In June of 1955, my mother was nine months and one week pregnant, living in Biloxi Mississippi in a 23 ft. trailer with my Air Force dad and a one-year-old daughter, in 95 degree, muggy—sweat like a pig day and night heat. She was miserable. Dad suggested they go to the movies, the only air-conditioned place in town. So they went. But my mother was still miserable. Not because she was suffocatingly hot, but because the Church had taught her that movie-going was absolutely forbidden, and she was afraid that Jesus would come again in glory to find her chillin’ at the movies.
Today we enter the season of Advent. In this the craziest, busiest time of the calendar year, the Church year starts over with this as the first Sunday in the new year. And it begins with an invitation to slow down and reflect on our lives. The pious language is that we are preparing our hearts as spacious mangers for Jesus to be born into. We’re opening ourselves to the miracle and mystery of Christmas. And every year in Advent, a whole bunch of new Christmas movies appear, many of which have the same plot—everybody comes home for Christmas, the family is a mess, siblings are nursing lifelong grudges and jealousies, uncle Joe drinks too much (again), mom is scurrying around trying to calm the ruffled feathers, and just when it seems like everything is going to implode, something tender happens—carolers sing outside in the gentle snowfall, a lost puppy dog is heard crying in the cold, a homeless pregnant mother knocks on the door—and somebody inside this mess of a family opens that door, and suddenly all the closed hearts are open, and warm, and forgiving.
But there is this other side of Advent—not the getting ready for the sweet baby Jesus who slips into the world like a whisper and lies asleep on the hay. But getting ready for this other Jesus who will come again unannounced, unexpected, like the master who returns from a trip to find the servants playing poker when they should be slopping the pigs. And we get these kind of texts like we have in Mark, where Jesus speaks of the world ending with signs and omens, and going dark before he returns in glory to judge the living and the dead. It was this idea that made my mother miserable in the movie theater.
Jesus’ words in Mark 13 are a form of apocalyptic literature which developed in the Jewish tradition in response to their repeated persecution at the hands of foreign nations. It envisions a time in human history when cataclysmic evil is destroying their world, and they are powerless to stop it, so God comes to rescue the righteous and annihilate the wicked. There are bunches of apocalyptic American movies that seem to capture this side of Advent—the world is on fire, being consumed by the bad guys, but then the good guys show up with bigger weapons, and bigger muscles, with immense passion and the power to overcome evil with good. I guess it is no surprise that these are not the movies promoted during these weeks of Advent to ready us for Christmas!
Earlier this week Richard asked what text I would be preaching on, and when I told him he said, “uck, I hate all that stuff about staying awake and making sure we are ready for Jesus’ return.” I hate it too. Because these texts have been misunderstood. They have been read literally and for generations leaders have emerged, false prophets, false saviors, reading the signs of the times and predicting the end of the world on some particular. And they gather followers who hunker down to prepare for that day and who drink the koolaid to save themselves from the suffering that will come with the apocalyptic end of the world.
If Jesus’ words are interpreted apart from the context in which they are spoken, then we misunderstand. When Jesus says to his disciples, “Keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly,” Jesus is not referring to something that will happen far away in the future. He is talking about things that will start happening just two days away.
In the evening two days hence, Jesus will share his last Passover supper with the disciples. He will bless and break the bread and give it to them saying, “take, eat, this is my body. He will bless and lift the cup and give it to them saying, “this is the covenant of my blood, poured out for many.” At midnight, Jesus will go to the garden of Gethsemane, taking Peter, James and John with him to keep awake while he prays for God to spare his life. But they sleep, unaware of his agony. At midnight, Judas will greet Jesus with the kiss of betrayal and deliver him into the hands of his accusers who grill him through the night. When the cock crows the world awake, Peter will deny that he knows Jesus. And with the dawn, Jesus will be handed over to Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor for execution. Although innocent of all the charges against him, Jesus will go to his death willingly. He won’t speak in his defense. He won’t resist the torture. He won’t fight back against the “bad guys” in any way, except in the way of love and peace.
All of this is part of the apocalyptic ending of Jesus ‘story. All of this is what Jesus asks his disciples to keep awake for. All of this is what Jesus wants his followers to see and to imitate in their own lives. So although Jesus speaks using traditional Jewish apocalyptic language which imagines a time when God will come with annihilating power to wipe out the bad guys and destroy the destructive world they have created, it isn’t what Jesus does, it isn’t what he shows us. With his actions at the end, Jesus subverts the apocalyptic myth of a violent God who repays evil with evil. With his nonviolent response to the unjust, oppressive, death-dealing powers of the religious establishment and the Roman Empire, Jesus shows us and opens for us another way to live in the world—a way that is grounded in and grows from the unending life and love of God. Death and hate cannot destroy this life and love. The apocalyptic ending of this story, the great return of Jesus is resurrection.
In Bible study, moved by the image of the fig tree putting forth its tender leaves, Theron said, “we are living in tense and tender times. People are scared. People need hope.” And we are the generation that has not yet passed away. We are the generation which is now alive and hearing and seeing everything that Jesus says and does and promises. We are awake to his coming. And Jesus comes to us in the hungry, the naked, the refugee, the undocumented immigrant, the one imprisoned, the one dis-eased, the homeless man named Anthony whose life was taken from him last Wednesday. In all of these Jesus is present. And I know too that he was present with my mother in that movie theater in Biloxi, and when she birthed my sister Kimberly, and when my sister died in the season of Advent forty-five years ago.
Now is the time of our re-creation, our resurrection, our re-birth, our awakening, our deeper integration into the life and love of God. Jesus is present in us and with us and he comes to us with joy and invites us to share in his love feast. Receive with joy. Keep awake to the miracle and mystery of God’s presence grounding you and holding you in unending life and love. You are a visible sign, you are an instrument of divine love and hope in these tense and tender times.