PAST SERMONS
Sermon of November 28, 2010 by The Rev. Rosalee Glass
First Sunday of Advent, November 28, 2010
St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church
Camden, Maine
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Sermon by The Rev. Rosalee Glass
Romans 13:11-14
Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Matthew 24:36-44
“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
There is no doubt that the two centuries before and after Jesus were times of apocalyptic expectation in Judea. Terrible conditions for most of the population abounded, and the only hope was that God would bring divine justice to set things right, putting an end to the Roman oppression, punishing the corrupt Judean collaborators, and saving the righteous.
The reading from Matthew’s Gospel today reflects this hope and expectation. It is a part of Jesus’ discourse to his disciples telling them to be ready for his second coming and describing the strange apocalyptic events that will take place at that time. The Gospels of Mark and Luke have similar prophecies.
Biblical scholars and theologians have differing opinions about what is meant by these cataclysmic prophecies. For instance, some think they refer to a time now past, the horror-filled war with Rome. It was during that war that Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed, in the year 70 A.D. To get an idea of how terrible a period that was in Judea and Galilee, if we have a strong stomach, we might read the grisly description of it written by the first century historian Josephus.
On the other hand, there are those who believe that the prophecies are yet to be fulfilled. And in our day we have tremendous speculation in the popular media about the imminent arrival of end times. The chronological order of the events leading up to the end may vary, but usually include final divine judgment of humanity, the rapture or taking up into heaven of God’s faithful, the destruction and tribulation for those not saved in the rapture, and the second coming of Christ.
Films, books, and internet websites on this topic of end times are popular, including the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye. When we Google the word “tribulation,” “rapture,” or “apocalypse,” on the Internet, we are amazed at the number of entries and the extent of people’s fascination with the prophecies about end times. One of the prophecies about end times that most catches peoples’ imaginations is about the “rapture” or the taking up to heaven of God’s faithful. This is mentioned in today’s Gospel, where one person is taken and another is left.
On one website, called “Rapture Ready,” which bills itself as a “Rapture resource for the end times,” you can read articles about the Antichrist, see the latest index for when to expect the rapture based on the increasing tribulation in the world. Or, you can check out “The Prophetic Top Ten,” which lists ten recent world crises that signal the imminence of the Rapture.
I don’t mean to dismiss this topic as silly or irrelevant. After all, we do live in a time when means of the world’s destruction—-nuclear proliferation and environmental degradation—-are presently clearly at hand. But it seems to me that we may obsess too much about figuring out when an impending apocalyptic crisis will happen and too little about what it means for us to be spiritually “ready” for whatever may occur in life.
St. Paul says that Christ’s return is near, but his letters focus much more on the need for spiritual readiness. And Jesus, in urging readiness, said in our Gospel reading today that only God the Father will know the time when a cataclysmic end will come. So what purpose can be served by our worrying and second-guessing God in these matters? The important question for us is what readiness is and how to prepare.
Today’s exhortations from Scripture about readiness for Christ’s reappearance remind us that today we begin the season of Advent in our Church year. It’s the season of preparation for Christmas, when we celebrate Christ’s first coming into the world. Our hymns and prayers urge us to be ready and prepare ourselves once again to receive him in our hearts.
St. Paul, in today’s passage from his Letter to the Romans, calls us to prepare ourselves by putting on the “armor of light.” He goes on to tell us what this “armor of light” is: it to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” In doing that, we have the protective armor to resist the works of darkness and worldly concerns, and we are permeated through and through with the light of love and grace that Jesus had. As the poet Thomas Campion says:
Might thy grace in me but shine,
I should seem made all of light.
Having within us and radiating out to others the light of Christ is the only spiritual readiness we need to prepare for Christmas, for the second coming of Christ, or for anything whatever. The light we need, the light the world needs, the light God hopes for in us, is the light of God’s love that Jesus modeled for us when gave himself up freely for others; when he spoke truth; when he transformed lives through care and healing. This is the light and hope we pray for during this Advent season.
It is a season when, in the weeks to come, darkness rather than light is increasing. Yet, while the external darkness increases until the winter Solstice on December 21st, all the while, during the weeks of Advent, we are called to do what we can to strengthen the internal light of Christ within us. In prayer, quiet meditation, and in everything we do, we may ask to be more and more open to God’s grace, day by day and week by week.
We will be reminded of this increase in spiritual light as we follow the ritual lighting of another candle in the Advent wreath each Sunday. And, as we increase the light on our Advent wreath, we should have a light meter on our souls to monitor whether our inner light is also increasing. We hope and pray that it is; because, if the light of Christ is bright within us and around us when we arrive at Christmas, how much greater will be our communion and holy harmony with the radiant Christ child, the one who is “God from God” and “Light from Light.” AMEN