When is the last time you were surprised? I mean really, truly surprised? The last time I was surprised came one morning several months ago when Misty asked me, “When are you going to seminary?” This was before we had even talked about the possibility, but that’s a story for another day. Other than that I don’t remember the last time I was truly surprised by something. I even looked back at old blog and journal entries. The only mention of surprise I saw was one morning I was surprised to learn that I forgot to carry my deodorant on a trip to Memphis.
Surprises seem to come less often and with more difficulty these days. Maybe if someone throws a surprise party for you, but even those are hard to pull off without letting the cat out of the bag.
I think we’re so hard to surprise because we’ve seen so much. Earthquakes, child abuse, tsunamis, planes crashing into buildings, war, people stealing from charities. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’ve been desensitized to shock. I’m a little scared of what it would take to really shock and surprise me. Besides forgetting my deodorant, of course.
There are even those who feel like the end of the world won’t be a surprise. For years, maybe centuries, people have tried to predict the end of the world, or the Rapture, or Jesus Second Coming or the Parousia or whatever you want to call it.
Hal Lindsey predicted that the 1980’s would mark the end of the world, and then he changed that to say that Christians shouldn’t plan on being around for the year 2000. Harold Camping predicted the Rapture would take place in May, then changed his mind and said October. A decade ago, we were worried about Y2K. Some think that December 21, 2012 will mark the end of the world. If you watch Discovery or the History channel very often you can see hour upon hour of TV dedicated to prophecies by Nostradamus or hidden in the Bible or from some ancient alien artifact, all predicting the end of the world. All of these things attempt to take the surprise out of something that will be a surprise, but not surprising. Does that sound confusing?
Let me see if our Gospel reading can clear it up a little.
Maybe it makes things as clear as mud…
What if we back up a little and look at the context?
Jesus is talking to his disciples. They visit the Temple and as they are leaving one of the Disciples is admiring the building. “Wow, look at the stones. What great buildings!” Jesus responds by telling them the Temple will be destroyed. Then they ask him, when? Jesus then tells then to watch out don’t be led astray. There will be wars and rumors of war. Earthquakes, famine. He tells them to expect to be tortured and to be asked to defend their faith. Brother will betray brother, children against parents. But the one who endures will be saved. When the desolating sacrilege is set up, flee to the mountains because there will be suffering. Worse suffering than has been seen before or since. He tells them to watch out for false teachers, false prophets, and false messiahs. Mostly he tells them, Be alert!
Then comes our passage. Jesus uses imagery found in Daniel, Isaiah, Joel, and Ezekiel to describe an apocalyptic scenario that will mark Jesus’ return, of course, at this point, he hasn’t gone anywhere.
Again, he tells them, beware. Be alert. Keep awake. Because you don’t know when it’s going to happen.
It’s an odd passage for today, really. I preach from the Lectionary. That is a list of scriptures that rotate on a 3 year cycle. Today is the first Sunday in Advent. This is the Gospel reading for the first Sunday in Advent, a season that is a time of expectation and waiting for the coming celebration of Christmas. It is a season that leads us to the birth of Jesus, the incarnation. Incarnation is a big churchy word that means, God became flesh, in other words, Jesus. So this passage seems odd as we prepare for the celebration of Jesus’ birth. But in celebrating Jesus’ birth, we also celebrate and prepare for Jesus’ return.
Advent is characterized by the paradox of “already/not yet.” Jesus has already come, but he has not yet returned. Jesus already established the means for us to enter into a relationship with God, but we do not yet live in full communion with God. Jesus already made the reign of God evident, but it is not yet fully established. So we are sort of stuck in the middle, waiting, and there is danger in the waiting.
Waiting can seem boring, passive. It’s easy to lose our alertness, to fall asleep. Which leads me back to surprise. I said earlier that Jesus talks about something that will be a surprise, but not surprising. And that is the second coming. It will be a surprise because no matter how many people or TV shows try to tell us they know when it’s going to happen, they don’t. At least not according to Jesus. He says he doesn’t even know when it will happen. If Jesus doesn’t know how can Nostradamus or Harold Camping or the Mayans know?
So the timing will be a surprise, but the fact that Jesus comes back will not be a surprise. Not to his disciples. Not to his followers. Because we are told to expect his return. We are told not only to expect it, but to be ready, to be alert, to keep awake.
As I thought about surprise and sleep vs. awake, I thought about that horrible feeling of just dosing off and someone calls your name. It scares you to death! Or falling asleep in class, or in church, and you dream you’re falling and wake up with that feeling of horror. I guess that’s the opposite of staying alert. That’s what happens to the servants in the parable Jesus tells. That’s what happens later to the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, they just can’t stay awake.
So what does it mean for us to stay awake, to keep alert?
I don’t think it means that we should watch for the sun to turn dark or for the stars to begin falling. I don’t think Jesus is speaking literally there. It’s likely that Mark used this sermon from Jesus to speak to his readers about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. This sermon is an example of apocalyptic literature. It is characterized by two ages, the present evil age and the age to come and that is the focus here. The present is broken. For Jesus, and the readers of Mark’s Gospel, it was broken because of the rule of the Roman Empire. They were harsh rulers and eventually destroyed most of Jerusalem including the Temple. For us, well, we live in a broken world filled with deadly natural disasters, murder and crime, abused children, persecution of people based on simple differences.
But Jesus tells us of the age to come. The time when this world will pass and there will be a new heaven and a new earth.
So how can we keep awake in the meantime? How can we keep alert as we wait?
As we experience Advent I think we can ask ourselves, where will we look for God? Because this time of year can be one long distraction.
Did any of you go out early Friday for Black Friday shopping? How’s that for a distraction? People fighting over sheets in Walmart. I didn’t hear of one this year, but it seems that someone has been killed the past few years getting trampled trying to buy a cheap TV. I did read of police having to use a tazer on a man in the Florence Walmart because he became so unruly. All of this in the name of Christmas. I think maybe some people have lost their focus. Maybe they’ve fallen asleep in a way. But speaking of being awake and keeping alert, people wait hours and stay up all night in the name of a bargain. Which leads me to wonder if we are being alert to the wrong things?
But even beyond the retail distractions, we can lose our focus from the sheer busyness of life. This week, my dad went into the hospital, Misty started a new job that keeps her away from home for 14 or 15 hours on the days she works, I had to work, the kids were out of school. It’s easy to lose our focus. It became very easy for me to forget to look for God.
I think that is how we can stay awake and alert this Advent season. To keep our focus on God. To look for God at every turn. To try our best to keep life from pushing our focus elsewhere. To remember that Jesus came, Jesus is here, and Jesus will come again.
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