delivered 29 November, 2009
by Rev. Dr John Evans
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36
The season of Advent is a great time. As we are reminded with our advent wreath and candles, it is a time when we consider the coming of hope, peace, love and joy into our lives and the life of the world. We primarily do this by re-presenting, rehearsing or reliving the story of the coming of Jesus. We recall the key actors leading to his coming into the world – the role of the prophets, the place of John the Baptist and, of course, the role of Mary.
There is, however, another aspect of Advent. We are not just recalling that God once came into our lives through the birth of Jesus — a recollection of an historic event, like we are endeavouring to celebrate our church’s anniversary. While the historic event has continuing significance, today we still await God to fulfill completely the promise of the kingdom of heaven inaugurated and begun by Jesus. Heaven is not yet here on earth. Hope, peace, love and joy do not abound around the world. Much needs to happen.
The Basis of Union puts it this way. It describes Jesus as “the beginning of a new creation a new humanity”. It is a beginning and with the gift of the Holy Spirit we now have a foretaste “of that coming reconciliation and renewal which is the end in view of the whole creation”. This is the “promised goal”; this is what we as the church are meant to serve and work towards. There is in other words, another advent — not a beginning of the kingdom of God, but a culmination, a time when God will be all in all.
And on the first Sunday of Advent we traditionally reflect on this aspect of advent. But it is also true that we as modern people squirm, shift weight and find this talk of ‘the end of the age,’ and more to the point, as our gospel reading bluntly puts it, ‘the second coming,’ difficult.
First, there will be signs in the sun and the moon, and the stars and on the earth will show distress among the nations. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the “Son of Man coming in a cloud” with power and great glory (Luke 21:25ff). The second coming. The parousia. The second advent.
The birth of Jesus and virgin births and the like has enough problems, but this!? Here is a timetable: catastrophic events are enumerated, and then there is, well, the second coming. The Son of Man will come in a cloud.
It is true we squirm, we are embarrassed with these passages – especially when some of our brothers and sisters within the faith enthusiastically focus on such passages, and loudly proclaim, “This is it, this time – we are just seconds to midnight. What do we do? What do we believe?”
We cannot deny it –- this second coming theme is very significant within scripture. The end of the age was keenly anticipated amid the early church. Again and again it was proclaimed and even, here, by Jesus himself.
It may be useful to ask why are we uncomfortable? I think this language just goes against our modern, scientific, rational approach to life, at so many different levels. People don’t ride on clouds; are the indicators quoted present, this after all is theology, not science. At the end of the day, we would scientifically know when such cataclysmic events were imminent.
Moreover, these accounts are frightening, scary – over the top, hyperbole. Surely it is not Jesus’ intention to scare or frighten people into belief. It is through our love and compassion that we would hope that would come about.
Preachers at this point, and I think I have done this, latch onto the subplot in all of these teachings: Be alert at all times (v36). Wait. Watch. In other words, keep at it; just don’t get fixated by the ticking clock. Recognise, as the Basis of Union says, “the church lives between the time of Christ’s death and resurrection and the consummation of all things”. We need to stay focused, not lose our way.
We can accept this as being a reasonable message — just so long as we don’t mention the second coming, or the end of the world. Certainly don’t mention the mechanics of how it all will happen! Timetables, clouds, trumpet calls, dead rising and all of that. Honestly, I am flummoxed as to how to preach upon such a passage as we have today – but I do want to say three things.
Firstly, this “end of the age” stuff has again captured the human psyche. And second, such possibilities may not unreasonably form a part of a person’s, or a group’s, life story because it actually is not frightening for them, but hopeful. Finally, I think I want to say that within these stories of end times there is clear teaching for how we do live our life today.
Of course the phrase of the week, perhaps of the year, has been “climate change”. What a week! Climate change believers, climate change skeptics, carbon targets, ice sheets melting, water levels rising, Copenhagen, inconvenient truths, droughts, floods, heatwaves, fires. People are actually talking about the survival of the species. . . and that discussion is not unreasonable. Not since the possibility of global nuclear catastrophe – which is something we seem to have taken our eye off in recent times — have we realistically countenanced, at least a mechanism for life on our green planet to end.
Neville Shute could write another good end-of-the-world story in Melbourne based on our ostrich-like burning of brown coal in the LaTrobe Valley (right). End-of-the-age talk is not just for loony religious types; it has some credibility about it.
An article in The Age a week or so ago by a New York columnist Gail Collins caught my eye. Its heading was:
Sorry, folks, it appears the end of the world is here again
This time the issue was that there is actually at the moment a raft of “end of the world” type films or books: 2012 about Mayan predictions for the end of the age, then films called The Road and another called The Book of Eli all no doubt tapping into human angst about the longevity of the human race. End of the age talk is no longer far fetched.
There is a paradox, or at best a contradiction, going on here. And we are indeed seeing this with the debate about climate change. Science and rationality, as one of the great hallmarks of our modern life is also being questioned and, as we saw last week in Canberra, in practice.
I speak here of the movement of post-modernism which has challenged the very story, the legitimacy of modern rationality and science. Unpacking such a movement is more the stuff of a study group, rather than a Sunday sermon, but the upshot of this movement has been to question whether modernity and all its various trappings about progress is the only way to self understanding. Is there in fact just one truth out there, the one story, the one understanding, the meta-narrative, as the French postmodern philosophers say, or is there a variety of stories and self-understandings which are true for those people, and could be regarded as legitimate?
So take climate change. Most scientists believe, there is evidence of climate change (and I would add quickly that I am not a skeptic.) But some scientists do not believe. And it has always been thus with science – scientific revolutions do not happen overnight. There can be always rear-guard actions.
There are yet others who are not engaged at all with the climate change narrative; they are deniers for religious reasons. In the US our Christian fundamentalist friends believe that no action is needed because the second coming is imminent. That story gives them meaning, not science.
For Australian climate change deniers it could be that the great modernist myth of progress and advancement dominates their thinking. Nothing will stop them on the path to wealth, domination and power. Humanity will overcome. Let us not worry about it. Climate should not be the leverage to bring down some empires (namely, our empire) and raise up others.
The irony is that with climate change, the great narrative of modernity and progress, that there is only one story and one understanding, may also running out of puff. Other stories, perhaps even religious stories, are being heard alongside the modernism and rationality.
Indigenous people have a story to tell; minorities have a story, certainly the church has a story to tell. And at various times in its telling of that story the church has wanted to say the end of the age is close; indeed it has longed for the close of the age.
When the gospels were eventually written down in the last part of the first century, it was such a time. Rome was exercising its might; Jerusalem was destroyed. This fledgling church was pushed to the margin of even Jewish society. Persecution and oppression were experienced by the followers of Jesus.
Telling a story that God was always in control, from beginning to end, is naturally going to feature a shortened account of that history; especially the present painful bits. The end is desired to come quickly. The thought of paradise quickly descending amidst your difficulty will keep you inspired.
And so it has always been. If you were a slave in the US you are going to sing about the coming of the Lord, and believe that the end of the world is imminent. This will keep you going. Most negro spirituals have such a theme.
Revolutionary Christian movements, which usually end up being persecuted, by and large have appreciated the story of the second coming. Good folk like ourselves – more closely aligned with the centre of power and dominance, may not so enthusiastically embrace the end of the age as a part of our narrative.
Today however, our western story, is falling apart. Our greed, imperial aspirations have given rise to environmental degredation, social inequality and the consequential vast refugee movement of people seeking better lives.
Our human ability or, in religious language, our sin got us into this mess. And we are forced to ask – will our human ability get us out of it? Perhaps yes, if we were all people of goodwill, and we could extend our love to our neighbour – and aspire to peace for all, as we understand is God’s will for us. I sense we will have great difficulty doing this, but still we have to keep trying.
So finally, if nothing else the story of the second advent, the other aspect of advent, even the second coming, reminds us of how we humans have profound shortcomings and we need to rely on God’s love and grace, indeed hope for God’s love and grace. This could just be another way we might couch the story, which is a part of our story, that we do believe one day God will be all in all.
