Luke 21: 25-36

1 Advent / Year C

3 December 2006

The Church of the Good Shepherd

Wareham, Massachusetts

Preached by the Rev. David Fredrickson

I remember as a young elementary school student the periodic bomb drills that took place during class time. The alarm would sound throughout the school and the teacher would say to us, “Duck and cover children.” We had all been taught what to do. All at once we would get under our desks, put our heads between your knees and close our eyes. We were always cautioned against looking directly at the blast because it was thought that even a peek would blind us immediately. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s the Cold War was raging and the little town I lived in was nestled just on the other side of Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, home of NORAD, the North American Air Defense Command. Across town, a few miles from my home, was the Cotter Uranium Mill, one of only two plants in the Unites States where yellow cake was manufactured, a key to the process of enriching uranium for nuclear power and weapons. We all knew that if there was ever an all out nuclear war, at least a couple of 500 megaton ICBM’s were headed right for us. As I got older, that fact was both terrifying and comforting; nobody wanted to live in the wake of a nuclear holocaust. My friends and I would joke about getting out our lawn chairs and donning sun glasses to watch the show unfold before us.

With the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the subsequent arms race, with the unfolding of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and nuclear proliferation into the Middle East and Asia, all of us here have had to live with the idea that the end of the world is not simply an abstract thought; but a very real possibility.

It seems strange at least to me that on the first Sunday in Advent, the beginning of our new church year, our lectionary brings us this rather unsettling passage from the Gospel of Luke. Jesus says, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” Perhaps we should all practice getting under the pews with our heads between our knees and our eyes closed. But curiously, Jesus offers us some different advice. He says, “…when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” It won’t be nuclear bombs that you will see, but rather the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory, a sight perhaps just as terrifying, but one that carries with it a much different outcome. Are you ready? Am I?

Our present day is rife with dispensationalists who seemingly can’t wait for the prospect of end of the world. Do you know anybody like this? These folks are reading the newspaper like one might read tea leaves in order to gain some insight into when this great second coming might occur. “Many of them are motivated less by hope for the world than by the desire to see those whom they consider be among God’s unfavored get their just desserts. A friend of mine once saw a sign in front of a store on a country road a sign that read: ‘Smile! Our God is a consuming fire.’”ⁱ

Advent is a time of preparation. Certainly the scriptures do point to the fact that our Lord will come again, but none of us know when that will be, it could be tomorrow, it could be during our lifetime, it could be 2000 years from now. None of us know and none of us will ever know. It seems to me that what we really need to prepare for is this: we need to prepare to live our lives as God has called us to live them. That is why Advent is a penitential season, because it is a time of self reflection, a time to ask the hard questions of ourselves; “Am I prepared to live the life that God wants me to live, the life that God has laid before me?” Perhaps there is no other time of year when the choices are so clearly before us. During the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, the shopping, the parties, the travel plans, the preparations for Christmas Day, we are found lacking in time to do the kind of self reflection that we are asked to do at this time. What do we do? What choice do we make?

The apocalyptic language here in Luke is not intended so much to scare us as it is intended to show us the temporal nature of the world and the very fragile and temporal nature of our own lives in the world. "Be on guard [Jesus says] so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times….”

How alert are we? If we are holding off and waiting for another day to get the spiritual affairs of our lives in order, someday is most likely never to come. I dated a girl once when I was in college who thought I was too straight of an arrow I guess. She said to me, “I am not ready to deal with God in my life right now. I want to have some fun and experience life first.” “Someday,” she said, “someday, I will get my spiritual act together, not just yet.” I never saw her again, except in passing. I hope she did get her spiritual act together and I hope that she discovered that the spiritual life is every bit as enjoyable and abundant and even “fun” as what she had in mind back in college. Advent is the time to say, today I begin. I begin my preparations for the coming of Jesus into the world and into my life.

In Jesus name; Amen!