The Christmas yet to come
Commentary
Advent hymns will pass without congregational comment on this day. By next Sunday liturgically sensitive pastors and music directors who try to keep the integrity of the season can anticipate the onset of the annual barrage of questions, "Why don't we sing more Christmas carols?" The readings for this day can help us lift up a major focus of Advent, the Christmas yet to come, far beyond December 25, 1993. The readings help us to focus our eyes on the far horizons of history when the God who transcends time and place will bring into being the new day of his making. Christmas past and Christmas present are but prologue to the Christmas yet to come.
The words of Third Isaiah echo the cry of the faithful in every age in a world where it seems the lions control the playing field. The epistle and gospel lessons point us to the second coming of Christ. I venture the guess that most of the folk in the pews of the mainline churches do not quite know what to make of the proclamation of a second coming. For one thing they do not quite know what to do with the picture of Jesus coming on the clouds. We have to help here by doing some digging and rediscovering for ourselves the sophisticated artistry of a biblical tradition rich in symbolism and metaphor. For another thing they are put off by latter day perversions of biblical imagery, a notable example being the tragic scenario enacted at Waco, Texas. There is an Armageddon theology abroad that assumes God will bring in a new day over a pile of corpses. There are also those who cling to an in-group and exclusionary mentality and covet the day when they will be raptured into the heavens leaving the rest of us to our fate on a doomed planet.
If we believe that Jesus of Nazareth is forever part of our understanding of God and that in his love, compassion and conscience we have a sign of the way the switches are set in history then we need to reject the bizarre nightmares of redemption through violence and exclusion.
The vision of the Christmas yet to be is nothing less than a cosmological vision of a new and reconciled humanity in all its diversity in a new heaven and a new earth. We need nothing so much as such a vision to draw us out of self-enclosed living and private fantasies. As the old spiritual puts it, "Get on board little children, get on board, this train is bound for glory."
OUTLINE I
Hoping against hope
Isaiah 64:1-9
This is a psalm of communal lamentation that begins in 63:15. It comes out of a post exilic community of prophets and Levites who were excluded from power sharing by the growing power and exclusionary dogmas of Zadokite priests who claimed to be the legitimate keepers of the temple. For helpful background see William Holladay's book, Isaiah, Scroll of a Prophetic Heritage, Pilgrim Press, 1978, pages 170 ff.
A. vv. 1-4. Here is the prayer of the powerless in all times. Those who have only God as a hope. The prophet prays for a dramatic ephiphany and intrusion by God. Don't we all sometimes in desperation or despair wish that God might do something spectacular? But, what would that accomplish in the long run?
We encounter here the silence of God in the face of human petitions. He seems to have absented himself from the scene. There is no evidence of his presence as in past days. But, is absence the same as evidence of absence?
B. vv. 5-8. The community owns its sin and accepts the consequences. Verse 8 inspired the hymn "Have Thine Own Way Lord." The community shows great restraint in the face of frustration and opposition.
C. v. 9. Though official Israel does not recognize them (63:16) they find strength to hold on in the knowledge that they are God's people. We all need the empowerment of such knowledge though the prayers here could easily slip over into an us versus them spiritual arrogance.
OUTLINE II
Tomorrow is already here
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
A. vv. 3-9. Paul's words follow the usual letter form prevalent in the Greek world. The important observation is that Paul is addressing a community. The "you" is plural. The whole community shares in the process of salvation. There is no solitary or passive reception of salvation. This is underlined in verse nine. They have been called together into fellowship with Christ.
Our Christian understanding of salvation involves the individual in community. All the images of God's new day in the New Testament are corporate. Our individual destinies are tied into the destinies of our brothers and sisters. When we join hands with them now in Christ a bit of that new day is already here.
Like all cities during the 1960s, Topeka, Kansas, had some tense moments of racial confrontation. One particular day I was particularly weighted down by the animosity and tension surfacing. As I was driving along a busy avenue I saw a little black boy and a little white girl holding hands as they crossed through the heavy traffic. In that moment I saw a sign of the future and was renewed to face the problems of the present. That is the way the vision of the end time functions in our lives. It sustains us in servanthood.
OUTLINE III
Living between beginnings
Mark 13:24-37
Mark 13 should be studied as a unit as part of sermon preparation. Mark presents this as the last discourse of Jesus with his disciples. Having tried to prepare them for his own suffering, Jesus now prepares them for their own persecution. Mark has taken some traditional Jewish apocalyptic material and adapted it through his own artistry as a word of the Risen Christ to his church. Verses 24-37 address the church after the fall of Jerusalem.
A. v. 24. This is a quotation of Isaiah 13:10. The prophet has in that chapter depicted the day of the Lord. Significantly omitted are the prophet's words about the cruel wrath and fierce anger of God. (Isaiah 13:9)
"In those days, after the suffering" refers to the days following the destruction of Jerusalem. The fall of the city had a devastating effect on Jews and Christians alike. It was a day of darkness and upheaval. The world as they had known it would not be the same for them.
B. v. 26. When Moses met God on the mountain a cloud covered him. A cloud by day accompanies the Israelites in the wilderness. On the mount of the transfiguration the disciples hear a voice from the clouds. The imagery of the clouds bears the affirmation that the day of the Lord will be consonant with the experience of the community of faith in history.
C. Who are the elect? Some special in-group? Are not the elect all to whom Jesus came and for whom he died? The emphasis here is on gathering and inclusion. This is a new beginning. There is a real sense in history of one age always passing away and another coming into being. Through it all the gospel goes on, the mission goes on, the community of faith goes on, love goes on.
D. vv. 28-29. The tender branches of the fig tree indicate that summer is near. They also indicate that the harvest is further away. The parousia is not yet. Mark subtly makes it quite clear to the church that there was no messianic significance attached to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. War has no messianic significance.
E. vv. 30-31. No creative action of God in time to come will depart in character from all that we know about him through Jesus.
Verses 24 through 31 stand between the first section of chapter 13 where Jesus tells the disciples to beware of religious fanatics and verses 32 through 37 where he tells them to keep watch and continue in their mission and ministry.
