The Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson, Easter Sunday 2012
A boy was promised a watch if he would be on time for school and church for a given length of time. Upon completion, the boy wanted his watch. With money tight, his parents said it would take a while to purchase the watch. Each day, the boy asked about his reward, until finally the father told the boy that if he mentioned the watch another time, he wouldn’t get one.
Each night before supper, the family repeated a Bible verse before asking the blessing. When it came the boy’s turn to select the verse, he chose Mark 13:37 – “And what I say unto you, I say unto all – watch.”
That’s the message of today’s Gospel on this first Sunday in Advent. “Watch at all times,” is what our Lord tells his disciples. One of the major doctrines of the Church from the very beginning is that our Lord Jesus, who ascended into heaven, will return to judge the living and the dead. We say it every time we say both the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. In our Rite II liturgies we proclaim during this season in the Eucharistic Prayer, “We await his coming in glory.”
Knowing that this would be the theme for the Gospel today, when I was at a dinner party the other night I asked those around the table if they ever thought about the return of Jesus. One person said, “Don’t you think that there are signs that he is coming soon?” Another person said, “People have thought that in every generation throughout history.” Those two comments pretty much cover the waterfront concerning what people think about the second coming in our day.
If you had been at a dinner party during the first few decades of the Church’s existence, however, the answers would have all been the same. “Jesus can come any moment and we expect him to come before we die.” In fact, in today’s Gospel Jesus’ words at face value seem to say just that. “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all has taken place.”
One of the big concerns at the church in Thessalonica was that some indeed had died and there was a fear that the dead would not be taken up with Jesus, but only the living. St. Paul dealt with that concern in his first letter to the Thessalonians. This is what he said to them: “For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep.… The dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”
Eventually it began to dawn on the Church that it wasn’t likely that Jesus would return as soon as everyone had expected, but can you imagine what it must have been like in those first few decades when everyone was sure that Jesus could return at any moment? There was a sense of urgency that the Gospel must be proclaimed to as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Christians would have been more concerned about making sure that they were living morally upright lives, and when they did sin, which people have always had a tendency to do, there would have been more of an urgency to repent. The poor, because they were of special concern to Jesus, would have been provided for.
We normally think of the season of Advent as a time to prepare for the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ at Christmas. It is that indeed, but that is only half of the picture. Advent is a time when we emphasize being prepared for the coming of the Lord at the end of time, when he shall judge the living and the dead. The idea is that we are best prepared to celebrate Christmas by preparing to receive him when he comes again in power and great glory.
I have something to tell you. We are in the generation when Jesus will come again, but that generation is now 2000 years old and it may last another day or another thousand or 2000 or 10,000 years. What we Christians believe and hope for is that history will have an end and that end will be ushered in by the return of Christ. The theologian Carl Rahner said, “Within ourselves we ought to feel something living: the calm and modest joy of faithful hope which does not think that the graspable visible present is all that there is. That quiet joy is what a prisoner feels when he is still in his cell but is about to stand up, for he knows that the lock hangs loose at his cell door and that his freedom is certain.”
Let this Advent truly be a time of preparation for the coming of Christ. Regain a sense of urgency about your faith, pray more often, read your Bibles daily, find ways to share your faith with others, remember the poor. Make this season of Advent more than just a pre-extension of Christmas, but a time of repentance and preparation. “What I say unto you I say unto all – watch.”
Sermon preached by The Very Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
First Sunday in Advent
29 November 2015