‘a new day is coming…’
November 27, 2022
Scriptures: Isaiah 2:1-5, Matthew 24: 36-44
Today is the first Sunday of Advent…the first of four weeks leading up to Christmas. It is both a time to reflect, and to prepare, sort of like a reset button on both our faith understanding, and our relationship with God. Advent is that time when we look again at the very beginnings of our faith story, with the perspective of knowing the whole flow of history from the time of the prophets up until now. A time to consider again the ancient prophecy and promise of a Savior in light of the world we now see around us, both the blessedness and goodness of it…and the brokenness and struggle we see as well. It is a time to wonder and reflect on what God was actually doing in sending Jesus to be among us. Why God chose at that time to share the amazing news of a Kingdom that he claimed was drawing near, or as he often said, ‘was already at hand’. This is the season to ponder how this promise of redemption, and the assertion of a holy kingdom so close to breaking out around us impacts the way we live out our faith.
Today’s scripture passages from Isaiah and Matthew deal with ‘eschatology’, which means the ‘end of time’. Passages such as these have been used widely over time as believers have sought to interpret the Good News in light of their own experience. Scriptures that seem to speak of the ‘end of time’ have given hope to those experiencing oppression or bondage over the years, as well as causing fear or nervousness in the hearts and minds of the comfortable or complacent. These scriptures speak to a future time, an ‘as yet unknown time’, when the plans and purposes of God are revealed in such a way that our human story is changed and impacted very deeply. They speak of a moment when history changes from the record of the human story alone to a new time, a new story of humanity dwelling fully and deeply within the loving and real presence of God among us, right here in the Kingdom Jesus spoke of.
Many people see and interpret these scriptural references as forecasting the ‘end of time’, resulting in a complete revolt and overthrow of the world and the powers that currently control most of global commerce and economy. They see them as telling of a time when a Warrior Savior God will come riding in on a white horse, ready to wreak havoc on those who have not heeded someone’s call to faithful obedience. And indeed, scriptures often shared at Advent do speak of a new day, a new time, and a new world order with God as rightful judge and overseer.
Others however read these passages in a different way, with a different lens, and a fully different understanding. Others hear them in a way more reflective of the image of our God as love. Closer to that of a Lord and Savior who came as a tiny babe in a manger. These believers see Jesus as one who desperately tried to teach the strength and overwhelming power of God’s love…and not of vengeance or force at the hand of a strong-armed warrior God.
In either case these scriptures cause us to reflect on where we stand regarding our own place within a new age of God, and to imagine deeply what that might look like. Isaiah speaks in vivid word pictures of a future earth that is one in peaceful coexistence and diverse community. He talks of a time when war is over and no longer needed tools of war can be turned back into their original purpose as implements for working the land, bringing into focus the very real, and very critical relationship between war and human struggle in general.
Author and educator Laurel Dykstra writes of this particular relationship saying, ‘The transformation of weapons into tools used for planting and harvesting crops shows that war and hunger are intimately connected, that finite resources cannot feed both the hungry and conquest. As Dwight Eisenhower said of modern weapons in a 1953 speech, ‘Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in a final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The Isaiah reading also points out the deliberate and studied nature of war…nations learn it, and teach it.’ It is neither natural nor accidental when Ukrainian and Russian farmers are trained as soldiers and tools of life become tools of death.
On the other hand, Matthew’s gospel passage speaks to us of being ready, of being prepared for the coming of the Son of Man. Readied for the coming of this new and promised age when mankind and God live together in loving and blessed community. Matthew also writes a message of judgment, a sobering reminder that God insists on righting wrongs, on re-balancing the scales, and beginning over fresh and new. The passage speaks of the need to watch and to be ready, of being prepared for this incredible new thing that is coming, for no one, not even Jesus himself, knows the day or hour when this new reality will become fully present among us.
Matthew’s passage then begs the question then, of how it is that we, as 20th Century Christians should actually go about getting prepared? And in fact, what exactly is it that we are supposed to be preparing for? I have shared in the past how I feel that we all are called to be contributors to this incoming day of our Lord. Of how we as Christians are to participate in bringing about a new Spirit-filled way of being humans in community. That is what I feel the Holy Spirit is actively asking of us…that is what we are called to be all about. But how…how are we as individuals able to effect change of this magnitude?
It may sound simple, but it takes dedication and hard work to live as an example of God’ gracious unconditional love in community…being a community that is decidedly in contrast to the one in which we now dwell. It is no easy task to refuse to accept that the power of hate is somehow stronger than the fierce and unrelenting love of God. But it can be done…or at least started. We each can begin to effect change; we can begin to take part in revealing the kingdom of our God by intentionally and constantly following the commandment to love one another as God loves each one of us. And, by doing it over and over again until it becomes natural…until we do so without thinking about it…until it becomes a habit of our heart.
But is all this really possible…is this what these passages are actually speaking to? Or is this just one pastor’s creative way to deal with difficult and uncomfortable scriptures? For in truth, there are many who do think that the idea of there being an approaching end to history as we know it is not all that far-fetched. In looking at the state of world affairs and domestic and geo-politics, as well as the immense amount of power wielded by just a few, it is not hard to imagine that a significant shake up in virtually everythingis not too far off.
There are also those, and not just religious folk, who maintain that the current state of affairs causing the widening gap between those who have greater and greater abundance and those who do not have enough to live on, is not sustainable, and that it all may fall of its own accord…or perhaps better put, fall away by an overflow of the Holy Spirit as it moves in the hearts, minds, words, and actions of those trapped within age-old margins of insufficiency and oppression.
Which, in this season of Advent and as followers of our Christ highlights the fact that we must resist being satisfied with specialized or seasonal charity, and instead find the heart and the courage to become fully-engaged full-time with the work of our Lord. To become willing to consider leaving our individual zones of comfort and instead to go to and dwell within the margins as those willing to learn the ways of joy in the very midst of poverty…and peace in the middle of injustice. For this new day of our Lord is not just a remake of the old, it is not a day when ‘those who have’ are joined by ‘those who do not’, somehow magically multiplying resources so all have the abundance we now consider normal…but rather a new time altogether, when we let go and trust in the ways and means of our God, believing in the promise of joy and peace abundant as Christ proclaimed when he said, ‘Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteous justice and you will have all you need’.
It is about a wholly new day, which finds humanity going to the margins and dwelling there as one human family in the assured provision of our Lord’s promise. For it is in that place that we will find our God, there in that place of total reliance upon the Spirit and the Spirit’s work. God’s heart has always leaned inexorably towards the poor and impoverished, and we are called to go to them there in the margins and there learn how to grow in faith and love together.
Advent is a time to reflect and to take stock of our place in God’s plan as well as of our willingness to walk openly towards holy emptiness in service of our God…it is a time to prepare for the coming of Christ…for the end of time as we understand it and the ushering in of a new age of the Spirit wherein the prophecies of Isaiah come true within our vision and within our lived experience. For indeed a new day is coming and is fast upon us…a time when we may perhaps lose our current sense of abundance and be forced once again to look to God for daily guidance, for daily bread, and for daily grace…
It is a time to consider newness…new things…new ways of understanding what God is doing…a time to consider that perhaps we need to look anew for God altogether, letting go of thinking we know the real score and letting the Spirit wash over us in a new way.
By grace, God will work with whatever we are willing to offer…either with our surrendered abundance, or our rationed generosity. And the Holy Spirit will work God’s will in partnership with us, seeing that real Spirit-filled abundance finds its way to all, and no longer to just a few.
Advent is a time when we are called to wholly new ways of caring for one another and of emptying ourselves in love for one another. It is a time and an opportunity to hear the cries of the tiny babe in the manger as it mingles in with the cries of all in need…from young, to old…from poor to unfulfilled…from the air, seas, and earth all suffering from our mindless and wanton excess. For in this time God is surely working towards the liberation of all Creation, of all in need, of all in bondage, of all who hunger or suffer…
So, ready or not, prepare to be made over into the image of a just and righteous God! Prepare to stand as a beacon of hope and light in a time when the valleys indeed are being lifted, and the mountains are being brought low…
Remember, no one knows the day or hour…but the Lord’s call upon our hearts remains vibrant and alive…
amen