. Advent is a reminder that we don’t need to know when Christ will come into our world again, but that we need watch. Advent is a reminder that we are called to revel in the promise that Christ will come again to change the world and make all things new. Let that be our hope. Let that be our light. Thanks be to God. Amen.