November 27, 2011

1st Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 64:1-9
Mark 13:24-37

United Methodist Student Day special offering

Message series: Advent
Advent season initiates the Christian Calendar Year. It begins the 4th Sunday before Christmas day. This year November 27th will be the first Sunday of Advent. The word Advent means "coming" or "arrival. The focus of the entire season is the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ in his First Advent and the anticipation of the return of Christ the King in his Second Advent.
Sunday’s message: Keep awake!

If only God would come down and straighten things out! What’s keeping him?

The yearning for God to come and fix things is as old as the Old Testament prophets. After the catastrophe of the fall of Jerusalem, the slaughter of its defenders, the burning and desecration of the Temple, and the taking of its people into foreign exile, prophets like Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the latter Isaiah began to envision a glorious future in a God-recreated world where all would be safe and whole and well. We find this kind of vision also in the New Testament in Revelation, which draws heavily on the prophets for its imagery.

Sunday is the first Sunday of a new church calendar year, a year of the Good News according to Mark. Instead of Mark’s own introduction – we’ll read that next week – this week we’ll hear a Jesus saying from near the end of Mark. It begins with a citation from Joel that speaks about Yom YHWH, the day of the LORD. It speaks of the travail that will begin the new reign of God.

Jesus urges us to read the signs of what’s coming , as we do with a fig tree and other plants. But Jesus also warns us that “nobody knows when that day or hour will come”. Harold Camping and others miss this important point in their quest for biblical certainty.

There is not that kind of certainty. There is only hope and anticipation, characteristics of this Advent season. Jesus urges us to stay alert. That doesn’t mean to be so focused on the End that we fail to notice or participate in what God is doing right now. It means to live in the present a life focused on the kingdom which Jesus announced, and kingdom that will come in its fullness in God’s own time.

By Sunday Thanksgiving will be over. Already as I’m writing this on Monday the Christmas stampede is on, and Thanksgiving almost forgotten. Advent isn’t about the Christmas stampede. Advent is about something wonderful coming in God’s provenance; it is not about calendar and activity stress leading to physical and emotional collapse on December 26.

As you get ready for Christmas – and all of us will do that – be sure to keep a sense of God’s future in your heart. And join us on Sundays – I’ll see you there.