A Mansion Prepared

Saint James Fordham • Advent 4b • Tobias Haller BSG

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself.

Well, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, isn’t it? A white Christmas. Of course, here in New York it’s been looking a lot like Christmas since Halloween. It used to be that Santa Claus had the decency to hold off until the end of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade — just like in the movie “A Miracle on 34th Street.” Nowadays if Santa showed up as late as Thanksgiving store-owners would accuse him of dragging his heels! Nowadays they start talking Christmas before Hallowe’en! How long before Santa Claus backs his sleigh into the Easter Bunny, I don’t know!

But the church does know, and knows better. We’ve got this time called Advent — an anticipation of Christmas, but also an anticipation of that great day when the Lord will come again in glory. For three Sundays we’ve heard news of that second coming: warnings about keeping awake and being alert, having our house in order, and preparing God’s way. The collect today continues the call for preparation, getting our house in order so that we might be “a mansion prepared.”

But on this the last Sunday before Christmas, we begin to turn our attention from the second coming back to the first coming. This Sunday in our gospel we travel back to that quiet little village in upstate Palestine, up in the lake country, up in Galilee— so far from Jerusalem that they called it “Galilee of the Gentiles.”

We travel back two thousand years to Nazareth, and find a young woman about to receive the surprise of her — and everybody else’s — life. An angel suddenly appears out of nowhere, and addresses her as if she were royalty. Mary at first is simply speechless. The angel reassures her, tells her not to be afraid, and tells her she is going to have a baby who will become great and will rule over the house of David.

Mary catches her breath, and calmly, and no doubt with some dignity informs the angel that such an event is unlikely, since she is an unmarried virgin. So the angel finally tells it all: she will be overshadowed by God’s Holy Spirit, and the child she will bear will be called Holy, as well, the Son of God. Before Mary can get in an objection, the angel tells her about her cousin Elizabeth. This woman, well past the years of childbearing, is soon going to have a baby, too; for nothing is impossible for God. Mary pauses for a moment, and then says those famous words, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.”

Think for a moment what went through Mary’s mind before she answered the angel. Life was harder for an unwed mother two thousand years ago than it is today. She could have been cast out of the village, even been stoned to death, if Joseph had chosen that course of action. Elizabeth’s miracle was different — an old woman long said to be barren getting pregnant must have made for plenty of winks and nods and pats on the back for her equally old husband Zechariah.

But Mary’s situation was nothing to congratulate her or Joseph about. There wouldn’t be smiles — except sarcastic ones — along with clucking tongues, shaking heads and wagging fingers. Instead of congratulations there would be humiliation for Joseph and Mary both.

And yet, this is how God chose to enter this world. What is God telling us by choosing this embarrassing and scandalous Incarnation?

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The collect for today helps us answer that question. “Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself.” The thing we ask in this prayer is, Lord, help us to clean our house and get it in order for your arrival. That’s the Advent theme. We gather up the dusty old things we’ve moved from shelf to shelf but not used for years. We give away things we’ve outgrown, finally throw away things we’ve held on to “just in case” for so long that we’ve forgotten what the case was. Sometimes we have to part with something we’d like to keep, to make a difficult choice. Perhaps we’re moving to a smaller apartment, or making room for a new arrival.

It is this kind of difficult choice Mary had to make. God asked a very great thing of her. She wasn’t asked to accept a blessing that would bring her honor. She was asked to risk losing the one thing that gave her honor in her society — her good name — and because God asked her for it, she said, “Here am I, your servant.”

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Are we as willing to give up things when God asks us to? I’m not talking about bad habits — we ought to give those up in any case. I’m talking about good things that we hold on to, sometimes so tight that we can’t open our hands to receive the better things God has in store for us. It is risky to give up one’s good reputation to answer God’s call to seek righteousness. But sometimes that is what God calls us to do.

In “Miracle on 34th Street” you may recall that a young lawyer risks his reputation to do what’s right. He’s quits his job at a big law firm to defend an old man who thinks he’s Santa Claus. Something moves that young lawyer, something purifies his conscience not to do the safe thing, but the right thing.

People like that do exist outside of Hollywood. There are lawyers and doctors who give up six-figure salaries to open clinics and legal-aid offices. Ms. Campbell organizes a group of doctors and dentists to go down to Jamaica every year, to help in straitened circumstances. But it happens in the church, too. The Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana has just asked to be permitted to resign his post. In the process of working with people down in Louisiana in the recovery from Hurricane Katrina he has come to realize that is that kind of work he wants to do: helping people rebuild their lives; not spending his days behind a desk, paper-pushing and managing budgets.

I’m also reminded of four Roman Catholic bishops, some years ago in Colombia, who moved out of their episcopal palaces into the slums, into the barrios, to live with the people. They took off their fine ecclesiastical robes and put on guyabera shirts. The political bosses and crime-lords didn’t like the idea of poor people being inspired. For as Mary’s song assures us, when people become aware of their situation, — in what liberation theologians call concientización, a kind of “conscience raising” that is a particular form of purifying one’s conscience in an awareness of what is going on in the world — when poor people become educated to the truth of their situation, the mighty will be cast down from their seats, the poor and lowly will be lifted up. Such people are a danger to the status quo. and a film was made about those four bishops, called, “Such Men Are Dangerous” — two of them were assassinated; they took great risk, they were dangerous to themselves as well as to the establishment — as indeed we all can be when we are inspired by the Gospel to purify our consciences, and speak out against the abuses by the mighty.

And once, long ago, a young woman risked her reputation and her life to answer an angel’s greeting with the words, “Here am I; let it be to me according to your word.” So it is that God challenges us, to be willing, like Mary, to risk our reputations if it means we can serve him more effectively. God calls us to purify our conscience so that we can see what God wants of us.

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And God wants a lot. God wants us. Not just our service, not just our obedience, but us — our souls and bodies. God asked Mary not only to risk her reputation but to offer her self to become the means of Incarnation, to conceive in her womb a son who would be named Jesus.

And that is how our Collect ends. Why do we purify our consciences? Why do we put our house in order? Why do we risk our reputations to follow God, to do justice and work righteousness? So that “Christ at his coming may find in us a mansion prepared for himself...” A mansion!

Well, we know what Jesus found at his first coming — not a mansion. Not a hotel; not even a Holiday Inn, but a stable. But I’m getting ahead of myself — it’s not Christmas yet; we haven’t yet gotten to crowded Bethlehem, with no room at the inn. No, today’s Gospel tells us of something nine months earlier, that bright spring day when an angel walked in on Mary and changed her life — and our lives and the life of all the world — forever. Then God chose, and still God chooses no place so fitting to dwell as in a humble heart — a heart emptied of all the extra furniture of pride and reputation.

As God called Mary, God calls us to become his dwelling place; that we may, as our opening hymn said,“Fling wide the portals of our hearts.” God calls us to be people who show forth God because God dwells in us, in our hearts. God calls us every day, and enables us every day by the visitation of the Holy Spirit, to purify our consciences, to open our hearts, so that we may become Christ’s dwelling place.

Our closing hymn today will include a prayer, “Let my soul, like Mary, be thine earthly sanctuary.” God wants each of us to be his dwelling place, and a humble, loving heart, will always have room for God. You know, we can after all extend the Christmas season throughout the whole long year not so that the stores can stay open, but so that our hearts can stay open, every day.

May God’s grace come upon us abundantly as we anticipate Christ’s coming, in this time of thankful and humble gratitude for his having once come, so long ago to a city far away to a young woman ready to receive him. Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us, as he found in our sister Mary, a mansion prepared for himself. +

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A Man Like John

SJF • Advent 3b • Tobias Haller BSG

When the priests and Levites from Jerusalem asked him, “Who are you?” he confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”+

As it comes round every year, we’re back to “Rejoice Sunday” again, regular as clockwork. And this year we really do get to hear some readings that sound like something to rejoice about! That reading from Isaiah is full of wonderful promises to Jerusalem — wonderful promises... You know, I can’t help but think, with all of the rhetoric of the not-so-long-ago presidential campaign echoing in my ears, how much this could sound like the exaggerated promises of a politician, if you wanted to hear them in that way: two chickens in every pot and two cars in every garage.

Look at the promises Isaiah relates — everybody will live to be over a hundred years old, and reap the rewards of their labor. They shall not plant and another reap; even the nature of wild animals shall be changed in God’s peaceable kingdom; the wolves and lambs will eat from the same trough, and lions will learn to do with hay.

Surely such promises only could come true in the kingdom of God, in the new Jerusalem. No earthly politician would dare to promise such peace and prosperity, such a complete reversal of things as we know it. I mean, what kind of politician would dare to say, “My friends, I’m going to make everyone wealthy!” Well, some might...

Even so, the promises seem very high, when we look at the economic situation of our world, the state of war and terrorism. It is so very easy to see how far we are from the promised new Jerusalem of which Isaiah speaks. And it would be tempting to turn to follow a prophet or politician who promised us everything, assured us that straw can be spun into gold, and that wealth will somehow miraculously trickle down — not from God, but from the wealthy, so that everyone will have their share. How tempting to think that universal health care will somehow just happen, that there will no longer be an infant who lives but a few days, or an old person who doesn’t live out a lifetime.

Those are the kinds of promises people want to hear, the kinds of promises they look for in a politician — or a prophet. And many will give in to the demand, and tell the people just what they want to hear.

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But not John the Baptist. John was different. The people wanted to fit him into their box. They were looking for the Messiah, and they wanted John to be the one. But John knew his limitations. He knew who he was, and who he wasn’t and what his task was: to prepare. He was sent by God to challenge the people, to shake them from complacency, and begin the process of reestablishing a just and humane society. He made no impossible demands, and he made no impossible promises: he just told people with a closet and pantry full of food and clothes that they should share with those who had none. He assured the people he was not the Messiah, but was the one sent with a message to prepare, and call the people to live, so far as they could, righteous and generous lives, for the good of all.

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I am old enough to remember another John, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, though I was in grade school the year he was elected, and in junior high the day he was assassinated. I still can see the face of Mr Stakem, my civics teacher, poking his head through the doorway into algebra class. I sat right along the wall, so all I could see was his head sticking into the room, and saying, “Mr Elliott, I’m sorry, but I have something very important to tell the class. The President has just been shot.” And then disappearing. And a half-hour later the announcement came over the PA system that the President was dead, and we were all sent home. Quite a day...

So I remember John Kennedy; and even as a youngster, I could see he was different from the other president I’d consciously known; though being very young I really didn’t know him very well — Dwight Eisenhower, known as “Ike.” Ike was an old man with a bald head, often in the hospital because of his heart problems; but John Kennedy was a young man with a full head of hair, strong and handsome and athletic. Ike and Mamie Eisenhower looked like folks from my neighborhood, like my great-aunts and uncles; but John and Jackie Kennedy looked like movie stars.

John Kennedy spoke differently, too. And I don’t just mean his accent — after all, though I grew up in Baltimore my Mom was Boston Irish, so I was used to hearing the sounds of “why doncha go pahk the cah.”

It wasn’t his accent, but his words themselves, not just how he spoke but what he said. As young as I was, I could hear the challenge and hope in his voice, together with his realism — not empty promises, but a call to responsibility. How powerful that challenge was: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” His voice echoed with others of his generation, the voices of Martin Luther King Jr and John’s brother Bobby. These were prophetic voices, like John the Baptist, not saying,
“I’m going to do it all for you” or “Don’t worry about anything, it will all take care of itself” or “If we just help the rich to stay rich some of the crumbs will fall from the table and everybody will get what they need.” No, these were voices that said, “I’m not your savior, but I’m here to challenge you to do the right thing. I’m here to tell you to get your act together and work with me to build a just society. I’m here to shake things up, and unworthy as I am, to challenge you to do all in your power to make the world a place prepared for God’s coming kingdom — to prepare the way of the Lord, to make his paths straight. I may not get there with you, but I have a dream today...”

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I don’t need to tell you that I heard a similar voice speak out in the campaign leading up to the election, and I’ve heard that same voice since. It is the voice of the man our nation chose, by a significant margin, to be our next President. He too could have offered the easy promises of wealth to the rich trickling down to us below; of health care provided universally but without cost. But he has taken a page from John’s book — John the Baptist and John Kennedy — to be straight with us, to challenge us, and call us to stand up to the challenge. It isn’t about him. It is not he upon whom we’ve pinned our hopes — except the hope that he will inspire us to do our best, not to ask what he can do for us, but what we can do for each other, working together, helping to turn our hopes into action to make this land, this world, a better place.

He is challenging us to “make straight the paths” of this land so that the poor and weak do not stumble. He is calling us to sacrifice and contribute to the good of all so that a fair and equitable health care system can be instituted, so that, God willing, no more shall there be an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live a lifetime. He is calling us to a world in which one does not plant while another harvests the crops, to a world in which the worker is compensated fairly, without regard to age or gender or race, and in which the laborers receive the fair return of their labor. He is calling us to a world in which those with much will indeed be challenged to share what they have — as John the Baptist did when he said that the one with two coats should share with the one who has none, and the one with plenty of food should do the same: and that’s not socialism; that’s the Gospel!

Barack Obama is no more the Messiah than was John the Baptist — but both of them call us to our better selves, to responsibility and willingness to bear each others’ burdens, so that all might benefit. We live in difficult times no less than did John the Baptist, times of war and want, of poverty and need, and of greed and selfishness. We cannot by our own efforts bring about the kingdom of God — but we can make straight his paths. We can prepare the way. We can all be men and women like John.

I give thanks to God, and pray for his continued blessing, upon our new President, who we hope at last can succeed in calling us to this high — and I dare say it — holy — endeavor. Let us work together with him, with our congress, with our fellows throughout the world, brothers and sisters, to hasten the day when justice, freedom, and peace, shall be the watchwords of our nation and our world. Let us make straight our Lord Messiah’s path, and rejoice at his coming, even our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.+

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Do you hear the voice?

Saint James Fordham • Advent 2b • Tobias Haller BSG

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid…+

In today’s readings from the Holy Scripture a number of voices speak out to us, from the dialogue portrayed in the prophecy of Isaiah, through the sage advice of the Apostle Peter, and concluding with the proclamation of John the Baptist. And while these voices speak different words, they bear a single message.

The effect is like that of a chorus from Handel’s great oratorio Messiah — and who can hear that passage from Isaiah without thinking of Handel’s setting? He must have particularly loved this passage, for there are about six sections of his masterpiece that come from just this one text! You know how in these choruses the various voices enter at different times, each singing its own melody as the fugue twists and turns its way. But then, suddenly, of the voices all come together on a single phrase of the text, all of the voices lining up — “For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it” — with one clear message. Well, our lessons today have the same effect, and out of the richness of all these voices, there emerges a clear message that speaks to us today after that long gap of nearly two and a half thousand years. Be comforted, be patient, and repent. This is the message God is sending us through his messengers Isaiah, Peter, and John the Baptist.

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Isaiah says, Be comforted, for your prison term is over, and your Lord will gather you up as a shepherd carries the young lambs in his arms. Peter says, Be patient, because the Lord is giving everyone time, as much time as is needed, to come to repentance. Which brings us to John the Baptist, who says, Repent and be baptized, that your sins may be forgiven.

These messages weave together in a single strand, depending on each other, because there is no use repenting unless there is comfort and hope that repentance will lead to salvation. If the situation were hopeless, if we were simply dead in our sins, if the prison door has clanged shut behind us forever already, then there is no point either in repentance or good behavior. That is why the message of hope and comfort from Isaiah and Peter is so important.

Be comforted, Isaiah says: and that’s a little hard for us to understand, because for us “comfort” has to do primarily with mattresses and easy-chairs. But that’s not really what comfort means when Isaiah says, “Speak comfortingly to Jerusalem.” It doesn’t mean coziness, but encouragement, strengthening the heart and soul to stand up and endure, not lie down and go to sleep! Take courage, Isaiah is saying, your prison sentence is over, and you’ve been released, given a second chance to start again, a new life, a life in which the obstacles are being leveled, the mountains torn down and the valleys filled in; you can begin a new life in which God himself will lift you over the hard spots, carry you in his arms if you will let him, over the rough spots you are not able to cross on your own. This is the voice of encouragement so sorely needed by anyone who is discouraged, in their life, or by their sins.

Some folks, even in the church, think it’s enough to make people feel bad about themselves because they’ve failed and fallen. But that is not repentance; that is only remorse, and unless the message gives some hope, some comforting encouragement, beating people over the head with their sins will only lead them perhaps as far as remorse, but it may also lead to despair. The church’s true task is not simply to tell people they’ve sinned and fallen short — as indeed we all have — but that there is hope, there is a promise, there is a way out and a way forward. There is, as John the Baptist promised, a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and there is, as Peter promised, time in which to take advantage of that opportunity. The prison door has not clanged shut, it has swung open, and it is up to us to lift up our heads and walk forward into a new life.

That is what repentance is all about: not wallowing in sorrow for the past, but turning around towards the hope of tomorrow. And sometimes all that is needed is a comforting word, an encouraging word, a voice that speaks to us in our sin and our sorrow and reassures us that all is not lost; that it is not too late; that there is hope; that there is a way forward, a way out of our past errors, freedom from the prisons of our own devising.

God’s voice is the voice of comfort and encouragement, that calls us to patience and repentance, to accepting our redemption rather than despairing in our sin. The voice of God is the voice that tells us we are not worthless creatures, but beloved children, precious in his sight. And our joyful response to that voice, that voice that warms our hearts and renews our spirits, is repentance, the acceptance of our salvation.

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There was once a little girl of eight named Mary Ann who felt awful about herself. Mary Ann was born with a cleft palate and a harelip. It affected her speech, it marred her looks, and since she’d started school her life was a misery as she saw the faces of her classmates curl in imitation or twist in disgust. When some of the more charitable youngsters showed concern and asked her what had happened to her lip, she would make up a story and say that she’d fallen on the sidewalk and cut herself on a broken bottle. That didn’t change how she looked, but pretending it was an accident, something that had happened to her, not something about who she was made it fell a little less awful.

Mary Ann felt terrible most of the time at school, and was sure that nobody liked her. There was someone, however, whom she liked very much, Mrs. Leonard, the second-grade teacher, a short, plump lady with a wonderful smile and bright eyes that sparkled with their own inner light. Mary Ann was too shy to say much to her, though, fearing that even Mrs. Leonards’s bright smile would fade if she were forced to look too long into Mary Ann’s face.

Well, every year the school held a hearing test. This was some time ago, in the days before hi-tech equipment, and the test consisted of a simple screening procedure. Each student would come into the empty classroom and stand at the back of the room facing the wall, turned away from Mrs. Leonard who would sit at her desk at the front of the room. She would whisper some short phrase, which each child would then repeat back. Nothing complicated, just some short phrase like, “The field is green” or “The cat chased the mouse.” And if the child repeated the phrase correctly it was deemed their hearing was o.k.

When Mary Ann’s turn came she entered the room and stood with her back to Mrs. Leonard, facing the wall at the back of the room, glad Mrs. Leonard couldn’t see her face, glad she could simply stand and listen for the words, repeat them, and then be out from under what seemed like a terrible focus of attention. Moments passed as she waited to hear the words, words she would later realize that God had placed in Mrs. Leonard’s mouth, seven words that changed Mary Ann’s life, right then and there. Into the stillness of that room, Mrs. Leonard whispered, “I wish you were my little girl.”

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“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,” God tells his prophet. “Speak tenderly.” Comfort here, strengthen her; give her a new life. God’s tender voice is the voice of comfort and encouragement, the voice that calls us to patience and repentance, the voice that calls us to accept our redemption rather than to despair in our sin. God’s voice is not a voice that beats us into the ground, that tells us we are unworthy, stained from birth with original sin,
worthless, hapless creatures scarcely worth his notice. No, God’s voice is a tender voice of comfort and encouragement. God’s voice says to each and every one of us, not only do I wish you were, but You are my own beloved son, you are my own beloved daughter, you are my own beloved child.

May we hearken to that voice, patiently listening for it in the midst of the turmoil and noise of this world. May we listen patiently, in the knowledge that God is seeking us out, as we await the words that can change our lives, words of comfort and encouragement, so that we might repent and accept our salvation, and “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.”+

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The story of Mary Ann Bird is freely adapted from her book, The Whisper Test.

Awake in the Middle of the Night

Saint James Fordham • Advent 1b• Tobias Haller BSG

Jesus said, Therefore, keep awake; for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.+

Anyone who has raised a newborn child, or been around one, knows what it is to be awake in the middle of the night. Infants have their own internal clock, and when that clock says “feeding time” the automatic siren goes off, harder to ignore than the most annoying car alarm. This usually happens just as you are in the midst of a particularly restful sleep, something that you’ve not had too much of in the last few weeks, as you tend to this new, small, noisy houseguest with the demanding appetite and the loud voice. Babies know how to keep you awake in the middle of the night.

The season of Advent is upon us. And as we look towards Christmas just a few weeks ahead of us, we are reminded that a baby is due, a very special baby. And over the next few weeks we will be reflecting on what this special baby means to us, and what the man this baby grew up to be means to us. For this baby is no one other than Jesus Christ.

I said that having a baby in the house can keep you awake in the middle of the night. Well, this baby, this Christ Child, is a baby that keeps the whole world up in the middle of the night. At his first appearing, announced by the star to the wise men, announced by angels to the shepherds in the cold midwinter, Jesus broke the silence of that silent night with his first birth cry, the first breath taken by the Word made flesh. Thirty-three years or so later that same voice was raised in Jerusalem’s Temple precincts, warning his disciples to keep awake, to keep alert for the coming of the master who would shake the world.

How important it is to be awake when the master comes, to be ready to stand up, ready to welcome him! And the only way to be ready, is to be ready, as the old Scout motto has it, to “Be Prepared.” Preparedness, by its very nature, is not something you can do at the last minute!

We are called to be awake, alert in the middle of this world’s long night. But we are also called to be awake in the middle in another sense. Have you ever watched an outfielder in a baseball game, or a goalie in a soccer or hockey match? They have to be “awake in the middle” — awake and alert in the middle of the patch of territory they are assigned to protect and guard. They have to be watchfully alert and ready to move, back and forth, free to catch or deflect the ball or the puck whenever it comes, wherever it comes from.

That’s the kind of “being awake in the middle” I’m talking about. The particular “middle” we are in is the middle Jesus speaks of, the middle between his first coming among us as a child, and his coming again in power and great glory, the middle between his first advent and his second.

We are also, right now, in the midst — and I hope it’s the middle in that we may be coming out of it before too long! — of one of the worst global financial crises in living memory. And most of us are “in the middle” between the people who predict dire catastrophe, and those who think it will all work out if we just leave it alone, or who think we can fix it by continuing to pour more money down the hole. We are in the middle between those who foresee total meltdown and another great depression, and those who see an eventual healthy recovery. It is hard to be prudent, and take appropriate precautions, without giving in to the extremes at either end.

Then there’s the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some even see in our struggles there a fulfillment of ancient prophecy; that Armageddon and the second coming is right around the corner. Well, as I’ve done before I’ll do again, and assure you that they are definitely wrong, for two reasons. One is common sense and the other based on Scripture.

First, these are in large part the same people who had everybody hoarding canned goods as the clock ticked down on December 31, 1999 just under a decade ago. I’ve still got a case of bottled water under the table in my living room, and the bottles have begun to squeeze up because the water is evaporating through the plastic! Remember that? Well, some of us were here at Saint James Church that night, and the Lord did come among us — though not in cloud and majesty and awe, but in the quieter way he’s been coming to Christians for as long as they’ve gathered in twos and threes in his name to break bread and to pray.

I also do not believe those who claim that our current struggles over the Middle East represent the fulfillment of ancient apocalyptic writings, because Jesus himself, in today’s Gospel — known as the “little Apocalypse of Mark” (and isn’t that nice, it’s just a “little” Apocalypse!) — Jesus himself says, “About that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” So those who claim to know when Jesus is coming are claiming to know something that neither the angels nor Jesus himself knew! The very reason Jesus told his disciples to be alert, to stay awake, was because even he couldn’t tell them exactly when he was going to come again— since that secret was known by the Father alone.

Jesus didn’t know when he was going to come again to judge the world, only that he was going to come again to judge the world. And so he said, Be alert, keep awake.

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At the other extreme are those who act as if the world will never end, that the last judgment is just a bit of folklore that a sophisticated modern person should discard along with other quaint legends. But this error by the secularists misses the mark just as much as the error by the doom-sayers who repeatedly try to pin down the second coming and always have an explanation as to why their predictions are wrong.

If anything is clear from our Gospel it is that, as the bumper sticker puts it, “Jesus is coming, Look busy!” To dismiss the Second Coming as simply a fable robs the universe of purpose. We believe that God had (and has) a purpose, an aim in Creation, and anyone who’s pitched a ball knows that if you have an aim,you have a target. God had an aim as he cast creation into being, as it arced on up through the history of the chosen people, on to the coming of Christ at his incarnation, and on forward toward an as-yet-unknown future when he will come again and make the whole creation new. To deny the Second Coming robs the First Coming of its significance, and makes creation a literally aimless exercise.

So it is, my brothers and sisters, that we are called to keep awake in the middle between these two extremes; neither thinking we’ve got the timetable for the last judgment in our pockets, nor imagining that there is no last judgment coming. No, we are called to stay awake in the middle, in the middle of the night, in the middle of our lives, in the middle of a world that alternately panics or ignores. We are called, and we have been warned, to be alert to our salvation when it comes. For that is God’s purpose, God’s aim for us, that we might be saved.

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During his great Antarctic expedition, the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton left a small group of men behind on an island off the coast, assuring them he would return. But every time he made the attempt to get back to the island, the sea-ice blocked the passage. Then one morning, perhaps due to a shifting current, a passage opened in the pack-ice and Shackleton was able to get through. He found his men on the island ready, packed and waiting, and they quickly scrambled aboard the ship with all of their gear. No sooner had the ship reached safety than the ice crashed back closed behind them. They had only been saved because they were ready to be saved. Shackleton, somewhat in awe at the narrow escape, said to his men, “It was fortunate you were all packed and ready to go!” They said, “It wasn’t fortune, sir. We never gave up hope. Whenever we saw the sea was clear of ice, we packed up and said to each other, ‘He may come today.’ And today, you came.”

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Jesus may come today. He may come next month; he may come a million years from now. When he comes isn’t for us to know. That he will come is the substance of our faith. And because we have faith that he will come, but do not know the hour of his coming, we are called to be awake in the middle of this world’s long night. We are to keep awake, to be alert, for we do not know when the cry of alarm will sound, the last trumpet blow, the king return in glory. May we be found ready for our rescue, prepared to grasp our Savior’s outstretched hand.+

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