SIGNS OF THE TIMES - Mark 13:24-37
The Rev. Dr. Richard W. Reifsnyder
1st Presbyterian Church
Winchester, VA
November 30, 2014 – 1st Sunday in Advent
Watch! Be alert! For you don't know when the time is coming.
Mark 13:33
Thanksgiving is over and the signs of the times are all around us—maybe you were among the crowds
lining up for bargains on Black Friday, which of course, began on Thursday night before the pumpkin pie
even had a chance to digest. I noted that Santa made his first appearance in the Winchester Star last week. We
received our first card 5 days ago. And actually I spotted a Christmas display in a store the day after
Halloween.
Signs of the season all around, but when we come into church during Advent, we are asked to look for
signs of a different kind: Today's reading talks of strange celestial sightings, a darkening sun, stars falling from
the sky, the Son of man coming in "clouds with great power and glory." It is not that we're trying to be
Scrooge, dampening our early efforts at season merrymaking. I confess I love all the trappings of Christmas—
buying the crinkly wrapping paper, receiving cards from folks I have heard from in a year or seen in a decade,
hanging the tree with old ornaments which evoke memories of special people long gone, hearing Eartha Kitt
sing "Santa baby" on the radio, enjoying too many Christmas cookies. I love the preparations of the season.
But Advent encourages us to see other things, too, spiritual things, things that are easy to miss.
The text for the 1st Sunday in Advent reminds us that we live in between the times—between the 1st
Advent, when Jesus came into the world, hidden, quietly, in the form of a baby working his way into our
hearts through faith—and the 2nd Advent, when there will be no mistaking his arriving again, coming in clouds
with great power and glory. This Apocalyptic literature—Mark 13 is often called the "little Apocalypse"—the
big apocalypse is the book of Revelation—this literature seems strange to us, even as it fascinates us and
draws us into its world. .
The appeal a few years of the apocalyptically themed "Left Behind" series, with its
particular pessimistic read on human history, did not surprise me, given a certain yearning we have that God
break in dramatically, decisively, to set this confused world of ours straight. But still only in America, would
such a theology, suggesting the end times are near at hand, be promoted with such commercial trappings as
"left behind" tee-shirts, mugs, and board games. Jesus is about to come again, but let me make a few bucks on
it in the meantime.
Whatever else is going on, the central thrust of Mark 13 is promise. It is easy to miss given the
somewhat dire warnings about the future coming of the Son. Yet, in speaking to his disciples, Jesus message
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in this apocalyptic section is one of promise, that when he comes he "will gather his elect form the four winds,
from the end of the earth to the end of the sky." Everything else must be seen in light of this promise.
Moreover, the passage stresses the unexpectedness of the events Jesus talks about. No one knows the
day or the hour, not even the angels, not even himself, Jesus says. No one except the Father. There is
uncertainty here, Jesus stresses, and we would add that much of life works that way. We are regularly caught
off guard—by the freak stumble on the stairs which leaves us incapacitated for several months, by the loss of a
job that throw us in financial chaos, by the hurricane which floods our home, by the child who decides she'd
rather be a pastry chef after you've invested a small fortune helping her get an engineering degree, by the
miscarriage which leaves you devastated. Sometimes the surprises, the unexpected events, are good, but often
they leave us reeling.
We work hard to try to guard ourselves from this uncertainty. I read of how the Chinese, because they
have suffered some of the most devastating earthquakes—several causing more than 200,000 death, in several
quakes in the last quarter century—have invested great resources in learning how to predict them—including
looking for clues in animal behavior as a potential predictor.
We know life is unpredictable, precarious, uncertain, and often take great measures to try to guard
against that. Some of it is sheer prudence, saving for a rainy day, securing health insurance, getting ourselves
up to speed in technology that is affecting our workplace. But sometimes we guard ourselves by digging in
our heels as things change around us, holding back in relationships which might disappoint us, avoiding any
contact with those in pain, lest it remind us our own vulnerability.
When a renowned British publishing firm commissioned a comprehensive multi-volume history of the
church a generation ago, it labeled its volume on the 20th century as "the age of anxiety." The author
suggested that a diffuse uneasiness, a pervasive fear, a restless anxiousness permeates the atmosphere of an
increasingly secularized world. Twenty four hour news cycles seem to bombard us with the message, "be
afraid, be very afraid." Chicken Little is right, the flood is coming, the world, the family, the church you
thought you could count on never to change, is changing around you.
The word here, during Advent, is different. Not that there is not ample reason for anxiety—in a time
of terrorism, in an uncertain economy, in a period of extreme political polarization and stalemate, in a narrative
of murder and suicide and gang rape at a distinguished educational institution like UVA, there is ample reason
for anxiety. Precisely because of that, the word of hope offered during this season is a word of reassurance.
Don't be afraid. When the angel comes to Mary with the news her world is to be rocked with the birth of a
baby, what are his first words? "Do not be afraid." When the angels come to the shepherds in the field on
Christmas night, what are the first words spoken? "Fear not." To his disciples uncertain what the future would
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bring as he approaches his death, Jesus says "heaven and earth may pass away, but my words will never pass
away." Don't let fear rule your attitude toward life.
The promises of God do not insulate us from an uncertain future, but they reassure we do not face that
future alone. Poet Christopher Winans, in My Bright Abyss. Meditation of a Modern Believer, an eloquent
memoir recounting his spiritual awakening in the face of a 7 year bout with cancer, asks a profound question:
"what is the difference between a cry of pain that is also a cry of praise and a cry of pain that is pure despair.
Faith? The cry of faith, even if it is a cry against God, moves toward God, has meaning in God, as in the cries
of Job….To make such a cry…establishes us in relation to something beyond ourselves." (p.53)
Jesus tells a parable in this little apocalypse which suggests an attitude for Advent, and for all time
really: Stay awake, watch, for just as the servants don't know when the master will return from his trip, so we
don't know the timetable of God. It is a useless exercise to try. So stay attentive, watchful, expectant at all
times.
It is not easy task to stay alert to the present. As hard as we try, we tend to slip into what happened
yesterday or what we need for next week or next year. When get focused on the future, we can imagine all the
good things we might do, how I'm going to pray, whom I'm going to visit, what successes I will experience. In
the meantime, the vision of the future gets me off the hook today. I can even believe my splendid intentions
make me a better person today.
But we can just as easily slide into the past, and think nostalgically about how it used to be, and get to
grumbling that it's not like I remember it. And soon all the joy of the present is gone, and we have a hard time
giving anyone or anything a chance to be new.
Jesus says that the challenge of living between two Advents, stretched between the now and the not
yet, is learning to stay awake, to live in the present, to see what God is doing in this moment. The parable
Jesus tells instructs us to watch, to wait, while at the same time it tells us we have jobs to do while we wait for
the master to return. "Keep your trimmed and burning," the choir will sing, "children, don't get weary."
This watchfulness is not passiveness; this watchfulness is attentiveness, in full confidence that come
hell or high water, which David Lose suggests is a very apt phase to capture much of this chapter, Jesus will be
at our side, granting us courage to face life's adversities, and remaining with us, even in death, as he draws us
into new life.
In colonial New England, a meeting of the magistrates was halted by a sudden eclipse. In the absence
of scientific understanding of such celestial phenomenon, some panicked, and fearing that it was a sign of
God's displeasure, begged for adjournment. But one said, "My Speaker, if it is not the end of the world and we
adjourn, we shall appear to be fools. If it is the end of the world, I should choose to be found doing my duty. I
move, sir, that candles be brought and we continue."
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Watch, stay alert, attentive to serving Christ and neighbor, providing comfort for those who are
hurting, singing in the choir, being the best parents you can be, serving in the Jubilee kitchen, working at your
calling honestly and effectively, teaching Sunday School, driving your neighbor to the doctors, asking
forgiveness when you mess up. Watch, stay alert, be attentive to looking for signs of God in ordinary,
everyday experiences, in ordinary, everyday relationships in church and outside---until that time, we know not
the day, when he comes again, or comes for us.
THANKS BE TO GOD WHO GIVES US THIS VICTORY THROUGH JESUS CHRIST!
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