The Days Are Surely Coming…Right?

Jeremiah 33:14-16; Luke 21:27-28; 34-36

Advent 1

Luke 21:27-28; 34-36

²⁷ Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. ²⁸ Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

… ³⁴ “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, ³⁵ like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. ³⁶ Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Jeremiah 33:14-16

¹⁴ The days are surely coming, says the Lord , when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ¹⁵ In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ¹⁶ In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

The Sermon

What’s on your Christmas wish list?

Maybe there are a couple of little splurges, or maybe just some nice things you wouldn’t mind finding in your stocking. A Lamborghini, for example.

But maybe there are other kinds of things on your wish list, things Santa can’t bring, but you can still hope that somehow the New Year will.

Maybe the Christmas present you’re hoping for is to know that there’s somebody who cares or even notices whether you are sick or well.

Maybe you are asking for a little more forbearance—enough for you to give back to the people around you with their political opinions or their steady stream of unrequested social commentary.

Maybe you have on your list things like patience—for yourself, as well as the hope that others will be patient with you.

Maybe you’re hoping for a sense of belonging, or a reason to think you’re not as alone as you feel, or a new page to turn in the relationships that mean the most to you.

Maybe your hope is not just for you but for the whole world, that there will be peace in your life and in the far corners of the globe;

that there will be justice for those who are crushed under the will of despots and blind, heartless politics;

that maybe some time this year there will be no more pictures from Darfur because it’s all worked out; that the Middle East, and India and Pakistan, and North and South Korea will all get it together, and everywhere the good guys will win without firing another shot, and the bad guys will realize how sick and tired they are of all this ridiculous and pointless bloodshed.

Maybe on your Christmas wish list is a hope that there will finally be a reasonable answer to the old Nick Lowe song—done so well by Elvis Costello—“What’s So Funny about Peace, Love and Understanding?”

The days are surely coming, says the Lord ,

when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

In those days and at that time

I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David;

and he shall execute justice

and righteousness

in the land.

In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.

Great, Jeremiah, but when? Jeremiah preached that message centuries before Jesus was born, at a time when the news was anything but good for the covenant people of God.

And then, he was born, and he lived, and he died, and was raised to new life.

And those who had a living memory of Jesus thought that it was going to be any day now; could be tomorrow, that he would come back.

Paul wrote in his letter to the church in Rome, “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is near” (Romans 13:11).

Some found enormous strength in this knowledge. Some were martyred,

but many others lived, and worked, and raised families, knowing and sharing the good news of God’s promise.

And eventually, that first generation, the people who were the first carriers of the light of the gospel of Jesus and the promise of his impending return, got old, and wise.

And eventually, after many years, their families buried them, “old and full of days” as it says in Job.

They had demonstrated that they were good at following, good at preaching, good at praying, good at teaching, good at encouraging.

And eventually, they got good at waiting.

They got good at faithful waiting. It involved working, and praying, and caring about each other, and it was a life, which became a lifetime, which became lifetimes, of faithful waiting.

We’re not very good at waiting, typically. If we don’t see results right away from what we commit ourselves to, we tend to want to write it off as an acceptable loss and move on to the next enthusiasm.

Or we’re like my good friend who, when they found out they were expecting their first baby, jumped into action; drew up plans to convert an upstairs room into a baby room; carpentry was done, walls were painted, equipment was picked out and bought, and the room was fully furnished and ready to go, finally after a mad scramble they had everything ready, and then….

“Well, OK, now there are only thirty weeks left to go.”

Our generations are not typically too good at waiting.

But I wonder if the one exception is the Church.

I think it’s possible that the Church has gotten really good at waiting; like, too good at it.

Or maybe the danger isn’t that we’ve gotten so good at waiting. Maybe the danger is that we’ll start to think we’re waiting faithfully, but what’s really happening is we are forgetting our sense of expectation.

“In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land!” I know, Jeremiah; thank you for reminding me.

“Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is near!” Yes, Paul; right.

“Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near!” Yes, Luke, I know Jesus said that, didn’t he. I know because I read it every year. Just like my parents and my grandparents, back I don’t know how many generations.

“What’s So Funny about Peace, Love and Understanding?” Well, it is kind of quaint, isn’t it? Kind of an old Hippie idea—how’d that all turn out, by the way?

And having become comfortable in the annual pattern of Advent introspection followed by Christmas celebration, and then looking forward to having it all over again the next year, it becomes easy to forget about great expectations, or even having any expectations at all.

We have become pretty good at living for our time, but perhaps we are still not so good at living in God’s time, which reaches in an arc over the course of lifetimes, and generations, and historical epochs; God’s time is precisely as long as God wants it to be, and reminds us that as small as we are, we have been given a place—a meaningful place—in something that is infinitely more vast than we are.

But we forget that we are just one small part of this great, redeeming, triumphant arc; and because our eyes are not trained to see the pattern of our lives as they fit in God’s time, we start to think,

“Well, it probably won’t be tomorrow. Probably won’t be in my lifetime. I doubt if it will even be in our children’s children’s lifetimes. Maybe someday there will be some kind of ‘second coming of Christ,’ or whatever, but I don’t expect it any time soon.”

Today is a good opportunity to remember that the whole point of Advent was not originally to prepare for Christmas. We could prepare for Christmas just fine without doing any serious introspection; we can always substitute sentimentality and commercialized nostalgia for honest self-examination. Getting ready for Christmas is not a problem.

But the purpose of Advent was and is, to prepare for the coming of Christ, whenever that may be.

And so, in the spirit of Frederick Buechner, who has those spectacular questions for Lent that we think about every year, I offer you the use of some coat hangers that my Sunday School class worked on a couple years ago, if hanging your thoughts on some of these might help you enter into this season of meaningful preparation.

When Jesus comes back and calls on you to stand before him, what things about you will you be happiest to report? For what things will you ask forgiveness?

If you could get anything in the world for Christmas this year, but only that one thing, what would it be?

If you could present any Christmas gift to him when he returns, what would you bring?

If, knowing that Jesus is coming back, you could go back to the person you used to be, and give a message to your younger self—five years ago; 20 years ago, 50 years ago—what would that message be?

“Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

The days are surely coming, says the Lord.