The Second Sunday in Advent
“Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Advent is a season, fundamentally, about hope.
It is hope that looks forward to the yearly remembrance of God’s stretching out to us, God’s coming to us in flesh in the form of Jesus. It’s not that Jesus is being re-born every Christmas, of course, but like I said a few weeks ago, one part of the story of Jesus Christ is not separable from other parts – his birth is not some event separable in time or meaning from his death, or from his resurrection or, as we hear about today and through advent – his coming back.
We celebrate at Christmas his birth into the world, and we think about the ways that he is born anew in our hearts all the time. This coming points to and foreshadows what he promised would happen – his second coming, his return – called the second coming, the day of judgement – a day when time will cease to be and everything will return into unity with Him who made it and redeemed it.
St. Paul talks today in his Epistle about this first coming when he wrote to the Romans – quoting the prophet Isaiah – “The root of Jesse shall come, the one who rises to rule the gentiles; in him the Gentiles shall hope.” This good news of his coming into the world and why it is so good will be worked out in the coming weeks for us and may already be something we ‘get’, but why the hope for that other coming, his second coming, that is a bit harder to tease out.
Why that is to be hoped for isn’t always as clear, and sometimes the scriptures don’t make it a whole lot easier. At Morning and Evening Prayer lately we have been reading from the Book of Revelation – visions of the end, terrible, fearful visions of what will be, but we also hear about it in the Gospel today, from Jesus’ own mouth.
Some of those around Jesus were speaking to him about the temple in Jerusalem, talking about its splendour, its beauty, the gold, the stones, the gifts that make it so beautiful, but Jesus challenges them by saying that we shouldn’t long for the glories of this world, we should celebrate them too much because one day they won’t be here, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” He’s talking about the end, when the power and Glory of God will at last conquer and put low the glories and powers of the world, of humans and their ambitions.
They ask him how they will know when that time comes and picture he paints for them is a bit grim: you will know it’s coming because of wars, persecution, betrayals by even our closest family and friends, we will be hated by many because of Jesus, and from the portion we hear today – signs in the sun and moon and stars, distress throughout the world, foreboding, and a shaking of earth and heaven. But in the midst of these things, when it’s all at its worst, thenlook for the coming of the Lord and raise your hands because your redemption is drawing near.
Today in the contemporary advent themes we think about peace, and this is the peace that is promised to us – not a peace that might last in this world, not a peace that the world can know fully and absolutely here and now, but a peace that passes our understanding, a peace that’s coming but not yet.
But lest you leave here today thinking that I’m only about peace and hope and love and joy, or lest you think that you weren’t going to hear me talk about the traditional themes of Advent (death, judgement, heaven, hell) – fear not. Because we simply can’t ignore the fact that Jesus’ return is linked so closely to judgement. We get the sense from the Gospel and from Isaiah and the other prophets that those times of distress that God brings upon the world or God brought to the nation of Israel are God’s judgements upon them, upon us.
It’s one of those icky topics we like to avoid because we don’t like to think about being judged (by God or anyone); because it seems at times not to line up with the other things we are told and believe about God, His love, salvation, tenderness and so on. It’s something we confess to believing about God’s role in our life and salvation each week that He will, “Come again to judge the quick and the dead,” but still, oh what a dreadful thought – to be judged by God.
But the question is: is it dreadful because we don’t like the thought of a loving God judging, or is it dreadful because we are afraid about what we might hear when God does?
Are we afraid of how we might feel about ourselves and our lives when we see God loving, just as much as God loves us, all of those people whom we have hated, or hurt, or neglected in this life?
Are we afraid about how we might feel when we are finally able to grasp the immensity and immeasurability of His love for us, and see all of the ways we have failed to love God back or to show our thankfulness?
Are we afraid about how we might feel when we see how often God walked beside us when we thought we were alone, when we complained about His absence because we weren’t getting what we wanted?
Are we afraid about how we might feel when we see all of the gifts that we were given, and what pittances we gave in return?
How is it then that this season of Advent can have at its heart this enduring theme of judgement but yet also be a season of true hope, a season that insists that we should actually long for that judge to return and do what judges do?
The answer is obscured by the fact that we think that God’s love and God’s judgement are two different acts or two different things. God’s love is God’s judgement, and God’s judgement is God’s love.
Our idea of a judge is skewed so much by our imagination, we think of someone on a high bench in a black robe with a gavel in hand, thirsty for justice; someone who themselves has no idea what your life is like or why w’eve done what we’ve done, but passes judgement anyway. This is not the way that God judges; God doesn’t judge and punish us for how we’ve failed to love our neighbours or betrayed our friends; God will judge us by showing us how much Heloves those friends. He judges our failure to love by loving our enemies.
God doesn’t punish for our being slow to follow and love him, or for not getting the grand scope of God’s care for us, instead God will simply show us the fulness of His love so that we ourselves can look back and know the immensity of His presence and care.
But it’s even more silly than that of course, because we also think that the sins that we’re going to be guilty of in the future – the bad things we might do next week – aren’t already known by God. Think about it this way: if a judge in a courtroom could know every single thing that you have ever said, thought, or done, and every thing that you will say, think, or do in the future, what would they have to judge, what considerations would there be for them to weigh? Your guilt or your innocence would be clear.
God knows all of that, and yet despite it that judge chose to seek us out by being born in our own flesh to a virgin in a stable in Bethlehem, so that we can have a crack at redemption, so that we can know God and be filled with the spirit of God, and stand before the Judge on that day, not in fear of our own failures, but confident in His forgiveness and His love, and His mercy.
This is what is coming to us at Christmas – this love, this forgiveness, this grace - and it has come to us already, and it is amongst us now and it can transform us and renew us daily into those people who will not be ashamed to face the judgement…to face the love of God at the last day.
