Maybe Jesus did not speak of time the way we humans perceive it.

Isaiah 64:1-9

64 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence—2 as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil— to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! 3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. 4 From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. 5 You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed. 6 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 7 There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. 8 Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.

Mark 13:24-37

24 “But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25 and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. 26 Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. 27 Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. 28 “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. 29 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 30 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 32 “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. 34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35 Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 36 or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 37 And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

Spoken words for “Waiting in Joyful Hope” by Rev KellyAnn Donahue

 

May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our strength and our Redeemer. The disciples and other early Christians were waiting for Jesus to come back, waiting for the kingdom of God to start. They thought it was going to be a short time until Jesus returned to earth. Imagine if you had been present to hear Jesus say the words of verse 30 in today’s Gospel reading, “Truly, I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place”. Those “all these things” sounded like big things, especially when Jesus said “the stars will be falling from heaven, the powers in the heavens will be shaken and heaven and earth will pass away”. You and his other followers must have continually asked yourselves, “Is it now? Is he coming now?” I can imagine them commenting on solar or lunar eclipses or natural disasters, wondering if they were the signs Jesus spoke of. I think some of them asked these questions the same way when we were younger we asked “are we there yet? Or “is it Christmas yet?” These questions are asked with hope, asked in anticipation of something that is not quite now, but not too far off.

 

But Jesus did not return for that generation, not in their time. The big thing they hoped for did not happen. Some people must have lost faith, stopped telling the stories, and left the Christian communities. Maybe Jesus did not speak of time the way we humans perceive it. Jesus might not have meant generation in terms of human generations, or perhaps the translations or retellings of the story lost the original word. Or maybe Jesus wanted us to think we had just a short time to learn the lessons he had to teach, and that we had to act on them as if he was coming back any minute now. If we thought we had thousands of years before his return, if we did not think the signs were meant to be seen by us, maybe we would fall away from his teachings.

 

We know people in our own time have said that the kingdom of God is coming on a particular date. I have seen posters on telephone poles with a specific date posted for the return of Jesus. Some people read the Book of Revelation and calculate a date or say that certain historical events are the dark events in that book of the Bible. And some people have quit their jobs and sold their homes, expecting that they would be taken up to heaven by Jesus on a certain day. I do not name these examples to belittle or judge those who held them or hold them now. Do I think we are close to the coming of Jesus with power and glory? I don’t know, and won’t know until it happens, if it happens in my time.

It is easier to wait and hope for small things. Things with a date on a calendar. Things not too far off. The small things are more immediate. We can focus on and name many small tasks to be done before Christmas Day: errands, preparations, and rituals that come in a certain order. We focus on the four Sundays of Advent, our Christmas Pageant, decorating the church and our homes, preparing food for Christmas parties, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and attending our Christmas Eve Worship Service. We wait with varying levels of patience and anticipation for these small things. We do wait for modern big things; for governments to pass legislation, the new i-phone, diseases to be cured, justice for all and peace in our time.

How do we manage the feelings that come, when those things we waited for do not turn out as we had hoped? We don’t always deal well with disappointment. It can be difficult to be patient, loving and kind when facing any setbacks. Do we then lower our expectations? Do we perhaps hope for the best and expect the worse? I know I am not always an optimist.

And yet hope does survive. There is a phrase about hope that I recall from the Roman Catholic Mass. “We wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” It was I line I heard every Sunday. It connects the Roman Catholic end of “the Lord’s Prayer” to the kingdom, power and glory of the protestant ending. The Roman Catholics end the prayer with the words “and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” The connecting words in the Mass said by the priest are “deliver us Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Then the congregation says “For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever.” The hope of Advent reminds me of those words, “wait in joyful hope”. Not anxious hope, not nervous hope, not faint hope.

As we read Jesus’ words today, I do see hope in the promise that his words will not pass away, even as the heavens and the earth will. Maybe that means that there will be people to hear the words, act on them, and pass them to the next generation. The words that teach us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. The words that ask us to share what we have. Jesus described the kingdom of God, and whenever we serve others, I think we are creating that kingdom here on earth now. We can prepare ourselves for the return of Jesus by serving others, not only on by working on our individual righteousness. I think we need to temper the watching for signs with watching out for others. I seek to balance the fear I might have about world events and natural disasters with my actions of care for God’s creation and all of us in it.

It is easy to wait for small things, like our Christmas celebrations, and harder to wait for big things like the next coming of Jesus, and the kingdom of God. May our kind and loving actions in small things help us to create hearts that are not weighed down. May we have the strength we need to wait in joyful hope for the things that God has promised us.

 

© Rev KellyAnn Donahue