The
gift of looking forward: Maranatha
First
UMC, Carroll
Nov.
30 and Dec 1, 2019
Happy new year!
No, the pages on my calendar did not stick
together. According to my calendar, this is the first Sunday of Advent, right?
That means it is New Year’s Day for the church. Much like a fiscal year, the
church’s year does not follow the calendar. We start with the first Sunday of
Advent and run all the way around through Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter,
Pentecost, and back to Christ the King Sunday which was last week. This is the first
Sunday of the new year, so it makes sense that we call this the Sunday of hope.
This morning we lit the candle of hope, we
sing songs of hope but hope for what? What are you hoping for, today?
<<who has a hope you are willing to share?>>
Frankly, if you are
looking for something happy and Christmasy this first Sunday of Advent, we
shouldn’t have read the gospel text for this week. Actually, every first Sunday
of Advent in the Revised Common Lectionary we are assigned apocalyptic texts. Apocalyptic
literature was common in Jewish and Christian writings around the time Jesus
lived. The best-known example is the book of Revelation. We don’t really have
close comparisons to apocalyptic literature in modern writing.
One of the basic characteristics of
Apocalyptic literature is that it is highly metaphorical or symbolic, so be wary
of anyone who tries to use it to tell the future or even more inappropriately
create a timeline for the end. You may have enjoyed the LEFT BEHIND
series of books, for instance, and that’s OK as long as you know that they are
maybe 1% scriptural and 99% fiction.
Regarding today’s passage from Matthew,
for example, the popular assumption of the left behind series is that being “left
behind” is a bad thing. If we look at the context even that is not absolutely
certain.
In this very passage, in fact, Jesus
makes a connection with Noah and the flood. Listen to this again:
For as in those days before the flood they
were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah
entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all
away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.
In that story who is “swept away?” << unrighteous>> Who was “left
behind?” Noah and his family.
Or consider another image Jesus
uses right here in Chapter 24.
But
understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night
the thief was coming, he would have stayed
awake and would not have let his house be broken into.
The thief
comes to terrorize and kidnap… in other words to carry someone away. Who is “left
behind?” The righteous owner of the house. That doesn’t fit with the popular
understanding either.
If you
aren’t yet convinced of the elusive interpretation of apocalyptic writings,
keep reading into chapter 25, the story of the bridesmaids. Again, the ones who
weren’t prepared were gone when the bridegroom came. Who was able to meet the groom?
Those who were “left behind.”
You see the trend, right?
The
entire Book of Revelation describes Jesus coming to live with us forever, here
on Earth.
“See, the home of God is among mortals. He
will dwell with them; they will be his
peoples,
and God himself will be with them” (Revelation 21:3).
So just where do we think we are going? Wouldn’t it be
better to be “left behind” with Jesus? [i] Those are the kinds of
questions we must ask before we jump on the bandwagon of the popular
interpretation of Apocalyptic literature.
So, what is the message of this passage? What
does the Bible have to say about the future?
First, this passage is a
warning—a warning to never give up.
Black Friday makes it abundantly clear
that some have given up on the true meaning and core story of Christmas mistakenly
believing that it is about gifts and decorating. maybe we use them to push the
nativity story out of the way. The other side of the picture is that we let the
story of the nativity become so routine that we don’t even hear it. It becomes kind
of cut and dry. When we start to read the Christmas story, people yawn and say,
“Yeh, tell me something I didn’t know.”
I struggle with this in worship
preparation too. There are only 3 Christmas stories in the Bible. Can I
approach them from a different and interesting perspective this year? Can I
design a Christmas Eve service that doesn’t sound like verse 2 of last years’
service? Do you know what I mean?
We must hang on to hope and resist giving
up. We have to resist just going through the motions. We have to resist giving
up on the promises of God.
Our Jeremiah passage tells us to never give
up. God says, “I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up.”
Do you remember planting seeds in a
Styrofoam cup as a kid? It doesn’t seem like anything is happening for the
longest time. It is easy to forget to water the dirt. It is easy to get sloppy
about taking care of the unseen plant because, well, it is unseen. But Jeremiah
says, don’t give up…
“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.”
One
day our plant will begin to push the soil up and we will see that it has been
growing all along. Similarly, at a time God has chosen (remember we don’t know
the day, or the hour and it will probably be when we least expect it), God will
break forth with a new thing. The branch will grow, and it will be apparent
that God has not forgotten us. God will fulfill God’s promise. So, don’t give
up.
Second, HOPE requires that we stay alert. Stay
alert to what? Stay alert to what God is doing because we don’t know when or
how God might be acting in our lives or our world.
What does it mean to stay alert? It means
that Advent and even Christmas are not about the distant past some 2000 years
ago, they are about promises that may be fulfilled today. It is about a future
that is truly in God’s hands.
God’s promise means that God is still
working. Today, here and now and we need to stay alert.
· Stay
alert to the people closest to you. How will you find God’s hope in those
relationships?
· Stay
alert to the strangers you encounter. How will God’s hope for all people be
revealed in the way you treat them?
· Stay alert to the people least like you. This
may be more difficult but now look for the hopeful ways God works in the lives of
all people.
· Stay
alert to yourself. How will your body, soul, and spirit, receive God’s hope
this advent?
· Stay
alert to all of God’s movements around you. Where do you see hope, love, joy,
and peace in places you never expected?
I know, it is tempting to cling
to our favorite stories and precious family traditions from the past. But do
you drive your car with your eyes constantly fixed on the rear-view mirror? Of
course not. We must be aware of what lies behind, but the driver's primary
focus must be on where the car is now, and the road ahead.
We know our faith is firmly
rooted in the past, but it looks with expectant eyes to the ways God is working
today and the way God will work in the future.
Finally, we live in hope. Hope is the rock on which
our faith is built. Living in hope is living with our hearts in God’s promises
fulfilled.
Giving up, and not being alert are
barriers to living in hope.
You see we live in the already
and the not yet. We live in the crevice between promises fulfilled and promises
made.
God’s promise is that God is not
done with us yet. The language of the New Testament is that Jesus will come
back. Whatever language you use… however you envision this happening, we can
know with absolute confidence that God makes good on all God’s promises.
Before Jesus, the Jews could not
even conceive of God becoming flesh and living among them. We can not even
begin to conceive of what God has in store for us. Those who say they know are
way too confident in themselves. Those who place a timeline on God’s promises
don’t understand the very basic theological principle of divine sovereignty-
that God is free to do whatever God wishes to do, whenever God wishes to do it.
God does not need our timelines or our help.
·
What God does need and want is a people
who live with God’s gift of hope in their lives.
·
What God does need and want is a people
who never give up waiting for God to act.
·
What God does need and want is a people
who are keenly aware and alert to the little movements of God around them.
·
What God does need and want is a people
who walk through advent not focused on the rear-view mirror… but ready for
whatever future God has in store for us.
The early church had a word that meant “come Lord
Jesus come.” It was a prayer for God’s promises to be fulfilled. The word was “Maranatha”.
You have probably heard it before.
·
Maranatha- come Lord
Jesus come.
·
Maranatha- come Lord
Jesus come. With complete hope in God’s promises … Say it with me one more
time…
·
MARANATHA COME LORD
JESUS COME.
[i]
The Hardest Question: Let’s All Get Left Behind 10/22/19.
danielleshroyer.com/the-hardest-question-lets-all-get-left-behind
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