Will Rice - Sermon #11 - What Are We Waiting For?

Rev. Will Rice
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com

I am going to guess that you fall into one of two camps. You are either a ripper, meaning that upon receiving a gift, you rip the paper off as fast a humanly possible to get to the gift or, you are a true unwrapper, meaning you carefully remove the tape, undo the seams peeling the paper away from the package taking as much time as necessary to open the gift. My wife is a ripper I am an unwrapper. I drive her crazy.

When I was a child I was a ripper. I never enjoyed the process of unwrapping gifts, I just wanted to get to the gifts. But I think I have to credit my current status as an unwrapper to my parents. Although we were not explicitly Christians, my family did celebrate Christmas and we had a very particular way about it. There was a certain time boundary before which we were not allowed to go downstairs where the tree was. At the specified time, we were allowed to go downstairs and open our stockings. Our stockings were mostly filled with fruit, nuts and oddly enough a new toothbrush. Sometimes there were Hershey’s Kisses and sometimes a small toy like a Matchbox car.

After opening our stockings, we had to wait. We had to wait until my parents had made coffee before we could open even one present. After that coffee was made and the first present was opened, we had to wait again, for breakfast. As a child, the process of waiting was painful, but wonderful. One of my friends was allowed to go downstairs whenever he woke up and just tear open all his presents. His Christmas was over in about 2 minutes. Mine lasted all morning.

This has turned me into quite an odd adult. I like waiting for presents. My wife Alisha can put my birthday presents out weeks ahead of time and she asks, “doesn’t it just kill you looking at those boxes and not knowing?” Actually, I rather like it. More than I love the gifts, I love the anticipation.

Today’s scripture is from Mark’s Gospel, Chapter 13:

24 ‘But in those days, after that suffering,

the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
²⁵and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

²⁶Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in clouds” with great power and glory. ²⁷Then 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. ²⁹So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. ³⁰Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. ³¹Heaven 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. ³³Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. ³⁴It 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. ³⁵Therefore, 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, ³⁶or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. ³⁷And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.’

What Are We Waiting For?

With our stomachs full of turkey and our mental eyes already gazing toward the holiday of all holidays, Christmas, today would seem an odd day to talk about the end of time. For those of us who would like to embrace the joy of the festive holiday season, today’s assigned reading is like a bucket of cold water or a Christmas stocking full of coal.

There is a temptation on the part of the preacher to just take today’s assigned gospel reading and quietly sweep in under the carpet and move on. In fact, it is more than just a temptation. One of the things that I have heard over and over in my short time as a pastor is a general complaint about Advent. People come to church on the Sunday after Thanksgiving expecting to see the sanctuary decorated, which it is, and expecting to hear the songs of Christmas. What are we waiting for?

If we follow the media marketing machine Christmas should begin full force right after Thanksgiving and vanish in one big flurry of gift returns on December 26^th.

So why, on what should be the first Sunday of our Christmas celebration are we reading this passage about the end of the world? It is really tempting to sweep today’s gospel passage under the rug, especially given the fact the pastor John preached about the end of time last week. Two weeks focused on the end of time when what we should really be talking about is Christmas trees, and holly, a bright paper packages tied up in ribbon. What are we waiting for?

But if I take my cue from the world around me, this shouldn’t be a problem. It seems people are keenly interested in the end of time. The series that is supposedly loosely based on the book of Revelation, a series that takes a fictional approach to the end of time, Left Behind by authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins is a publishing phenomenon.

Books in the series that talks of the rapture, horrible tribulations and an effort of converted believers to stay alive in the face of the horribly evil, yet impeccably dressed anti-Christ have sold over 58 million copies. “Publishers Weekly reports that the only authors whose publishers will print 2 million hardbacks for the first printing are J. K. Rowling, John Grisham --- and Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye.”[1]

So people are interested in the end of time, but just not right now. It is Christmas for heavens sake. Let’s get on with it, what are we waiting for?

Perhaps we should think for a moment what it is we are in such a rush to get to. Christmas, the incarnation, the virgin birth of the son of God, Emmanuel, God with Us.

Today’s text doesn’t sound very much like Christmas.

24 ‘But in those days, after that suffering,

the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
²⁵and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

²⁶Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in clouds” with great power and glory. ²⁷Then 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.

What is Christmas, but a celebration of God breaking into our reality? This is why I think Advent is so important, because it can cause us to dwell on what we are really celebrating. If we just rip all the paper off of our Christmas gift, we may either miss the gift, or be truly shocked by what is inside. Maybe one of the reasons I am not ever in a hurry to open my gifts, why I like to wait, is that the anticipation is more of a certainty than the gift itself. What if I don’t like what is in the box? It is nice to sing,

Away in a manger,
No crib for His bed
The little Lord Jesus
Laid down His sweet head
The stars in the bright sky
Looked down where He lay
The little Lord Jesus
Asleep on the hay

But think about it this way, the very creator of the Universe decided to enter into our reality in a somewhat frightening way. Think about it this way. When we pray to God and ask for stuff, we don’t think much about how God will pull it off, do we?. “God, help me not be late for work.” Somehow, magically, we hope that God will turns all those signals to green. But, What if God came crashing through the clouds, landed in the middle of S.P.I.D. in a flash a radiant brilliance and started directing traffic. You might, at least, think twice about your next prayer. It would be nice if God would be relatively discreet about coming into our world, using gentle whispers, quiet miracles, perhaps the occasional virgin birth, but,

²⁶Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in clouds” with great power and glory. ²⁷Then 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.

Is certainly over the top.

Just like these images, Christmas can be a wonderfully frightening thing. The birth of a child, who happens to be God who will disrupt the world as we know it. In Luke’s Gospel, from which we get most of the imagery that surrounds Christmas, the angel, the manger and the shepherds, the narrative quickly hints that this isn’t going to be all warm and fuzzy. In chapter two, when Mary and Joseph are presenting the child Jesus at the temple, a man name Simeon says:

³⁴“This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed ³⁵so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed-- and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”[2]

Advent helps us to remember and prepare for the fact that Christmas is much more wonderful than some warm and fuzzy celebration of the birth of a child 2000 years ago. We are considering a wonderfully frightening event, God coming to us. And in Advent we are not just preparing to celebrate that one isolated wonderfully frightening event, we are making sure we are prepared for it to happen again.

For many, Christmas is the central day of our Christian beliefs, but really it is just the beginning. We believe in the amazing birth of Jesus, and we also we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and we believe, it is central to our faith, that Christ will come again.

32 ‘But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. ³⁴It 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. ³⁵Therefore, 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, ³⁶or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. ³⁷And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.’

I love how big dogs sleep. My sister’s Labrador retriever Hobie, after a hard day of running and sniffing and retrieving will curl up and sleep in such a way that, if it weren’t for the snoring, you would think he was dead. But, if you were to go two rooms away and drop a piece of meat on the floor, Hobie would be up, across the house and eating it before you could lean down and pick it up. My lab can be sound asleep in bed with me and he will be up and at the door ten seconds before I hear my wife’s car pulling into the driveway. Dogs sleep watchfully.

These dogs are not anxious, but they are watchful. I think we have trouble being watchful, especially without being anxious Many of us have alarm systems on our homes to help us with the fact that we are simultaneously afraid of what might sneak up on us and totally unprepared to deal with something should it come.

Can we live in the tension of feeling the anticipation without it leading to a feeling of fear or even worse a feeling of self-righteous satisfaction?

We do not know when the next Christmas, the next Easter will come, so what should we do in the meantime? By carefully unwrapping the gift of Christmas, that answer may come easily to us. Over the next few weeks, as we read and consider the scriptures and we search for meaning in the stories surrounding Christmas, we may find ways to live our lives searching for those glimpses of God’s breaking into our world, little Christmas, places where we can be a part of God’s coming to us. We need to stay awake and alert, not so that we can see signs of an impending rapture, but so that we can be able so see those things in front of our very eyes that are ways that we may be participants in the breaking of God into our world.

Advent, for me, is about more than helping us to take our focus away from the commercial side of Christmas and look instead to the Christian side, it is about refocusing ourselves to see that not only is it Christmas every day, it is Advent every day. Every day is about anticipating, preparing for, participating in, searching for God’s revelation, incarnation, God’s breaking into this world.

Advent is about realizing that when God enters into our happy little world, it may be in ways that startle us. God was born to a virgin in a stable, Jesus will come unannounced, with odd repercussion to our solar system. God may appear in the face of the homeless, in the cry of the oppressed. God may be revealed in our actions or in the inactions of others.

Christmas is less like ripping the wrapping off a gift and more like watching a gift slowly revealed before our eyes. Let’s get ready to watch and wait.

What are we waiting for?

³⁷And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.’

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[1] FaithfulReader.com, online at: http://www.faithfulreader.com/authors/au-jenkins-jerry.asp, accessed 20, November 2005, internet;

[2] Luke 2:34-35, NRSV