Joan Hogge’s Sermon – 11/30/08
Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
Mark 13:24-37
Isaiah 64:1-9
If you listen to the morning news, you’ve probably heard something that goes like this: “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, here we are reporting to you from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, waiting for the opening bell when trading will resume. If other markets are any indication it is predicted to be another bleak day on Wall Street. The European markets opened earlier at significant lows, so we anxiously await the opening of the US market after a dramatic slow down overnight in the Asian markets.” And the news continues: our economy is at a 20 year low, everyone from banks, to insurance companies, to the auto industry needs a bailout. Home prices are down; people are being evicted from their homes. Last week the major medical center in Galveston announced that it has been forced to lay off more than 3000 staff members due to the effects of hurricane Ike; more than 1200 of those laid off were doctors and nurses. It is now reported that over 1 million people are out of work. The demands of food pantries are up by some 30%, as 1 in every 8 Americans struggle to put food on their table each and every day. Then we move to the international scene and the news seems even bleaker, with hostages being held in India and the war continuing in Iraq and Afghanistan. How can you not feel overwhelmed by all that is going on these days, feeling like the world is spinning out of control at an ever faster rate. We’ve brought in all the experts, but we still don’t know what to do. Nothing seems to be working! When we listen to the news of the day or read the headlines in the newspaper, we can be left in the midst of despair, feeling devoid of any hope.
When we look at the state of the world, we may want to shout like the prophet Isaiah – Dear God, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!” The prophet Isaiah was speaking to a people also in crises when he wrote these words. Scholars think that this later chapter in Isaiah was written to the little remnant of exiles who had been in captivity in Babylon for many years. They are now returning home and they’re discouraged because the world seemed filled with darkness.(Isaiah 59:9) The pain of the exile was still fresh in their minds and their hearts. The people are returning home but they have lost everything, their way of life and their religious identity as a people of God. Their Temple was in ruins, and the city of Jerusalem had been destroyed. But Isaiah calls the people to remember God’s great love for them in the past. Isaiah calls out saying: “Come down to make your presence known to your enemies, just like when you did awesome things that we did not expect.”(Isaiah 64:2-3) You, O, Lord, heard the cries of your people and you came down and spoke to Moses from the burning bush and chose him to lead your people out of bondage. You spoke and the mountains shook. You brought your people out of Egypt, parting the Red Sea, and they marched through in safety. Then you destroyed the Egyptian army. You guided the Israelites throughout 40 years in the desert with a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day, plus all the food and water you provided each day. At Sinai you came down and gave the Law to Moses. There was thunder and lightening, smoke, and an earthquake and a loud trumpet blast when you were present. We’re asking you to come down and make your presence known to your people once again, just like you did before! “Since ancient times, no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.”(Isaiah 64:4)
Like Isaiah, Mark’s Gospel is written for a people under persecution. Thought to have been written around 65-75 CE during the Emperor Nero’s persecution of Christians in Rome, it was a time when Christians were crucified or burned alive for what they believed. Along with the persecution came the first Jewish-Roman war in which Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans. Mark assures us and all readers of his Gospel that Jesus will come again. When he does, the powers of this world will be defeated, and the suffering of God’s children will be no more.
The proclamation of God’s kingdom reaches back to Old Testament prophets, like Isaiah, who anticipate a new age when the evils of the present day will be no more. Paul reminds the Christians in Corinth that we cannot conceive the vastness of God’s love and “what God has prepared for those who love him.”(1 Cor. 2:9) We cannot imagine all that God has in store for us, both in this life and for eternity. God will create a new heaven and a new earth, and we will live with him forever. The promise of a wonderful and eternal future gives us the hope and courage to endure present hardships, knowing that this world is not all there is.
You might be thinking to yourself right now that this bleak passage from Isaiah 64, along with Mark 13, is a bit unusual for an Advent sermon. Yet both are filled with hope and promise. In Isaiah we hear the eagerness and yearning that God will act on behalf of his people, as he has done so many times in the past. We know, and Scripture tells us, that this yearning would not be answered until centuries later with the birth of Christ. But the message of Isaiah is a message of hope, a hope in which God promises comfort, deliverance, and restoration in his future kingdom. Isaiah is saying to the people that no matter how bleak the situation, we are still called to be God’s faithful people who hope for his return.
In Mark 13 Jesus tells us that he will come again and gather his people from the ends of the earth to be forever with him in his Kingdom. This passage is sometimes called the “Little Apocalypse”. The word apocalypse simply means unveiling, to uncover or to reveal. It is important to remember that apocalyptic writing is not prophecy, but rather a genre of literature written to people in crises to give them the hope and the comfort that in the end, God will prevail. Daniel, in the Old Testament, and Revelation, in the New Testament, are the best examples of apocalyptic writings. Apocalyptic themes reveal to us and help us remember several things: first, to trust in God’s sovereignty; second, that we as a people of faith have a future oriented hope; third, that the present reality we experience here on this earth is not the only reality; fourth, that there is a future resurrection to judgment and/or salvation. Our confidence in God’s faithfulness and steadfast love for each of us calls for our obedience in all that we do, while we wait for Jesus’ return.
Today, November 30, we begin a new season of Advent, a new year in the life of the Church. It is the beginning of an ongoing remembrance of Jesus’ life and his work for our salvation. Advent, simply means coming. In reference to Christ, the first Advent is his incarnation as Emmanuel, God with us. It is through the Incarnation and Jesus’ death and resurrection that God’s kingdom, or God’s reign, has already broken into our world. His kingdom has come in Jesus Christ, but God’s kingdom is not yet fully realized. The second Advent is Christ’s future or second coming when everything will be made new; there will be a new heaven and a new earth. God will live among his people and there will be peace, security, and love. There will be no death, pain, sorrow, or crying and God will “wipe away every tear from our eyes.(Rev. 21:1-5)
Advent is a time of getting ready, a season of preparedness for the coming of Christ. With our scripture for today we begin the season of Advent by looking at the end. As we prepare our hearts for Jesus’ first coming, when God chose to be born as a baby, just like us, in the midst of a chaotic world, so we also should be preparing for Christ’s second coming. When Jesus prepared his disciples for the fact that he would be leaving them, he promised them and all his disciples since that time that he would come again. He said to them: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you unto myself that where I am, there you may be also.”(John 14:1-3)
There is a song from the 70’s by a group called Chicago that’s entitled “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” It goes something like this:
As I was walking down the street one day, a man came up to me and asked me what the time was that was on my watch. And I said, Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care? If so I can’t imagine why. We’ve all got time enough to cry. And I was walking down the street one day, being pushed and shoved by people trying to beat the clock. People running everywhere, don’t know where to go. Don’t know where I am; can’t see past the next step. Don’t have time to think past the last mile. Have no time to look around. Just run around, run around and think why. Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care? If so, I can’t imagine why. We’ve all got time enough to die. (Written by Robert Lamm)
Does anybody really know what time it is? During this liturgical season of Advent, we as Christians are called to wait in expectant hope for two events: first, we remember the coming of Christ in the Incarnation. Second, we wait in anticipation the coming of our Lord at the end of time. We have just heard Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John that he will indeed return. The two parables at the end of Mark 13 assure us that the second coming is indeed certain, but the time is unknown, even by Jesus himself. Only the Father knows the day and the hour of Christ’s return. Does anybody really know what time it is? No, no one can predict by Scripture or science the exact day of Jesus’ return.
So what does God call each of us to do in the time between the first and the second Advent? We must not be misled by confusing claims and prophetic timetables about the end of time. Just like the doorkeeper, who never knew when the master of the house would return, we must be prepared, we must watch, be alert and awake at all times. Jesus says to his disciples in Mark 13:37 and to all of us, these words: “What I say to you, I say to everyone. Watch!” We must stand firm in our faith with an eager and expectant hope, knowing that God’s eternal truths will never pass away.
The news that bombards us each day is not the only reality that there is in this life. God’s Kingdom may not yet be fully realized, but we see glimpses of God’s Kingdom breaking through each and every day. The following stories also help us regain a sense of the hope and the goodness of life. First, there is the story of Brandon, an 8 year old who was dying of leukemia. His dying wish was that all the homeless people he passed each day on his way to the hospital for his treatments would receive a sandwich a day. His Mom, and other people in his hometown made it happen – each day many homeless people are now given a brown bag with a sandwich inside. The words on the outside of the bag simply read, Love Brandon. Likewise, there is the feeling a parent, or grandparent, has when they hold their child or grandchild for the first time and try to comprehend the miracle of new life. Then there is the story of the family who owned a vegetable farm. After the harvest, they opened their farm to anyone who needed food and hundreds of people showed up to glean what was remaining in the fields. When interviewed, one man indicated he had potatoes and onions and that was enough to make potato soup for himself and his family. He smiled as he thanked the farm family and said, “this is love that just keeps on giving.” We’ve all heard the stories from our own church members who were participants in the mission trips to New Orleans as part of the RHINO Project. Remember what RHINO stood for: Rebuilding Hope in New Orleans. These stories and the countless others that happen each and every day continue to give us hope as they reveal glimpses of God’s kingdom breaking through in many and surprising ways.
Does anybody really know what time it is? No, no one knows the answer to this question in terms of when Jesus will return. We live in the now and the not yet; we live between the times of Christ’s first coming, and the time in which he will come again. We do not know what the next hour, the next day, or the next year will bring to each of our lives, but there is, with each day that we are given, the opportunity to be faithful disciples, serving our Lord always with an eager and expectant hope.
AMEN! May it be so.