The Coming of Ben-Ha-Adam
Every eye shall now behold Him
Robed in dreadful majesty;
Those who set at naught and sold Him,
Pierced and nailed Him to the tree,
Deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing,
Shall the true Messiah see.
Robed in dreadful majesty;
Those who set at naught and sold Him,
Pierced and nailed Him to the tree,
Deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing,
Shall the true Messiah see.
I shall speak to you of the coming of the Son of Man, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
“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. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. ...
“Be on guard that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and That Day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
If this were a Baptist church you would have your Bible in your lap and I would ask you to turn in your Bible to Daniel. The Book of Daniel, chapter 7. Daniel 7 and verse 9:
“I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool: his throne was like fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.
Skip down in your Bible to verse 13,
“I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. “
In today’s gospel from Luke, the Son of Man whom Jesus promises is himself, a cosmic divine, that apocalyptic figure whom the Ancient of Days will send with dominion, ruling lordship, at the End of Time. This imagery holds in messianic expectation this Advent Sunday, when we look to the End of Time and the coming of God’s kingdom.
Astronomers assure us, the Time of the End is billions upon trillions of years hence, when the expanding rush of galaxies slows, and stars twinkle out, and the universe goes silent and still, and everything cools to absolute zero degrees at which no matter can exist and there will be nothing, not even empty space. And yet, eons before that, in only five billion years or so, our own sun will burst into a super nova, a red giant star, then crust into a planetary nebula throwing off storms of radiation that will destroy all objects in our solar system. It will be the End of Time as we know it, but it will not happen Friday, December 21st by the Mayan Calendar as the crackpots would have it.
The End Time thus becomes for us part of some vague cosmic event, exciting to study and contemplate, but nothing to get upset about this morning, which is to say go ahead and decorate your Christmas tree.
Each of us, however, every human, comes up against our own apocalypse, our own personal End of Time. It may come sudden and unexpected, natural or catastrophic; it may come through advanced old age, or it may come in extended terminal illness of disease. But it comes, and it comes for each of us, and we are delivered into the dominion of the Son of Man.
You will have your own story, your own memory, mine today is this. One evening over a quarter century ago, a priest friend of mine, Father Betts Slingluff, had chest pains at his family’s beach house. He was taken to hospital and rushed into emergency. All too soon however, the attending physician, who was a member of their church and a personal friend, came into the room where Betts’ wife Margaret waited anxiously, fearfully. As she looked into his face she heard him say gently, “Margaret, Jesus came and took Betts home.”
The cosmic End of Time is a future so far distant that it’s beyond human comprehension. Not so with our own personal Eschaton. In our own time, the Son of Man comes.
What happens then, what happens next, after this? We do not know, we don’t know, do we, we don’t know because we have not been there. We don’t know except according to the promise of God. We don’t know except by faith. But if faith has it right, we turn to John chapter 14, where the Son of Man says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am there ye may be also.”
As Christians, we claim that promise of the Son of Man. In that lex orandi lex credendi, it is our theology, our church teaches -- the expectation of eternal life with those we love.
The coming of the Son of Man is good news for all who receive him. John 1 and verse 12, “To all who receive him, who believe on his Name, he gives power to become children of God.” On this Advent Sunday, I invite you to claim the gospel promise once again, to let him into your life and into your heart once again. I invite you to signify your acceptance of Jesus Christ by coming forward when the invitation is given, to receive the bread and the wine that are offered as the Body and Blood of the Son of Man.
The Body of Christ, the bread of heaven.
The Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.
Whoever you are, whatever you are, wherever you are in life at this moment, I bid you come. In the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I bid you come.
Amen.
Sermon in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida
Advent Sunday, December 2, 2012. The Rev. Tom Weller
Resources:
Cennick, J. and Wesley, C., “Lo, He comes with clouds descending”
Luke 21:25-31, The coming of Ben-Ha-Adam (YLT)
Daniel 7:9f, The Ancient of Days, the Son of Man (RSV)
John 1:12, 1:14:1f (KJV)