'The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
In days to come the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!'
--Isaiah 2: 1-5
'Jesus said to the disciples, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 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. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 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. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”'
--Matthew 24: 36-44
Thus begins our Advent journey, as we walk to Bethlehem and witness once again God being brought into the world. We make this walk together, of course, through our collective worship, our weekly Advent formation series; but also as individual seekers through whatever new spiritual practices we have chosen to adopt this season to help us better prepare our hearts and minds for Christ’s coming.
The readings for the First Sunday of Advent always take me by surprise. I expect the gospel to be the opening lines of Matthew, which give us Jesus’ lineage and genealogy going back to Abraham, or at the very least I figure it’s going to be Matthew’s backstory of Jesus’ birth, which focuses on the piety of Joseph. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but it always throws me for a loop that our first Gospel during Advent features Jesus preaching about that day of many names: the Second Advent, Second Coming, the Eschaton, the Day of Resurrection, the Day of the Lord, just to name a few.
And when I hear this passage I think of a sermon preached by the Rev. Cleophus James at the Triple Rock Baptist Church in Calumet City, IL. Rev. Cleophus said in that sermon, “don’t be lost when your time comes; for the day of the Lord is coming as a thief in the night!” The congregation followed that up with a singing of Old Landmark and dancing up and down the aisle.
I wish I could say I heard that sermon in-person, but I didn’t because Triple Rock Baptist Church doesn’t exist, and the Rev. Cleophus James was a character played by the late-Godfather of Soul, James Brown, and the sermon and song-and-dance routine was from an early scene in my favorite live-action movie, The Blues Bros. But there’s good news in that movie’s sermon, and in the movie as a whole, as the brothers go from that service, walking by faith and on a mission from God to reunite their band and save the orphanage where they grew up. The Blues Bros. will preach, y’all!
The message Jesus gives in this private homily from Matthew’s Gospel is one that calls his listeners to be prepared for the coming Day of the Lord, be prepared without being anxious. We’ve seen how anxiety over when that day will come causes all kinds of problem. While we know this day will come eventually – we say so in our Nicene Creed each week – trying to prepare for it also brings with it a sense of dread or fear, doesn’t it? So how do we do this? How do we prepare for the Day of the Lord – a day that is coming like a thief in the night -without being anxious?
There is no easy answer for that, but the prophet Isaiah offers some insight. We hear Isaiah preach about a vision God gave him prior to the people of Israel being taken into exile by the Babylonians. In that vision he saw the kind of world that God has always dreamed of for God’s people. In this world the people walk in the way of the Lord, the way of love. In this world the people take their weapons of violence—swords and spears—and beat them into life-giving tools—plowshares and pruning hooks. In this world the people never again lift up a weapon against one another. The vision is concluded with a rallying cry, “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!” But this is not just a vision, it is a promise. Walking in the light of the Lord is the way to prepare without being anxious.
Anxiety is rooted in fear, and those responses that we may have to any given, anxious situation are meant to protect us from that which we fear. Our sisters and brothers who anxiously fret over when the Day of the Lord will come and who try to predict when it will happen – which isn’t the point! – are simply acting out of an existential fear, that their brains tell them will be appeased if they can get that date right. It’s not their fault, really. But rather than fretting and being fearful about the coming of that day, Jesus reminds the listeners of this sermon that they – and we – are not to live as spectators, guessing about the future, but as those to whom a promise has been given; and we know that God’s promises are always sure.
Jesus makes this point clearest by referencing Noah, and how Noah prepared for the Flood even during sunny skies, even when people laughed at him. But this, Jesus shows us, is what preparedness looks like. This is what walking in the way of the Lord looks like; it looks like actually believing God’s promises.
And so, Advent is the time for us to move into a mindset of preparedness, even if it’s not really our go-to impulse. When I was diagnosed with cancer and told I needed a liver transplant I was also told that my liver was perfectly fine. This made absolutely no sense to me. If that were the case, why, I asked, could we not just treat the cancer and leave the liver alone? Because, my doctors said, if that happens the autoimmune disease in your system will cause that cancer to definitely come back and within 3-5 years you’ll be in full liver failure. Before that I was not a proponent of preventive care – just ask my spouse – but I sure am now. Just because I couldn’t see it, didn’t mean it wasn’t real. That’s where the promises that Isaiah and Jesus are making in our readings today really come home. Because that is at the core of their message, and that is what it means to walk by faith, to walk in the Lord, to remember God’s promises are true, always, even if we can’t see them yet. That’s what Advent is all about.
German theologian Karl Barth said that we live between Creation and Re-Creation, looking backward at what God has done, assured of God’s presence with us in the current moment, and looking ahead at what God is about to do. Nevertheless, it’s scary to hope for something that we cannot see or understand. The future is fearful, but the only thing that is set about it is the promise of God once again breaking through! And even when the future looks dark, we Christians still light candles. It’s what we do because while we know that the light of a single candle can cast the darkness of fear aside and remind us of the promised hope that Jesus gave us once and still gives us today. Together let us walk this journey of Advent with our God, casting out our fears and preparing our hearts for the Second Advent and to receive that promised hope.
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