Kahu's Manao

Keawala‘i Congregational Church
United Church of Christ (USA)

First Sunday of Advent
Sunday, November 29, 2009

The Rev. Kealahou C. Alika

“Signs of Things to Come”
Jeremiah 33:14-16 & Luke 21:25-36

It is no surprise to any of us that Christmas decorations could be seen and Christmas carols heard in stores and shopping malls just after Halloween. Parents and grandparents began stocking up on the perfect Christmas gifts months before the crush of Black Friday. Christmas movies are now in reruns on television.

Christmas concerts and Christmas plays too numerous to mention are scheduled over the next few weeks in local theaters, churches, and schools. While some of us may lament the commercial aspects of this holiday season, we would probably all be disappointed and dismayed by our reading this morning from The Gospel According to Luke.

Today is the First Sunday in Advent. It may seem odd to begin this season with images of nature in turmoil and humanity being on alert. One could probably make the case that Luke is providing us with a glimpse of the upcoming summit in Copenhagen on climate change and global warming.

It is not hard for us living on an island to imagine the “distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves” as sea levels rise. Island nations see the change. The changes are real, not imagined.

“Ah! Could it be, we wonder, that the end is near; that Jesus will come again?”

We know Luke was not in the business of predicting climate change and global warming. But what are we to make of his account of Jesus’ speech from the temple in Jerusalem?

There is no shortage of folks who would have us believe that the end is really near this time. The signs of things to come are all around us.

The Rev. Kathy Beach-Verhey, Co-Pastor of Faison Presbyterian Church in Faison, North Carolina noted that “Jesus’ speech from the temple in Jerusalem is full of frightening images, confusing metaphors, and shocking admonitions. We do not encounter the sweet baby Jesus people wait for during Advent this First Sunday, but the stern, adult Jesus, picturing the whole universe being shaken and turned upside down.” (Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration, Bartlett & Taylor, Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky, 2009, page 21)

Many of us would rather to get on to Christmas. But the season of Advent will not have us be so quick to join the countdown of how many shopping days remain until Christmas day or how often we get to sing our favorite Christmas carols from now until then.

Whatever may be said about stores and shopping malls, television and radio, theater and yes, even church, our reading from Luke sets a very different tone. Advent means “coming” or “arrival.”

What becomes evident then is not whether or not the world is coming to an end but that Advent “involves two comings (or arrivals): God coming to earth in the infant Jesus whom we await at Christmas, and Christ returning to earth at a time we do not know.” (Op. cit., page 23)

So Advent is a time of “keeping alert, constantly preparing, and continuing to put our hope in our loving God, who comes to us in Jesus Christ.” (Ibid.)

Although the images are frightening, the metaphors confusing, the admonitions shocking the reading does not offer fear and dread but hope and expectation. “God in Christ is coming because God loves us – because God wants to redeem us.” (Luke 21:28)

In the midst of what appears to be certain doom, Jesus calls on those who were with him long ago as he now calls on us today to “stand up and raise (our) heads, because (our) redemption is drawing near.” (Ibid.) Many in Luke’s day lived on the edges of society. Their world was filled with disease and poverty, drought and famine, despair and war. Such conditions fill our world even now.

But for many of us our struggles are closer to home. We struggle with “greed, addiction, mental illnesses and misplaced priorities.” (Ibid.) We struggle with losses we have experienced in our own lives through death, divorce, incarceration or family relocation. We wonder if our lives have any meaning or value.

Yet we are not dismayed or struck down. We are called to be alert and to pray at all times even as the early disciples were called by Jesus to be alert and to pray. By doing so we celebrate as they did that Christ is coming and that his coming means we can hope for something new not only in our lives but in our world.

In the same way that the leaves on the fig tree offer hope in late winter that summer is coming so it is that God’s word, in Jesus promises us new life despite all that may be troubling us. The word today is not that the world is coming to an end but that in the coming of Jesus Christ – the little baby born in a manger and the crucified and risen Lord – there is the promise of a new beginning.

Mahalo ke Akua!

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