Sunday: 1st Sunday of Advent
Reading: Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 24:36-44
Preacher: Peter C. Lane

I don't really believe in the second coming. Listen to Matthew again, "At the coming of the Son of Man, two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left." PHHHHW. I mean, people being ripped up into heaven in the end times! Jack and I paying the lunch bill at Salonica and then, whshoo, Jack's gonzo, in heaven. Jim and I working on the bulletin together in the Byllesby room, and whshoo, we're both still sitting there. I don't buy it. I mean, St. Paul and the Redeemer has been worshiping here every Sunday for 126 years and I expect it to be worshiping every Sunday for the next 126. I just don't expect Jesus to come back. I don't really believe in the second coming.
But in Advent one of the central themes is that we better be ready for the second coming. Something is coming. God has the ability and propensity to do something radically new, unexpected and undeserved. Advent is a time of waiting for that-waiting for the first coming of Jesus as a baby in Bethlehem and waiting for the second coming of Jesus in the end of time. The next three Sundays in advent will focus on that first coming of Jesus: we'll here the story of John the Baptist and talk about Joseph and Mary, but not this first week. We start off Advent and the whole new church year today by looking forward to the second coming, to when God will do something dramatic. We are told to wait expectantly, or in the words of Mathew, "Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour." Better be ready. Better wait faithfully.

Our passage falls at the end of the 24th chapter of Mathew, a chapter full of tough stuff. It is very apocalyptic-looking forward to a time when the kingdoms of this world will be overturned. It uses language which to us can seem so dire: "weeping and gnashing of teeth", "famines and earthquakes", "Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants". Is there anything to it? Is that really our hope, that the kingdoms of this world will be overturned? You know, humanity is doing a pretty good job of bringing the kingdom of God to this world. There has been incredible progress: democracy, Eli Whitney's interchangeable parts, women's suffrage, the end of apartheid, the Pure Food and Drug Act, gay ordination, eye doctors that can restore sight, plastic clergy collars that don't yellow. Amazing progress. But, we are not on an inexorable path towards perfection. Hope is still necessary. Faithful waiting is as important as ever, even in our society that doesn't like to wait.

Stepping back, I can begin to understand apocalypticism, waiting faithfully for God to change things. On Halloween Leticia Barrera, was murdered in front of her three children while trick-or-treating. Amadou Cisse was murdered on 61st street. On Oct. 17, Fifth-grader Arthur Jones was fatally shot in the neck as he headed to buy a soda. There is so much to lament, that it makes sense to hope that God will indeed break into this world in a dramatic way. Thinking about the violence of our city can make one take the apocalypticism of Matthew more seriously. When I was chaplain at University of Pennsylvania hospitals I stood and watched as doctors tried to save the lives of young men shot on the streets of Philly. And then when they couldn't, I would spend the rest of the night with their families. We need God's in breaking. I hope for Jesus' return and a new kingdom. Our world is broken. Although the universe is bent towards justice, it is groaning under the weight of sorrow. This is why we wait faithfully, hoping for a rapture, an in breaking of God's kingdom, an apocalyptic event. Isaiah, looking toward such an event, said "He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." 2700 years later we still await the arrival of such a state. And as Christians we anticipate that hope by speaking of Jesus' second coming. By allowing ourselves apocalyptic language that envisions a new heaven and earth. We must wait faithfully. We better be ready.

It's not easy to wait faithfully, to be ready. It can be painful. Allow me to close with a story about faithful waiting. I didn't know anything about waiting until two years ago. Erin was pregnant with our first child. In one pre-natal visit to the OB we unassumingly agreed to take the quad screen blood test. We thought nothing of it until our doctor called to say that our child had screened positive for the possibility of having Trisomy-18. A quick google search of trisomy-18 will expose you to the sadness of this world. Children don't live with trisomy-18. It causes major deformities that prevent most babies from even making it through the pregnancy. The day after we learned about this possibility, I found myself shutting the door of my classroom so that a student wouldn't walk in and find me sobbing in front of my computer. I am sure you other parents can understand the incredible amount of love I felt for this young, young child of mine. I didn't know I could love and hurt and desire so much. I didn't know I believed in the power of prayer so much. And I didn't know what it meant to wait faithfully until this happened. What could I do but wait? An in-depth ultrasound was scheduled for about five days later. Five days waiting, wondering if the dreams I had already dreamed about my child had any possibility of coming to fruition. Waiting is work. Waiting is expectant. Waiting is pregnant with meaning. And this faithful waiting has hope for the future and at the same time the realization of potential catastrophe. When my beautiful son Simon comes up to receive the broken bread and wine you will see that he did not actually have Trisomy-18. It was a false positive. I am so thankful for his life. I am also thankful for the opportunity I had to learn what real waiting is like-how hard it is to wait faithfully. It's not just passing time. It's a realism tempered with expectations of greatness. Isn't that what Mathew's apocalypticism is about?
We have become numb to the terrible diagnosis of our world-Chicago averages over a murder a day-we must recover a sense of faithful waiting this advent season. Let's not just pass time, but really wait. Faithfully wait. You know, something is coming. We may not always know what it is, who it is or when it will be, but something is coming. God has the ability and propensity to do something radically new, unexpected and undeserved. Jesus might just return and end the sadness. You better be ready.