Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent

Texts:
Jeremiah 33:14-16;
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13;
Luke 21:25-36.

Twenty years ago this month an undersea earthquake caused a tsunami event in the Indian Ocean. Fifteen countries were devastated by the tidal waves. Nearly a quarter of a million people died. Among those who experienced the greatest loss of life was Indonesia.

A childhood friend of mine was in Indonesia then sailing on a boat with friends. That morning several of them took their dinghy to the shore to do some shopping in the market. On their return to the beach they saw people running down to see something at the water’s edge.

A series of waves was moving in and out. Between them the tideline was abnormally low. My friend and a companion were heading to the dinghy. But they didn’t make it. The next wave caught them up and began to carry them out.

People were not prepared that day. The earthquake that set off the tsunami was far out, deep under the sea. There was no advanced tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean. Where there were functioning warning sirens, people went toward the water hoping to see something interesting. The area of Sumatra that was hardest hit had never experienced a tsunami before.

The scale of damage was apocalyptic and catastrophic. This story comes to mind today as we might imagine the events described in Luke’s gospel. How can you even prepare for such things?

It’s not uncommon for these words of Jesus to be arranged into checklist and disseminated as a survival guide for the faithful. Know these signs and succeed in the rapture! But was that what Jesus intended?

In a word, no. Jesus was teaching in Jerusalem. We don’t actually know how long he was there. It could have been several weeks. It could have been several months. Luke’s gospel places these teachings near the end of Jesus’s life. An intense time.

The content of his teaching was biblically rich and familiar to his listeners. Jesus drew from Joel, Isaiah, Psalms, Wisdom, Zephaniah, and Daniel. These books record Israel’s history and document its existence. And humankind’s history also. Wars, famines, ecological upheavals, tectonic forces and ruptures in the earth, explosive winds and rains, strange astronomical events.

Jesus accurately described how people have long responded to apocalypse and catastrophe. Because such things have happened before, many times. And they will keep happening.

Luke’s gospel was written after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. So the people would have recognized the emotional weight of such a moment. Fainting, fear, and foreboding.

Yet, disruptive events have as much capacity to be positive as negative. Apocalypse means something revealed, a discovery, or a disclosure.  Catastrophe means an event that overthrows the order of things.

There’s no secret information that will be disclosed only to insiders. Only the good news that God is with us. The Son of Man is coming with power and great glory! This is encouragement, not fear-mongering.

Jeremiah brought hope too. He lived in an awful time. Even so he confidently announced God’s coming agent of deliverance. The land and the people would be restored to live in a proper relationship of trust in God’s righteousness rather than human righteousness.

Paul’s message invokes the strength of the community in waiting. We deepen and thrive through prayer, mentoring one another in faith, friendship, appreciation and affirmation, and holy acts of care and compassion. This is the baptismal charge, essentially.

Even so, in this gospel passage Jesus does not give instructions on how to watch. It seems that watching or expectation, is itself an act of faithfulness. It’s just that life’s distractions and worries may keep us from seeing God’s glory.

Which seems to prefigure what happened at the empty tomb. Some could not see the risen Christ standing before them. Others could not hear the voice of Jesus speaking to them.

But, I know you can do this, said Jesus. What’s on the way toward us is no more hidden than the coming of summer when trees begin to leaf out. Just stay focused. It will be all right.

My friend who was caught up in the tsunami in Sumatra lost sight of her friend. Alone in the water, she saw a low green hill along the shoreline. She began to swim keeping her body heading toward the hill.

My friend did not waste her energy fighting the water’s pull. She let it carry her along. Back and forth the tsunami waves washed her. Steadily on she swam until she reached the hill, climbed high enough to be safe and found other people waiting there.

And you could say that there was no sight more glorious than that hill, on that day. Which is more or less our faith lesson today. That we can live through apocalypse and catastrophe and rise up after it. And finding company along the way just makes everything better.

Amen.