How do you say, Christ Will Come Again? [Advent 1B]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
Mark 13:24-37
How do you say, Christ will come again?
How do you say it? How do you say,
“Christ will come again”? Christ Will come again!? Or Christ will come again? Or Christ will come again? Or do you whisper it
so that no one thinks you are weird? Or
is it a question: Will Christ come again?
And then there is that context
thing. Here, in church, it feels normal
to say “Christ will come again.”
Everyone says it together. It is
a thing we do every Sunday. We are
Christians; we declare Christ's return.
But on a street corner, in downtown, while holding a megaphone, it does
not feel quite as normal. In a private
conversation, at a bar, at a party, as a pick-up line, going door-to-door, it
is not necessarily the most comfortable thing to say. Or to hear.
Do you really want to get stuck in a conversation with the guy who wants
to tell you all about his theories on the return of Christ? Probably not.
Even if you believe that Christ will, in fact, return.
And that's the tricky part,
right? We are supposed to believe this.
This idea is absolutely central to our faith.
We proclaim the return of Christ in the Eucharistic Prayer, in the
Creed, in the Lord's Prayer. We hear
about the return of Christ in the Scriptures – this morning from Mark's Gospel
and in the letter to the Corinthians.
Today it is all over our prayers.
We repeat it over and over
again. And yet... It's been a really long time since Jesus
ascended; it's been a really long time since the Church starting waiting – like
two thousand years. Not only did that
first generation pass away but about 100 generations since have been
buried. That is a long time to wait.
And so we say it. But outside of this building we probably
don't think about all that much. It
feels distant. “Christ will come again” but “Will Christ come
again?”
Today is the first day of
Advent. Another Advent. Another season in which we remember that
Christ did come, once upon a time – as a vulnerable child. And he was born to a virgin mother and was
the fullness of God dwelling in human flesh and angels sang of his birth. And that one we can believe and celebrate. We
anticipate the feast of the Nativity of our Lord and revel in the ways his
first coming changed everything. We're
having fun; we're counting down to Christmas.
But also, today is the first day of
Advent. Another Advent. Another season of uncomfortable apocalyptic
Gospel readings. Another season to try
to comprehend what the second coming of Christ even means. Another season to wonder if we should be
excited or scared or if it is even true.
Because for some reason the second coming is much harder to wrap heart
and head around than is the first.
Maybe that is why we talk about the
second coming so much in our worship.
Maybe it has always been this way in the Church. Maybe we say it and say it and say it until
we believe it.
In our Gospel reading Jesus tells a
story about a man who goes away on a trip.
And he puts his servants in charge of the house until he returns. He gives each of them work to do. And then he tells them to keep awake. Because the master of the house will return
suddenly and at an unexpected time. Keep
awake.
But it is very difficult to stay
awake for twenty centuries. Two days is
actually pretty hard, if we are being literal.
Being on high alert day after day, year after year is exhausting. “Keep awake” is not that easy.
And the longer we wait, the longer
we expect to wait. I'll speak for
myself, if I'm being honest, I expect to die before Christ returns to establish
God's reign here on earth. The first
generation of Christians expected their Christ to return imminently. But he didn't. And the earliest Christians started dying
off. And while the belief in the return
of Jesus never went away, the urgency did.
And after a few decades the Church started settling in. Christ will come again – you know,
eventually.
And now we say it, but most of us
don't really expect it. At least not any
time soon. I mean, we get married and
have kids and save for retirement. We
make five year plans and take out thirty year mortgages. We buy life insurance. Paul advised early Christians to only get
married in cases of excessive, out-of-control lust. Because the time was short and the good news
was urgent and the return of Christ was imminent. There was not a moment to waste on things
like marriage or family.
Mark, writing a couple of decades
after Paul, was writing his Gospel during the transition time. Caught in between now and later. He was writing soon after some of the most
prominent Church leaders were killed by the Roman Empire – leaders like Peter
and Paul. Christians were dying and
Christ had not yet returned. But also
Jerusalem was falling. The Temple was
destroyed. The world was changing. Everything felt so epic that the return of
Christ still seemed near – not as near as they originally thought, but still
near.
Some Christians were settling in
and others were packing their bags for eternity. Those Christians, like us, did not know when
the time would come. And they were
getting drowsy.
It is hard to wait for something
that might never come. We might die
before we see it. Or...or maybe today:
is what Mark would say. We don't know
when Christ will come again, so why not today?
New Testament scholar Mark Allan Powell writes, “But does anyone
actually think that way? Does anyone go
through every day, wondering at morning, noon, and night if now is the time that long gone someone
might return? Yes. People who are in love do that.”[1]
People who are in love keep
stealing glances at the door. People who
are in love just can't stop thinking about it: the first glimpse of his face,
the first embrace, the first time she feels those lips again – after so much
time apart.
It becomes the reason to do
things. Clean the house; he'll be back
soon. Prepare her favorite meal; she'll
be back soon. Wear that shirt he likes;
put on that cologne that makes her swoon.
“Does anyone go through every day, wondering at morning, noon, and night
if now is the time that long gone
someone might return? Yes. People who are in love do that.”
One day our love will return and at
last we will see him face to face. That
is what we are talking about: Christ will come again. Maybe we say it until we believe it. And once we believe it, once it gets into our
hearts, once it burrows deep down into our bones, it becomes what we live for –
it becomes the reason we do the things we do.
Advent is the time to get
ready. To prepare for the second
coming. To learn to live for Jesus'
return. We often use this season to prepare
our hearts for the coming of Christ. And
that is good. But this is also the time
to prepare our world for the coming of Christ.
See another thing today's Gospel
tells us is that Christ is coming; we're not leaving. The servants do not join the master at his
beach house in Jesus' story today. The
master returns to them. Christ will come
again. He is coming to be with us and to
usher in the reign of God – to make heaven of this earth. Maybe today.
Maybe soon. We don't know the day
or the hour, so why not now? Advent is
our call to keep awake. And get to
work. Clean the house; he'll be back
soon. It is Advent. And now is the time to say it until we believe
it until we live life for it: Christ will come again.
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