Maranatha

Sermon preached by the Rev. Tom Weller on the Second Sunday of Advent, 20151206, in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida. Text, Luke 3:1-6.

Maranatha: in the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, come, Lord, quickly come. 

You may be seated.

I am up early, not so early for me, but early for most of the town around me. It is yet dark, some hours till dawn. Up here on my seventh floor porch, the temperature is 45 degrees Fahrenheit, chilly for us in the Florida Panhandle, and as sure a sign that the season has changed in this moment of the small, small world as our church hangings changing from green to blue signifies Advent (he comes).

I’m not ready for Advent this year, and perhaps not ever again. Advent is our good taste equivalent of some deranged religious fanatic walking the sidewalk shouting incoherently and holding up a sign on a stick

REPENT YE

THE END IS NEAR

JESUS IS COMING SOON

We know full well the end is not near and Jesus is not coming soon, only religious nuts believe that, calculate the sure and certain date, follow their leader up some hill or mountain to witness the end of the world that never comes, and go back home disappointed — not to face their insanity and fire their preacher like some losing football coach, but to recalculate.

But St. Paul believed it (did you know that?) believed the end was near as he preached the gospel, working fervently to bring unsaved pagans to faith in the One God before Jesus’ Second Coming to judge the quick and the dead, and to save the saints into God’s everlasting kingdom. That’s what Paul preached, Paul believed it, do you believe Jesus is coming soon? And Paul was not talking individually about your death or mine, don’t try to rationalize it away, Paul was anticipating the eschaton, the end of this world and God’s inauguration of his kingdom here on earth under the reign of Jesus Christ.

And that wild man of the desert in Luke’s gospel this morning, John the Baptist scaring people, shrieking a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins: God’s apocalypse is at hand, repent before it’s too late. That was 2,000 years ago and has not happened so far. Not yet, but God abides in Eternity beyond Time and is never in a hurry to meet our human expectations, so stay awake and keep watch, it could happen in our Time.

I love the scholar, I forget who it was, who said God gave us Time, linear Time, so we would have Past, Present and Future instead of everything always happening all at once as it does in Eternity where everything is always present to God, for God, and with God.

Digressing a moment, that’s an intriguing theology of Time and Eternity, think about it. If after Time you find yourself in an Eternity where everything about your life is always present, where will your heart be? Where would you want to stop and stay forever? Where might you wish Time in Eternity would stand still for you? Where would you wish to see the salvation of God that John the Baptist preaches?

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Back to the Apocalyptic Eschaton, even if we dare not appear skeptical of the LOGOS, we are uneasy to read, in the gospels, Jesus himself saying the End, the apocalypse, the kingdom of God will come in the lifetimes of people sitting here this morning: some folks here will live into the end of the world, the rest will be resurrected from death, and we’ll all face God’s judgment in the clouds of heaven. Unlike modern day religious nuts on the mountain peak certitudinously yet one more time again watching for the sun to burst and incinerate the earth, Jesus confesses that not even the Son, but only God the Father knows the date and time of the End. When Jesus speaks red letter words, we don’t scoff, but some are skeptical of apocalypticism, even from the mouth of the Lord himself.

Do we believe him or not? We must believe it: in our Nicent Creed that we shall say in a few minutes, we confess that “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.” And every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening in our Eucharistic Prayer we say together,

We remember his death,
We proclaim his resurrection,
We await his coming in glory.

   Do we really believe that? If so, flee to the mountains! This Advent, I am not eager for Jesus to come. Rather, my anxiety: I am as anxious as I was that day 45 years ago, standing on the flight deck of a U.S. Navy warship off the coast of Vietnam, watching hardened, tough U. S. Marines tenderly lifting frightened Vietnamese children from Navy and Marine helicopters, and gently carrying the terrified little ones below decks to our ship’s hospital for surgery by our plastic surgeons, who would work for weeks to reconstruct ragged ears, torn limbs, faces with half a nose or none, and teeth bared because lips and cheeks had been blown away — by the war we were prosecuting — to save a corrupt nation by destroying its children — and my fear that day, which half a century on still haunts me, that God forbid anyone standing here on this flight deck weeping for these little ones might shudderingly say “Jesus Christ,” and have God think we are gathered in his Name and come present and see what we have done to his children.

This Advent I am there again, celebrating Bethlehem with songs and carols and Chrismas trees and wrapping gifts; but this year praying Jesus tarries at least until our nation within and the world at large find lovingkindness, peace and goodwill to overcome and set at rest the hatreds that divide us nationally and around the world, even hatreds in the Name of God, eleison, Lord, have mercy. As I pray “stay away, God,” I hope God is busy creating Eden and Adam, another man in the garden, in some distant remoteness of the universe, and has not noticed what we’ve done to and in this world in which he spoke us into being and gave us dominion. We have not done well with God’s trust, not well at all, and I pray Jesus does not come again until we have replaced hate with love, and war with peace. If Jesus comes today, I fear he’ll find one innocent, righteous man and wife somewhere across the sea in what we disparage as “the third world,” tell them to start building an ark, saying “hurry, make haste, for the Day of the Lord is at hand”.

God forbid. Pray that it may not happen this winter.

Francis — the church has a brash, bold and angry new pope who brings to mind Jesus in the temple raging “You have made my father’s house a den of thieves,” turning over money tables of the rich and greedy, furiously driving people out with a length of rope knotted into a whip, as cages break open, birds flutter about in panic — and loosed sheep and goats dashing here and there and bleating like a congress of confused politicians.

Even so, Maranatha, come, Lord Jesus.

Check your guns at the door: living inside the Saturday Matinee, we have seen too many cowboy movies, and driven our world insane, Kyrie eleison, Lord have mercy. Come, Lord; quickly, come.

But thank God, we are in a spot of sunlight today, a brief oasis of peace, with St. Nicholas visiting, recalling old times and stories, bringing joy and laughter, reminding us that God is good, and that God’s people can be good, and that we are good and loved and forgiven in spite of ourselves, and especially that Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, Christian, Muslim, Agnostic and Jew, God loves every child, and God has no grandchildren. Some of his children are 80 years old and more, and God loves us too. I believe with all my heart that the only thing God hates is our hatreds for each other. In the Name of God, St. Nicholas comes in love, as Jesus came in love to set us free from our sins. And the Star of Bethlehem begins ever so faintly to shine in the darkness.

Come, Lord. Maranatha: quickly come.

TW+ in +Time+

20141206 Advent 2C
Never printed proudly, but always to keep a promise to a dear friend.