Waiting for Jesus

Preached at 10am Eucharist at St Michael’s Church, Handsworth, Diocese of Birmingham on 30th November 2008
Advent Sunday, Year B.

Readings Isaiah 64: 1-9 1 Corinthians 1: 3-9 Mark 13: 24-end


Today is Advent Sunday, and it is the start of a new year in the life of the Church. So Happy New Year! Each year the Church starts its new year on Advent Sunday, four Sundays before Christmas, and this period from today up until Christmas Eve, we call Advent. Advent is all about waiting for Jesus. It is about preparing for the coming of Jesus. And there are two different ways in which we are preparing for the coming of Jesus.
On the one hand we are preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus; we are preparing for Christmas. In our families, we start doing our Christmas shopping and we start preparing our Christmas dinners. In the Church we remember people like John the Baptist and Mary, who have important roles to play just before Jesus bursts onto the scene.
But preparing for the coming of the baby Jesus at Christmastime is only one half of what Advent is all about, and we tend to do that more in the second half of Advent. In first half of Advent we are still thinking about the coming of Jesus, but we are thinking much more about the second coming of Jesus, that we read about today in Mark’s gospel. In Mark’s gospel Jesus warns us that his second coming will be preceded by earthquakes and famines and wars. In those days there will be suffering such as has never been seen since the world was created. The after the great suffering the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory, and he will send his angels to gather his elect from the four corners of the world.
Now in Mark’s gospel, the prophecies about the second coming of Christ are very closely woven in with prophecies about another important event. This section of Mark’s gospel starts at the beginning of chapter 13 with the disciples admiring the great temple buildings. Jesus tells them that the wonderful buildings will be completely torn down, with not one stone left upon another. This is a prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman army, which took place in the year 70 AD. The destruction of the temple and the expelling of the Jews from the Jerusalem was like an end of the world experience for the Jews. It is quite hard to unpick what Jesus is saying about the destruction of the temple from what he is saying about the return of the Son of Man at the end of time. When he says, “I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place,” he is presumably talking about the destruction of the temple. When he says, “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father,” he is presumably talking about the second coming.
At first sight it might seem difficult and confusing that these two prophecies are closely bound together and hard to separate apart, but I suspect that this is quite deliberate on God’s part. For God, who stands outside of time, it may well be that the two events are very closely related; two parts of the same process. Also it serves to emphasis the main point that Jesus is making; that we need to keep awake and alert because the second coming of Christ could be at any moment. Even though 2000 years have gone by, we still need to keep awake and expect the second coming of Christ at any moment.
As I read our readings for today, two points in particular stood out for me. Isaiah says, “because you hid yourself, we transgressed,” (v5). He also says, “you have hidden your face from us and delivered us into the hand of our iniquity,” (v7). This does seem to describe the situation of our western world today. God appears to be absent. God is not talked about very much by our politicians or civil servants or business leaders. News broadcasts seldom consider stories from a religious perspective. Our society seems to become more and more selfish and individualistic. We all find it harder and harder to find our right place in society, to become the people God created us to be, and the church seems to struggle. And when we look to other places, to China and Asia and Africa it seems different. Despite many terrible sufferings and difficulties, God seems more present and the church seems to grow. And so it seems to me particularly important that in the western world we redouble our efforts to stay awake and be ready for the second coming of Christ, which we know will come suddenly, when it is least expected.
And the other point that stood out for me as I read our scripture readings was the word “waiting”, “waiting on Jesus”. In the Isaiah reading we are told that God works for those who wait on him (v4). Paul describes the church in Corinth as waiting for the revealing of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the gospel Jesus says that we are like slaves put in charge of a house when the master is away. We must stay awake and await his return because we do not know when it will be.
Waiting on Jesus. This is a theme of Advent. Of course we find waiting very hard. It requires patience and faithfulness, and trust that Jesus really will return. But this is the challenge of Advent. And notice that waiting on Jesus is very similar to being a servant of Jesus. To “waits at table” and to “serve at table” is the same thing. Certainly servants spend a lot of time waiting for their masters.
So this Advent we continue to wait expectantly for the coming of Christ. We have be waiting for this for 2000 years, but we continue to wait, because this is part of our service to Jesus. And what is the best way of waiting on Jesus, of serving Jesus? Well I think there was a very good answer in the gospel reading that we read last week. Jesus said, “what ever you do to the least of these brothers of mine, you did to me.” This means that we can wait on Jesus, we can serve Jesus, by serving on him present in other people. If we take good care of the people around us, if we do our part to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, take care of the sick, then we are serving Jesus, we are waiting on Jesus. And it seems to me that this is the best preparation we can make for the second coming of Christ. If when the master returns he find his servants busy loving and serving him present in the people around them, then surely he will know that his servants are faithful and true, and surely this will be well rewarded.