Our Pentecostal neighbors, the Snows, invited our family to go with their five daughters to a revival service at their church. Being a teenager, I was perhaps more curious, and open about going then, than I would be now. My brother complained, “You only wanted to go because you love girls.” That, too.
The service was lively, yet I was reserved in my enthusiasm; dubious, cautious, only a tad bit game. When the sermon began, the visiting evangelist said he would preach on the Second Coming of our Lord. That was fine with me, familiar territory. I had a vocabulary, though limited, for believing: “One day the trumpet will sound for His coming, one day the skies with His glories will shine.”
But the preacher insisted I could not have believed it enough. He grew hoarse pressing the point. He said emphatically---there would not be another revival held at the church before the Lord returned. He said, “This is your last chance to make things right before Christ comes, again!” I was knocked off my feet. Our differences in our understandings appeared to be more severe than I had at first perceived. I walked home by myself, bewildered. It took months to get over my anxieties.
It just so happened that little church was on the same street where I delivered papers. You can imagine how pleased I was the morning I walked by and noticed a sign announcing another revival meeting!
There is always someone getting stirred up about some date or time for the hopeful return of Christ. A friend of mine says, “Why do they let their hopes get out of hand?” Exaggerated expectations have a way of making you lose any sense of anticipation or hopefulness for Christ’s long-awaited return.
I do believe Christ was born, lived, died, rose, and will come again. I like what Frederick Buechner says, “Nothing God has ever wrought in this world was ever possible.” We believe in a God who does impossible things, some of them even in our own lives.
The first Sunday of Advent is a good Sunday to look forward not simply to the day Christ was born, but also to the day He will come again. Advent is a time for us to remember the historical coming of Christ into the world, but also a time to reflect on the existential coming of Christ into our own world and our own lives. The season of Advent is a season of preparation for the eschatological coming of Christ, to end history and judge the world, as He promised long ago. Advent bears a word of hope, but also a word of warning. “He is coming to judge the quick and the dead.”
It is important to speak of this coming in clear terms. The early confessions of faith make it clear that the Apostolic church was incurably eschatological; a word we utter with reluctance. Wally Christian, retired professor of religion at Baylor, said that because it is weighted with a burden of negative associations there is a certain clumsiness in the way it rolls off the tongue. Eschatology concerns the Christian theology of “last things.” The New Testament is incurably committed to a future hope. Therein, lies our need for a theology of “last things.”
To speak of that which is “not yet,” that which eludes our grasp, we must do so with humility. A gracious modesty is required, and a lack of dogmatism is appropriate. Precisely because we cannot predict the moment, we must be ready at all moments. We must be gracious and careful but not silent. We are not allowed to say nothing at all about our future hope. Tillich pointed out that we just might need to begin with our theology of last things. If a theology of creation reveals that all things come from God, a theology of last things believes that all things return to God. It believes that history is going somewhere under the guidance of God and that where it is going is toward God’s new world of justice, healing, and hope. NT Wright, in Surprised by Hope, contends that a solid eschatology believes that God’s future for the world has already begun to come forward to meet us in the present (p.122).
Our world knows how to pervert and destroy God’s creation. It also knows how to confuse and blur the direction toward which all things are moving. The decisive word of the gospel is that life comes from God and goes back to God.
This world would have us forget that. The world into which the manger child was born had waited for God to make good on the promise of his birth. There were, then, a lot of folks who mouthed words of hope. Only a handful were really looking for him. Only a very few were ready when he came. The aged Simeon and Anna were world-weary but wise. They rejoiced when they experienced the beginning of what they would not live to see completed. John the Baptist, wide-eyed with wonder, fulfilled his calling to prepare the way of the Lord. The rest, the vast majority of folk, were like the people Isaiah described those “who walk in darkness.” Maybe Jesus spoke for them. Maybe Jesus speaks for us even now. “When these things begin to take place, stand up, and lift your heads, because redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28).
When they did not believe a child could be born, he was born. God came down to us, became one of us, and I believe he is coming again. I see no other hope, not in our inherent goodness, not in our ability to wage peace, not in the common sense of our politicians. To believe this keeps us fighting against evil in this world as well as the evil in ourselves. It calls us to stand up to injustice and unrighteousness. Here and there we catch glimpses of his remarkable presence already at work in our lives. I believe that because God is coming sooner or later, I can start living as God’s here and now.
Expect God. God’s advent is upon us, so get ready. We should make ready for his coming because we believe that history is marching inexorably towards the day which God has appointed for this world. So, here is the message. Be prepared, get ready. Do not be taken by surprise. No one likes to be jarred from sleep, awakened by surprise. We cannot control the future, or know when the end will come, so it is best to be prepared. We must live as if it can happen at any time.
Believing in the blessed return of Christ, inspires our hope. Last week in Oklahoma hundreds of students stood for Julius Jones who was scheduled for execution on Thursday afternoon when the governor commuted his sentence. They were joined by thousands of others in non-violent, direct-action protests: John Deere union workers, outside a Georgia courthouse stood for better wages and working contracts. The three who vigilante who killed Ahmaud Arbery, were found guilty of murder. Hundreds gathered to read the names of loved who they have lost to Covid. Two college young women protested at the largest port for coal.
We come from God and are going to God while living at every point in between.
I am encouraged by Abraham Joshua Heschel who said, “Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power...Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art.”
Sounds like doing hope, to me.
Christ promised to return, and the early church lived with eager anticipation. And so do we.
Therefore, let us do today what we hope for tomorrow. We do hope because of the nearness of God’s future. We pin our hope on this God who comes to us.
Prayer: Let our spirits, God, be encouraged that you are closer to us than we think! Resensitize us, we pray, until we live on tiptoe, expecting you at every moment. Amen.