(Note:
This blog entry is based on the text for “The Second Advent”, originally shared
on December 9, 2021. It was the 171st video for our YouTube Channel,
Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Last Sunday was the Second Sunday in the
season of Advent in the Church year. Advent is a season to prepare and right
now most people are preparing for Christmas, the first Advent. But there are
two advents in Christian history. Today, we’re going to talk about the other
one.
Some hobbits eat a second breakfast, many comedians have come out of the
Second City, and one of the distinguished historical churches of LA is Second Baptist
Church, but what is the Second Advent?
When I was in seminary in Berkeley, my first
field work assignment was at a church in San Francisco. My supervisor was a
pastor who had come to focus his preaching on the signs of the end, the Second
Coming, and the Last Judgement. Every Sunday, no matter what the lectionary
texts were for that day, the subject of his preaching was always the same: the
end-times and what current events might be their fulfillment
One Sunday, he announced that some people
had come by to visit him as representatives of an evangelist from South Korea
who had come to bring all the churches together. He encouraged the congregation
to go and hear him. The evangelist’s name was Sun Myung Moon, the founder of
the Unification Church often described as a cult and pejoratively called “the
Moonies”. My supervising pastor later apologized to the congregation after more
was understood about the heretical teaching of this movement. Sun Myung Moon
later claimed to be the Messiah, and the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Christians confess in both the Nicene and
Apostles creeds the belief that Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead as
central to their faith.
The word “advent” means “coming” and the
season of Advent speaks of the coming of Jesus Christ at Christmas, but it also
points to the second coming, or advent, of Jesus Christ at the end of history.
I was standing at the top of San Dimas
Canyon Road in San Dimas, looking west, the other day and I thought about the imagery
we have received for that time in the Bible. In the last book of the Bible, the
book of The Revelation to John, usually referred to as just “Revelation”, John
describes the vision given to him of the last Judgement.
The appearance of Jesus is described in this
way in Revelation 19:11-16,
11 Then I saw heaven
opened, and there was a white horse! Its rider is called Faithful and True, and
in righteousness he judges and makes war. 12 His
eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a
name inscribed that no one knows but himself. 13 He
is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of
God. 14 And the armies of heaven, wearing fine
linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. 15 From
his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he
will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the
fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. 16 On his
robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, “King of kings and Lord of
lords.”
That’s a powerful image!
Does it contradict everything you “know”
about Jesus? The military language, the militant images, the seeming use of
force and coercion? I get that.
But, now, imagine that you didn’t grow up in
the United States, or that you grew up in slavery, or watching the body parts
stack up fighting against slavery. That’s the era of “The Battle Hymn of the
Republic”, a hymn that some now reject because of its militant and military
imagery, also based on this text.
Imagine that you grew up someplace where a hostile
and oppressive government had made it illegal for you to worship and to serve
God as you believe God called you to do. Imagine that you had paid a price, and
that your family and everyone you loved continued to pay a price: disappearing,
physical torture, loss of jobs, loss of family, or loss of friends, or loss of
hope for the future in this world, in order to make you give up God and your
fellow Christians. What image would mean something to you about a God of love
who also loves justice?
Christians long for that second Advent of
Jesus, for Christ’s return. It means that our redemption is near. The very last
words of the Bible, before the final blessing at the end of the book of Revelation,
are in Revelation 22:20,
20 The one who
testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come,
Lord Jesus!
Jesus speaks about the last days throughout
Matthew 24 and 25, but his emphasis is on the fact that they will come when
least expected. He says, in Matthew 24:36,
36 “But about that
day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but
only the Father.
I studied in Israel for a semester when I
was in college, and our group of students was there for Christmas. We were in
Bethlehem for Christmas-eve and at Redeemer Lutheran Church in the Old City of
Jerusalem for worship on Christmas Day.
During the pastor’s sermon, someone in the
congregation got up and said that Jesus had been reincarnated as a boy in India
and was being revealed to the world. Someone else stood up and responded that
the Bible said that no one knows when Jesus will return. (NOTE: this kind of
thing does not generally happen in a Lutheran worship service. 😊)
Order was finally restored, but it was a reminder that there are always people
who believe that they have the inside track on God.
Some people like to think that they have
achieved a special knowledge known only by a few. This knowledge came to them
not through study but from influencers who made them feel that their prejudices
were actually oppressed opinions. That they are the worthy ones, or at least
have cracked the code. It makes them feel special. It makes them bullet-proof
because the arguments of others come from outside their world. It gives them a
sense of superiority to and power over others. It’s especially attractive to
people who are beaten down, who have low self-esteem, and are looking for easy
answers and an easy way to get up and get over.
That’s the appeal for QAnon, conspiracy
theories, identity politics, even some types of beliefs that claim to be
Christianity. They are especially attractive during times of social stress,
like global pandemics.
Instead, no one knows when the second Advent
of Jesus Christ will come.
People will just be going on about their
business, working, playing, studying, hanging out with their families, and
everything will end.
In a story told about Martin Luther, the 16th
century Church reformer, probably apocryphal but true, a man dropped by Dr.
Luther’s home and found him digging a hole so that he could plant an apple
tree. The man came to talk about the signs of the end and the coming judgement,
which he believed was about to happen.
He asked, “Dr. Luther, what would you do if
you knew the world was going to end tomorrow?” Luther barely broke his stride
and said, “I think that I would plant my apple tree.”
That is how Christians respond to something
that they cannot know.
How do we respond? How can we live as people
who know that all of history could end at any time? By doing what God has
called us to do today. By always being ready. By repenting of what draws us
from God and by walking in faith and in the promise of our baptisms forward
toward God. By living in love and service toward others because of the living
relationship with the one true living God we have been given. By living as the
people of God, as Paul writes in Romans 14:7-8,
7 We do not live to
ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. 8 If we
live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether
we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.
We live between the two Advents. The first
advent happened when Jesus was born after about 1,000 years of waiting. The
second advent will happen when Jesus comes to judge the world and takes those who trust in Him through faith and in
Baptism to be with him forever after now at least 2,000 years of waiting.
Among those words from Matthew 24 and 25,
Jesus reminds us to be like Boy Scouts and “be prepared”. He says, in Matthew
24:44,
44 Therefore you also
must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
Our hope for that day is in Jesus Christ
alone. Jesus makes us ready for his Second Advent.
Turn to God, receive his gifts, and live.
No comments:
Post a Comment