Sermon at All Saints’ Church,
Whiteparish - Advent Sunday - Sunday 3 December 2017
Isaiah 64:1-9; 1
Corinthians 1: 3-9; Mark 13:24-end
May the words of my
mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be always acceptable to you, O
Lord. Amen
At the beginning of our service this morning we lit the first
of the five candles which make up our Advent Wreath – the Prophecy Candle or
the Candle of Hope – and it is therefore unsurprising that each of our readings
today, the Old Testament reading from Isaiah, the First Epistle of Paul to the
Corinthians and the extract I read from Mark’s Gospel should have in them
prophecies about the coming of Christ in circumstances when for many, the situation
seemed to be hopeless. The first, from
Isaiah, prophecies about the first coming of Jesus, which we will celebrate on
Christmas Day, the second reading reminds us that we, as Christians, are not
only waiting to celebrate his first coming but also we are waiting with
anticipation for his second coming too and finally, Jesus in his explanation of
the signs for his second coming reminds us to be patient in times of great
adversity and keep awake.
As a child I waited impatiently for the visit of Santa Claus,
Father Christmas as we preferred to call him back then, and I was repeatedly
told that this wonderful mythical character would only visit our house if I
went to bed early and was asleep by the time he made his visit. So worried was I that I might still be awake
when he arrived that on one occasion, when I had gone to bed early as
requested, but full of Christmas Eve goodies, I was feeling decidedly queasy
and was violently sick in my bed rather than reveal my wakefulness and sickness
to my parents. “Be asleep or he will not come” had been drummed into me; but the
message which we heard from these passages of scripture this morning, when we
look not at the mythical person of Father Christmas, but the true reason for
our forthcoming festivities, Jesus Christ, is that we must keep awake whilst we
wait for him to arrive – even when sometimes our patience and wakefulness is
challenged by the worries and troubles of our busy lives and the events of the
world which surround us.
Our passage from Isaiah this morning is also something of a
lament – in the form of beautiful poetry akin to the psalms. It was written at the time of the Exile, when
the Jews were in captivity in Babylon pondering on why their Temple and city at
Jerusalem had been destroyed and they were now in exile and captivity in a
foreign land. They had cried out to God
for an explanation and concluded that through their sins God had forsaken them.
The Book of Isaiah is believed, by biblical theologians to be the work of
possibly three different people over a period of 70 years. It is certainly one of the longest books in
the bible consisting of 66 chapters – the same number as books as contained in
the whole bible – and today our reading was from Chapter 64 – towards the end
of the book.
As Christians we love to read Isaiah as being a clear
prophecy for the coming of Jesus; but also contained in its pages you will find
other prophecies relating to the fall of Babylon and the restoration of the
city and temple at Jerusalem. During this Advent season you will hear the
famous prophecy of Christ’s coming and life in Isaiah 53, the words of which
are used in Handel’s great oratorio “The
Messiah”; but above all Isaiah tells us to wait – God works for those who
wait and allow themselves, like the clay of the potter, to be moulded by Him.
Without the potter’s hand we are nothing more than a lump of unmoulded clay
incapable of being the beautiful vessel which God wishes to create. Such lovely
lyrical words remind us that God will never forsake us, never abandon us but
work on us if we truly believe and repent. He will forgive us our sins through
his advocate and mediator, Jesus Christ moulding us into the person he designed
us to be.
Paul in his letter to the Corinthians follows this theme but
again we need to understand the context in which he wrote these letters to the
Christians in Corinth. As a zealous legal Jew, Paul would have read and known
the words of Isaiah well; he would also have known the circumstances in which
the Jews had found themselves at the time of its writing. Corinth, like
Babylon, was a corrupt city with its inhabitants practising many acts which
would be regarded as extremely sinful – I’ll leave it at that. Like Babylon
other gods were worshipped. Corinth was a “den of iniquity” to use good old
fashioned language. The Christian community in that city provided, for Paul, an
oasis of Godliness and uprightness and it is to this community that Paul
addresses his words. He first of all
gives thanks for their obedience and faithfulness – their “cleanliness” amongst
all the corruption of the city in which they live.
As with Isaiah’s prophecy,
Paul provides hope for Corinth and for the Christian community in particular by
reminding them that Jesus Christ has already come and that by their faithfulness
they have been enriched in speech and knowledge so that they have received the
spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit strengthening them and protecting them
against the evils around them so that they will be clean when Christ returns.
Jesus himself, in our gospel reading foretells his return and
it is very important for us, again, to read this piece of scripture in the
context in which it is written.
Immediately before this passage, Jesus describes the circumstances which
will surround his return in the context of what is described in my bible as the
Signs of the End of the Age. It makes gruesome reading – nation rising
against nation, kingdom against kingdom, brother against brother, sister
against sister, earthquakes and natural disasters occurring, wars and rumours
of wars and so on; a very apocalyptic
narrative indeed. It all sounds pretty
hopeless but Jesus is at pains to point out that this is only the beginning of
the end times; that following this period, false prophets will arise who will
promise salvation but we should be on our guard – be discerning, awake to the
true message of salvation which we have already been given – the cornerstone of
our Christian Faith. Eugene Peterson’s “The Message” puts it well in
contemporary language - “Fake Messiahs
and lying preachers are going to pop up everywhere. Their impressive
credentials and dazzling performances will pull the wool over the eyes of even
those who ought to know better. So watch out, I’ve given you fair warning”. Interesting that Peterson’s modern
translation of this passage of Mark uses the word “fake” – a word which a
certain prominent politician has claimed as his own!
Jesus then continues his warning and prophecy with the words
we have heard in the gospel reading this morning saying that these are all
simply signs that the Son of Man is returning but that the exact day and hour
are yet to be revealed and “not even the
angels or the Son of Man himself knows the precise hour“– so be awake, be
ready and watch for those signs which he has indicated as to when it might be –
the time only the Father himself knows.
Theologians have a specific word for the study of the end times – it’s
called eschatology.
One part of this passage has always intrigued me though. In Verse 31 Jesus states that this will all
occur within “the present generation”
yet we are still waiting nearly 2,000 years later. Perhaps it’s a bit of a
paradox for Jesus to say that he does not know when this will occur but then in
the same breath categorically states that it will happen within a
generation. One theory, and this to me
seems the best interpretation, is that sufficient time must elapse for as many
members of the human race as possible to embrace the teachings of Christ –
after all, “God sent his only Son into
the world to save it and not condemn it” as it says in John 3:17,
and we must always remember that. I think it not unrelated as we look around
our world today and see signs of the end which Jesus described (and I have
heard many people of my generation especially use the term “it seems the world is going mad”), that Christianity is actually
on the increase in the world – that there are great revivals going on as I
speak in Africa and Asia. Thousands and
thousands of people are coming to Christ each week and I also see a great
yearning for spiritual understanding, direction and growth here in our own
country. Never before have the teachings
of Christ been more important on such a global scale.
Paul reminds us, as in his address to the Christians of
Corinth, that those of us who take on board the Christian Faith are blessed
with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. When
Jesus left us on Ascension Day he promised to leave behind the Holy Spirit and
her gifts until he would return. We must
discern what those gifts are that we have been given, individually, and use
them to make the world a better place before he comes again – to bring the
Kingdom of Heaven to Earth at a time when it is needed most.
That means being alive and awake to what is happening around
us and being ready, not sleeping. I believe that Jesus was taking directly to
each and every generation. The words are current because a generation will be
born which will observe the end times. It could be us or a future generation –
we do not know the day or the hour – just as the exiles in Babylon did not know
the hour of their release from captivity; but we do know that God does honour
his promises and in his time. We must
wait and be patient but always with the greatest of hope in our hearts.
Amen
MFB/02122017/105
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