Matthew 24: 36-44
Dec. 1, 2019
Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS
Name. That. Tune.
“That's great, it starts with an earthquake
Birds, snakes, and aeroplanes
Lenny Bruce is not afraid…”
“It’s the End of the World as We Know It” by R.E.M. over 30 years old now, but every time I hear it I still feel like jumping up and dancing. I have to confess...aside from the chorus, those opening three lines are all I know. For the rest of it, I just mumble along joyfully.
R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe, who helped write the song, says it’s basically just stream of consciousness lyrics. [1] I read an interview with members of the band who said they’ve always found it a little funny that a song about destruction and the end of the world could make people yell out joyfully and jump up to dance at their concerts.
The surprise that R.E.M. feels over the joyful reception of this apocalyptic song dovetails nicely with the surprise I feel every year when Advent rolls around ...because Advent, too, starts with an earthquake. We get different texts each year in the lectionary, but all of them are about end times and the Second Coming of Christ. Just when we’re supposed to be readying our hearts and spirits for the infant Jesus to be born, the lectionary committee serves up sweet little ditties like: “But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory.”
Huh?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to start at the beginning? With the story of how Jesus came into the world? Why does Advent begin with predictions of what might occur years and years in the future...after Jesus’s death and resurrection? And what’s the point of the Second Coming, anyway? I mean, if Jesus hasn’t come back yet and it’s been over 2000 years already, is there even a point in continuing to talk about it?
I think there is. Beginning the story of Advent with talk about the end times and the Second Coming of Christ reminds us that the story of Christmas isn’t just about Jesus of Nazareth, born to a poor family thousands of years ago. Rather, the story of Christmas is primarily about the Christ-force that the person of Jesus was filled with.
Okay, let me pull that apart for a minute….in case you’re like, wait. What? I thought Christ was just Jesus’s last name.
Christ is actually a title...a title bestowed upon the person of Jesus. Christ means “anointed one”....anointed as in being blessed with oil. Being set apart as holy. Many theologians are also speaking of an eternal cosmic force when the speak of Christ. That aspect of God that breaks through the everyday here on earth and infuses our lives with the Divine. Richard Rohr has a poetic way of speaking of this when he says we live in a “Christ-soaked world.” Everything everywhere is permeated with God through the Christ-force. And so, Rohr says, what we think of as the First Coming of Christ - in the manger in Bethlehem - is actually just a continuation of what has been true from the dawn of Creation….Christ permeates everything and there is nothing we can do to separate ourselves from the love of God in Christ. [2]
Pretty groovy, right?
And so, in the story of Christmas we have not a one-time special event: God coming to earth to take on human form in a unique way. Instead, we have a story that is meant to expand our understanding of who God is and how God operates. The incarnation isn’t meant to LIMIT God by enclosing the Holy in the body of a baby boy named Jesus. The incarnation is meant to remind us of the ways the Holy already infuses absolutely everything in the created world. The fact that Christ was found in the body of a vulnerable infant who was very much marginalized and oppressed reminds us that we will find Christ everywhere….most especially in the places we might not expect to find God.
By coming out of the gate with “end of the world/Second Coming” texts, the lectionary committee reminds us that Advent is about something even bigger than Jesus….it’s about the Christ-force dwelling within Jesus….and the ways our world continues to be imbued with the presence of God even now, whether we see it or not.
Today’s passage from Matthew’s “little apocalypse” has two major themes. [3] First, there is the theme of promise: Christ will arrive. There is nothing we can do to separate ourselves from this powerful, cosmic Love-force that reminds us we are one with each other and one with God. And the second theme is that we don’t know exactly when or how Christ will arrive. It’s a theme of “not knowing.” Just when we think we are starting to understand a bit about the mystery of this Cosmic Christ, Jesus speaks in riddles that make very little sense. And suddenly we feel lost again, uncertain of what’s supposed to happen next. And so we are told we need to “keep watch.” We are to pay attention, stay awake, be ready for the Advent of Christ in our midst.
And there it is again: that Advent theme of waiting. Watch, stay awake, be ready for Christ’s arrival.
My kids will tell you that, in our house, if anyone complains of being bored, I remind them, “Being bored is good for you!” I know, I know, my poor kids. But it’s true. Being bored….having wide open spaces for our spirits to expand IS good for us. It’s in those moments of waiting for “something to happen” that we find space to commune with the Holy. When we rush from thing to thing...when we never leave any space in our brains or hearts for nothing, the volume is turned up too loud and there’s no room for us to hear the whisper of the Spirit of Love. Space and silence are two of the Spirit’s best friends.
This sermon started with an apocalyptically-themed R.E.M. song and it’s going to end with another one. While the song Everybody Hurts isn’t apocalyptic, the video definitely has some apocalyptic flavor. At the end of the video a news helicopter flies above an odd scene: a highway full of empty cars. A journalist says it’s the strangest thing...hundreds of people apparently walked away from their cars and seem to have disappeared. No one knows why.
Back at the beginning of the video, we see the same cars stuck in traffic on a gray highway. People inside the cars stare out the windows and we are able to see their thoughts, scrolling along at the bottom of the screen in brief phrases. A young boy looks out at the traffic thinking, “They’re all stuck.” A woman in heavy makeup thinks, “Look at me.” A man ponders, “Silence is gray. Silence is golden. Silence is a stone in my mouth.”
As the video goes on, we see more and more people. Their thoughts are only snippets but hint at the complexity of all these dear human creatures. A mom stares out the front window as her young son crawls over the seat. “I had no idea,” she thinks. A teenage boy leans out the window and thinks, “They’re going to miss me.”
These people...these beautiful images of God….they look like they’re just stuck in traffic. Waiting. Bored. But underneath the surface, there is so much we can’t see. Pain, loss, grief, uncertainty, fear, betrayal, despair. Stipe’s voice sings over it all “everybody hurts…..sometimes everybody cries.”
Eventually, Stipe gets out of the car he’s riding in and stands up high on the highway median. For a long time he just stands there, silent, as the music continues in the background. And then, near the very end of the song, he begins to sing, “So hold on. Hold on. Hold on.” The people begin to get out of their cars. There is a new energy and sense of community replaces isolation as theses stranger all begin to walk together.
As they were waiting...bored...living with pain, uncertainty, fear, doubt, grief, loss, hurt...the Spirit was present and working. The promise of Christmas is that no matter what happens...no matter what apocalypses befall us, the Christ-force has arrived, is arriving, and will arrive again and again. All we have to do is keep watch, stay awake, make space for Christ to return.
So hold on.
NOTES:
[2] Rohr, Richard. The Universal Christ.
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