The Coming King!

This morning we light the first candle of Advent. The season of light begins with the lighting of a single candle against the deep darkness. Nine years of war, bad economic times, melting ice caps, dark clouds of anxiety and doubt make it hard to see your hand in front of your face. And here’s another strange thing...the readings for this first Sunday of Advent, this first Sunday of the Christian Church’s year begin with news of apocalypse...signs in the heavens, raging seas, troubled nations, fearful people. Will one candle be enough?
The Word of God tells us that we live between two advents...two arrivals of our Lord. From this safe distance, we much prefer the first visitation...the one with shepherds keeping watch over the flock by night, a baby in the manger, shimmering lights in the sky, and angels crying “For unto you in the City of David a Savior has been born!”
Our scriptures today point to that other Advent…that great Day of our Lord. Jesus said, “Don’t let that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth…pray that you may have the strength to escape the trials and stand before the Son of Man.” What are we to do with apocalyptic warnings from Jesus like we have before us this morning? Now that we’re nearly two thousand years past the first advent of our Lord, should we continue to expect his imminent return? Wouldn’t you say that Jesus is running a little late?
I don’t like to be late. Marcia doesn’t mind being a few minutes late, fashionably late, if the occasion is not terribly vital. We have friends who do well to arrive on the day of our appointed meeting. We have Liberian friends who simply say “When you see me, I’m there.” Here we speak of Hopwood time. Time moves at a different pace inside the walls of our church. Numbers posted in bulletins don’t always carry the same weight as they do in the outside world.
When someone is late, we are tempted to get antsy, nervous. We pace, check our watches, listen for their car to arrive—we’re tempted to call, we mutter under your breath. Eventually we might even become complacent. We quit counting on them being there at the appointed time. We quit looking for them; we go about our business.
Does God run late? Is God at all interested in our calendar and schedule? The Gospel of Luke was written to people waiting for God to step into human history and wrap things up with bold moves of destruction and judgment, re-creation and salvation for God’s waiting people. To Luke’s readers, it seemed that God was running late. Some asked embarrassing questions about whether Jesus was in fact going to return. People have been waiting ever since. Remember Y2K fever? Apocaplyptic fever burned hot in 1999. People asked: “Is the Lord’s coming near?” as they stocked up on food, water, and weapons. Inquiring minds still want to know: Where is Jesus? We still see the occasional bumpersticker: In case of rapture this car will be unoccupied?
When I was a kid, we all read Hal Lindsey’s 1970 book The Late Great Planet Earth, which whipped up expectation for the quick return of the Lord. But the end was delayed. These days many read Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ “Left Behind” books. These authors were probably consoled at Jesus’ delay by millions of dollars they made on book sales! The latest craze says the world will end in 2012! The Mayan calendar ends in three years! If I’m not mistaken, for the Mayans, the calendar ended some time ago!
End-of-the-world “numerical nuttiness,” goes back to ancient times. The Romans were obsessed with the number twelve, since twelve eagles had revealed to Romulus the date of Rome’s downfall. Every time the calendar came up twelve, folks got nervous. The Jews were fascinated with end time speculation as well. Read Daniel and Ezekiel, or find even wilder stuff in some of the apocryphal books.
Christians have long been fascinated with filling in the blanks that Jesus told us even he couldn’t fill in. The Thessalonians were the first Christians we know of to quit their jobs, hang out on the beach and wait for the Lord to come back. Paul wrote, “If they don’t work, don’t let them eat!” Many Church fathers predicted a quick return of Christ. Montanus said it would happen in the second century, in Turkey. Sextus Julius Africanus wrote around 220 AD that Christ would return by 500 AD. Others set dates based on various calendars, signs in the sky like Halley’s Comet, interpretations of prophecy from scripture. Believers fixated on zeros, and when the big numbers came up, millennial fever broke out. 999 was a wild year. People gave away their possessions, let their fields go fallow, packed the cathedrals. Pilgrims wore their knees raw crawling to holy sites. People held their breath on the evening of December 31. January 1 dawned and life went on.
Christopher Columbus set the apocalyptic fires burning anew. He saw his voyages as part of a divine plan to establish a millennial paradise. “God made me the messenger of the new heaven and the new Earth of which he spoke in the Apocalypse of St. John," Columbus wrote in his journal, "and he showed me the spot where to find it." Puritans in colonial America thought their New England settlements were outposts of the kingdom through which Christ would establish his rule.
The book of Revelation has been reinterpreted for each new generation. 66% of all Americans believe that Jesus will come again to earth in bodily form. The modern State of Israel has energized last-days enthusiasts of the twentieth century, and triggered the countdown to Armageddon in many people’s minds. Satanic antichrists once identified with Emperors, popes, and bishops, have variously been linked with world leaders like Adolph Hitler, Henry Kissinger, Pope John Paul III, Jimmy Carter, Mikail Gorbachev, Saddam Hussein, and now Barack Obama. People still read Revelation and see attack helicopters, ATM machines, and computer bar codes. When the year 2000 and computer bug problems were added to the mix, conspiracy theorists hit critical mass.
What sense are we to make of all this? The church has always had to live with the tension of waiting on a long-expected Master. We are a waiting church. As I see it, when we obsess around the question of WHEN?, we get off track. “When will kingdom come?”...may not be the primary question. It assumes that the kingdom is all in the future. It assumes Jesus is not present with us now. Perhaps we should begin by asking the question WHERE? Where can the Kingdom be found? Luke 17 tells us: Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed (by close scrutiny); nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.’ Jesus said the kingdom is already growing right here among us…between us…through us. Jesus didn’t say that the Kingdom of God is within you individually...he said it is alive and growing in your midst. If we are Jesus’ people, doing the work of our Lord, in communion with the King, busy with whatever he’s got for us to do, we don’t need to worry that we will miss out on anything he has for us.
What are signs that this is a kingdom community?
* This is a place where sin is forgiven. You won’t find perfect people here. Here folks have a deep legacy of crippling sin…but here we have found healing, forgiveness and a future.
*This congregation consistently breaks cultural barriers…we send people to the four winds to serve Christ…people from all over this earth find a home among us. Here in this outpost of the Kingdom we surmount barriers of ethnicity, gender, economic class, education. That is a sure sign that the kingdom is growing among us.
*Here we shelter the needy, the weak, the vulnerable. Last week our classrooms were full, sheltering seventeen people who have no home to call their own. They ate with us, they slept under our roof. We got to know them…their hurts, their needs, their hopes. At the end of the week, they were heard to say that they wished they could just stay here with us. That is the sound of the kingdom growing right here, among us.
*Here Christ’s love creates family. If you were here on Thursday, you saw 90 people gather as one family sharing a Thanksgiving Feast. We ate, we sang, we prayed, we visited, we hugged long lost family members who came home, we met new family members who were here for the first time. Everyone was welcome; no one was excluded. It smelled like the Kingdom on Thursday…OK, it smelled like pumpkin pie, like turkey and stuffing…but also like the love and joy of the kingdom.
Where is the Kingdom? It’s growing right here among us. Each week we pray a prayer of the kingdom…we pray “Your kingdom come…Your will be done…just as things are laid out in heaven, let that reality, that order, that ethos become active right here on earth…among us….now. Sure we’re waiting for sin and death to be destroyed. Sure we’re waiting to see Jesus with our own eyes. But Kingdom life has already started here.
Still, we can’t help but ask “When will the King show up to take his throne? When will the Kingdom come in all its fullness? When will the sky tear open with angels and light, and the Son of God be crowned as King of all?” The words of Jesus still echo a promise and a warning: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass awaystand up, lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.
We live in the Kingdom, but we’re not home yet. As real as this world seems, as solid as it feels, does your spirit not tell you that this life is passing away? So be careful—don’t lean over so far into the things this world that you fall in. Don’t tread so far into the quicksand of this age that you are sucked in. Don’t become ensnared by the desires of this world. Don’t let the anxieties of this life fill your waking thoughts. Don’t let the consuming demon of materialism tie you so tightly to this world that you long for no other. Don’t let that day, that great day surprise you. These words of Jesus remind us, on this first day of the Church’s new calendar, that this could be the year when the Son of Man comes on the clouds with great glory. Jesus didn’t see history as a never-ending cycle but as a line with a beginning and an end.
We live like people who expect to be around forever. Many have ceased to watch the eastern sky. Many no longer pray “Maranatha—come quickly, Lord Jesus.” Many would frankly be disappointed to see all of this come to an end. We’ve settled in—we’ve bought long term CD’s, built houses and lands, gotten comfortable. We’ve given our place of watchfulness over to conspiracy nuts and book peddlers. But make no mistake—Jesus said there will come a time when the King will appear in all His glory. There will be a reckoning. There will be judgment. The old will be rent apart…all things will become new, and just, and full of life.
Will Willimon attended a funeral in rural Georgia with his wife. The service was held a small, hot, crowded, country church. They wheeled the coffin in and the preacher began to shout, fume, and flailed his arms. "It’s too late for Joe," he screamed. "He might have wanted to do this or that in life, but it’s too late for him now. He’s dead. It’s all over for him. He might have wanted to straighten his life out, but he can’t now. It’s over. But it ain’t too late for you! People drop dead every day. So why wait? Now is the day for decision. Now is the time to make your life count for something. Give your life to Jesus!"
Willimon was aghast. On his way home, he said to his wife, “I’ve never heard anything so manipulative—so cheap and inappropriate. I would never preach a sermon like that."
“You’ve got that right,” said his wife. It was tacky, manipulative, and callous. "Of course," she added, "the worst part of all is that it was true."
We don’t know what this new year will bring. Perhaps this will be the year when the Lord comes to lead us from our outpost of the Kingdom to our true home. Or perhaps the year will bring a more personal apocalypse. Perhaps this year won’t bring the end for us all—but it will surely be the end for some. It’s time to get going with what God is doing. Are there habits, attitudes, sins, that you need to leave behind? Are there practices, attitudes, people you need to make a part of the fabric of your life in the kingdom right now? The Spirit of Jesus is already among us and his kingdom is taking shape in our midst. And his promise is sure. Christ is coming for his waiting church, his expectant people, his prepared servants. Maranatha. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.
I THess: May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all…And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus...