Readings: Isaiah 2:2-5 and Matthew 24:36-44
With thanks to Bass Mitchell, Nathan Nettleton, J Wesley Wilkey and Bill Hays for content and food for thought in this sermon.
Many years ago Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem that was later made into a hymn. The first two verses read:
"I heard the bells on Christmas day,
their old familiar carols play,
and wild and sweet the words repeat
of peace on earth good will to men."
And in despair I bowed my heard:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men."
Who hasn't felt like that?
Wars and rumours of wars...That's just the way it is and will always be.
Nothing we can do about it.
Ever notice that this is also the prevailing vision set forth in much of
our art - in books and films - war and destruction, nuclear annihilation?
There will never be peace on earth. We are doomed to endless conflict. Just
watch the news most any night.
It is very easy to become pessimistic about the present and future of our
earth...
We are perhaps the first generation in which even those without a religious world view can envisage the end of the world. We may also be the generation that is least equipped to cope with its approach.
We can envisage it like no others before us because our generation has the knowledge and the technical capability to bring about the end of the world by our own actions. And not only are we capable of doing it, we are doing it. We may not do it by nuclear holocaust as was the big fear ten or fifteen years ago, although with more nuclear armaments falling into disrepair or at risk of being stolen there’s little reason for complacency, but even with that fear somewhat diminished we are inexorably doing it with the more slow and invisible environmental holocaust. Our governments are doing next to nothing about it of course, because they can’t think past the next election and it will probably be about another thirty years before it gets to the stage where the wealth and power of the western nations can no longer guarantee refuge from the effects of holes torn in the ozone layer, toxic wastes pumped into our waterways, soils needing more and stronger chemicals to get anything to grow, and species extinctions chopping link after link from the food chains. Most of today’s politicians won’t live that long, but many of us will.
For previous generations to speak the end of the world implied God stepping in and bringing time to a close. If God didn’t act the world would go on much as it always had. But for us it’s the other way around. Now the end of the world would just be the inevitable consequence of things continuing unchanged as they are now. Now it seems that it would take a massive intervention by God to avoid the end of the world because we’re making no significant progress in averting it ourselves. Those with the power don’t have the will, and those with the will don’t have the power. And the vast majority of us are so paralysed by the enormity of it all that we just do our best to go on living as though paying off the mortgage on our house will ensure a secure future for our kids, and whenever the social and ecological doom-sayers get too loud we just go numb and have no way of processing or responding to their message.
Depression, despondency, short days and long dark nights, the end is nigh. We are doomed.
But that is not the message of Advent. Advent is when we start to light candles that break into the darkness. To remind us of God’s streaming light beaming his love into our lives through Jesus. Advent is the time when we talk about expectation and promise and hope. We are aware of the blackness of our lives, of society, but we begin to glimpse the promise of the future.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that Advent begins this year with the crazy, idealistic vision of a prophet named Isaiah. His vision of the future is very different. He sees a day when all the nations of the world will stream to Jerusalem (the very name "Jeru-shalom" means "City of peace"). They will come to submit themselves to God, to learn and follow God's ways. The results will be that they "learn war no more." God will transform their swords into ploughs, their spears into pruning hooks. All the money, time, and energy spent to hurt one another will be spent to heal one another, to plant crops to feed the hungry. War will be eliminated as the way to handle conflict. War will be needed no more. God will rule over a world of peace, ,justice and love. Isaiah even sees this peace extending into the animal kingdom:
"Wolves and sheep will live together in peace, and leopards will lie down with young goats. Calves and lion cubs will feed together, and little children will take care of them. Cows and bears will eat together, and their calves and cubs will lie down in peace. Lions will eat straw as cattle do. Even a baby will not be harmed if it plays near a poisonous snake..."
Isaiah is telling us that God's will is for peace. That God has not abandoned the world but is actively working in the present and will be in the future to bring peace. That is a vision our world desperately needs. For what our vision is of the future profoundly effects our present. If we look around us at all the wars and conflicts, even in our own lives and relationships, and see only these, come to believe that this is our destiny, our future, that will effect how we feel, think and act. It will lead to even greater pessimism and despair. It will take away our incentive to do all we can to make a difference, to change our world with God's help. But if our vision is like that of Isaiah, if we believe God is working for peace, then we will not just see the wars and conflicts - but also where peace, even though small, is breaking out in our world and in our lives. We will look for those signs of peace, we will be hopeful, optimistic. And we will seek to do all we can to work with God in making this vision a reality.
And Advent is when we look forward to the return or the second coming of the Lord Jesus and the realisation of the reign of God. That should be the accent far more than a season of preparation for Christmas which recalls his first coming among us. Every year at the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the Christian new year, we are to think about the end of time as we know it. So we are not just talking about getting ready for the Christmas holidays, we are led to think about getting ready for the Second Coming of Christ.
This is our wake up call! All you Christians, are you dozing off in your pews? Are you dozing off in your lives? Jesus is coming! Wake up! get ready!
We know when Christmas will be - 27 days from now.
We don’t know when the second coming of Jesus will be. No-one knows. So we
need to be prepared.
We don’t want to be caught out with the ‘if-only’s’...
Always be ready. In the Matthew passage Jesus says that no-one knows when the coming of Jesus will be. Its like the time before the flood, everyone carried on with their own life regardless. Then the waters came and it was too late. So when the surprise invasion of God occurs, says Jesus, it will occur when no one expects it, but it will tear the very fabric of our lives apart. Loved ones, friends, and co-workers will before ever separated from one another. One will be taken into God’s Kingdom while the other one will remain in the daily drudgery of daily living. Jesus cautions us, his hearers, to "keep awake"--to keep our eyes and ears open, to not become complacent. The Second Coming comes when it comes, and no one but God knows when that time will be.
God wants to break in to our lives like a thief in the night--but not to harm us or take from us, but to take us away from the ordinary routines and pressures of daily living. Christ promises to come to us in the Apocalypse, and most assuredly, He will. But He also promises to come to us as the Comforter, the Guide, the Advocate--as the Holy Spirit. But He cannot break into our lives if we are preoccupied with our own self-preservation. He cannot break into our lives if we are trying very hard to be in total control of our lives without Him. He cannot come to us as a thief in the night if we are going through our lives asleep in the dullness of ordinary routine. Christ wants to break through to us, but he cannot unless we give ourselves wholly and totally to his reign. We can't give him a part of our hearts and keep the rest for self-preservation. We have to surrender all to him.
So we need to be ready and part of getting ready means making some changes. its often this time of year that people clean the whole of their house, or re-decorate , buy new furniture etc. ‘So that it will be nice for Christmas’. That’s what we need to be doing with our lives and lifestyles. Its not easy to break bad habits, but in god’s strength we can. And there are changed that we can make as part of the community too. For example our end of Hartlepool is making plans to share in a Single Regeneration Bid - it is a golden opportunity for the community to work together to make a change for the better, to improve the lives of people who live round here. We can campaign on a larger scale for debt reduction and try to be environmentally friendly. All these things are being good stewards of God’s world and our lives.
Because - lets face it - we don't know what task we will be performing when
we come face to face with God. What would you like to be doing? The housework?
Calling on the sick? Reading your Bible?
What would you least like to be caught at? Our challenge is to only do those
things, which give glory to God.
And those things we can do with God’s help. It’s God’s flame, its Jesus who is the light of the world. And we carry the spark of that light with us and can share it with others.
And God brings help, hope, love, peace. He has come as one of us. He will come again.That’s what Longfellow knew about....
This is how Longfellow ended his poem - with the vision of Isaiah:
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."