Sermon For December 3, 2000
First Sunday of Advent
CHRISTIAN GOSPEL: Redemption is Drawing Near ~ Luke 21:25-36
SERMON: Well, It's About Time!
The Gospel of Luke was written at a time of trial for the early followers of Jesus, much like the Gospel of John, another thirty of forty years later. When you are in a time of crisis, when it looks as if the whole world is tumbling down, the words that you turn to are words of encouragement, words of inspiration, words that remind you that there is reason to hope, that there is light somewhere ahead. So Luke records these words of Jesus. In the context of the Gospel, Jesus is speaking shortly before holy week, before his time of arrest and trial and death on the cross. He speaks these words to encourage the disciples. He says, "There will be a very difficult time coming, but stand strong because already you can see the promise of what lies beyond." When I read that passage earlier in the week, I thought about one of the themes near the end of Fiddler orb the Roof. The traditions of the Jews of Central Europe had been challenged again and again, as the children grew up. You remember, in the story the daughters fell in love. They pushed the boundaries of tradition always. Now, near the end, the Russians are driving the Jews from their home, the place where they had lived for many years. One of them spoke up and said, "Wouldn't this be a good time for the Messiah to come. How much worse could anything get?" We have been waiting for so many years." The rabbi said, "Well, we are going to have to wait for the Messiah somewhere else." The waiting continued, the anticipation that somehow there would be an end to the time of suffering, an end to the trials and difficulties.
We can find these words of end times in a variety of places in the Bible. We know that people, in times of crisis, can turn to those words and find encouragement and help. But there are a variety of ways of looking at time that we find in the Bible. Some of them have to do with the cycle of the seasons. Spring, summer, fall, winter. With the planting: seeds going into the ground sprouting, bearing fruit, and dieing again for rebirth in the springtime.
There are other ways of looking at life. A favorite way of looking at time is as a sequence from beginning to end. Chronology, the clock, hour by hour, day by day. The scriptures call us to look at life in a special way called Kairos. Kairos is a breaking in, a revelation, a newness that comes to us unexpectedly, often unrequested, that breaks into our daily sense of time and reveals something special to us. We often think about the Christian faith as being linear time. We live our lives, we try and do the best we can, will die and go through some kind of judgment and be accorded our reward based on what our life has been like. Then, that time of reward will just continue on forever with no clock ticking.
My experience of the Christina faith has been much more a Kairos experience. The word that I have often used is "glimpses." I experience bursts of God, a little bit over here in this event and a little bit over there at that event. It is those memories of "glimpses" that encourage me to continue on as I look forward in hope to the time when all of those glimpses will come together into a fullness of God's presence.
Have you ever been speaking with a friend and gotten past the busy talk and past the practical nature of your friendship and reached a point where you felt a deep bond? Where who that person is and who you are kind of drops away and you felt a unity? I remember when each of our children got the idea of what reading was all about. They moved from the point of trying to sound out those letters, put those letters together to make a word, to the point of reading words that I had no reason to expect that they would know how to read at that young age. I'm sitting in the chair with a little one on my lap and all of a sudden they are reading these words. It was a time, for me, of great excitement to see that there was something that clicked, that fit. Yesterday, at the dinner. We were visiting with the Orthodox Priest and his wife, and Father Tim said that he remembers being in school and studying math and science and one day, near the end of his college years, all of a sudden it all fit together. He understood that he wasn't just studying these subjects to pass a test and get a grade, but they helped to explain things to him. He understood how things were connected together and where math came from, how biology worked.
We have those experiences in our life as Kairos experiences, those glimpses. Those glimpses encourage us so that when we go through difficult times we can say, "I know what is yet to come, because I've experienced it before." I've experienced it here, and here, and here. In nature and in worship. With friends and with family. In unexpected moments when my heart has been so full of love and I have felt that I am at one with everything.
The fears of the world crumbling in are fears that all of us carry in one way or another. We are afraid we are going to lose our health, or our love or our job, our home. But the glimpses of God's reign, our God's advent, God coming into our lives, those bits and pieces that come when we light a candle and we sing a song, give us an idea of how wonderful it will be when the fullness of God is upon us and our world. That is the day that we pray for. That is the day that we sing for. That is the day that we work for. May God's spirit be with us all. Amen.