1 Advent B Mark 13:24-37 1 December 2002
Rev. Roger Haugen
Elie Wiesel is a Jewish writer whose novels prod the depths of the Holocaust, asking difficult questions of humanity and of God. In Night, a child hangs from a S.S. gallows and the question goes up, “Where is God?” Wiesel writes: “And I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is he? Here he is. . . he is hanging on this gallows.’” (Night, Bantam Books, 1982, pp. 61-61).
Today we begin Advent, a season of waiting, anticipating, hoping for the coming of the Christ who will save us from all that seeks to destroy us. Advent, a time when we desperately look for hope, or at least a respite from the terror that seeks to drown us. We might echo the words of Isaiah, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.” We might simply be lost and confused with little hope breaking into our world.
Today we read Mark’s description of the difficulties of the age and we know some of the fear and we look to the hope. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” And we hope that it is true, that it will happen soon.
Marks’ gospel is one of action and few words. Mark records only two sermons of Jesus, one in Chapter 4 and this one in Chapter 13. In Chapter 4 the key word is “Listen”. He says, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen.” He is surrounded by people unwilling to listen, people unwilling to listen to Jesus and hear what he is really saying. They refuse to hear in his words the voice of God speaking of a new way of living, a purpose for creation that is not based upon power and violence. To truly listen is to listen with the filter of Jesus Christ, to hear the cries of those in need and hear that true power comes in service of others.
In Chapter 13 the key idea is “Watch”. “Keep alert, keep awake!” See the world as God sees the world. Use the filter of Jesus Christ to see the world as it really is. See the events of the world as Jesus sees them. In the midst of terror, recognize that God is there. Recognize evil for what it is, an empty promise of meaning which is meaningless. Do not look elsewhere to find meaning, meaning and purpose to life is found only in the one who created the world, who promises to save all those who look to him in times of terror.
Today’s text begins with foreboding and terror,
But in those days, after that suffering,
The sun will be darkened,
And the moon will not give its light,
And the stars will be falling from heaven,
And the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
Frightening events, but events that can seem insignificant in light of the terror that faces us today. We only need to mention September 11 and images flash through our minds, we know terror that has crept onto our safe continent. We live daily with the prospect of war in Iraq and a world leader determined to have war at any cost. Every week we hear of another suicide bomber, a young person willing to die for a cause killing everyone around. We hear of another discovery at a pig farm in Coquitlam and all those with daughters know a fear deep within. We know the terror of our own streets where we dare not walk after dark. We know the terror of disease that strikes in spite of amazing advances in medicine, in spite of the best efforts to keep healthy. We know terror faced with a culture that is proving so toxic to our children. No, we don’t need images of darkened skies and falling stars to know terror.
To this terror, Jesus tells us to “keep alert, keep awake, watch! Do not be held hostage to seeing things as the forces of evil would have you see.” “Watch!” See things as God would have us see them. See God in the midst of terror promising hope. Recognize that God gives life meaning, life is not defined by the fear or the promises of that which seeks to control us. Recognize evil for what it is, and recognize God at work even in the midst of evil. See in a new way, keep awake to God’s way of seeing.
David Miller, the editor of the ELCA magazine The Lutheran, speaking for the United States, but also appropriate to Canada writes:
Faithfulness to Jesus challenges our pinhole vision of the world.
It is time to broaden our vision. It’s time to move beyond our national fixation with evil ones who would harm us and see the broken ones who need us. . . . The church is one of the few institutions in society that, if it is faithful, regularly challenges our peephole vision of reality. It assist us to rise above ourselves to see the need and pain in God’s world. (November 2002)
To watch, to keep awake is to see God active in our world. It is to act as the Jews and Catholics who went together on the Friday after September 11 to a mosque south of Chicago to circle it, holding hands, to protect those within throughout their prayers from any potential violence or abuse. To see through the eyes of Jesus is to put faces on the non-combatant Iraqi civilians that will be killed should war result. To see through the eyes of Jesus is to recognize in every prostitute killed on eastside Vancouver someone’s daughter, a child of God. To see as Jesus would have us see, is to cry with the families, to speak out against a culture that turns young girls into sexual objects.
The world is anxious because of terror and rumours of terror. We have texts today of defiant hope in the midst of suffering. We read from Isaiah and Psalm 80 the hope of a people in the midst of terror, looking to God’s judgment. In the Old Testament, God’s judgment was something to long for, something that brought hope. Judgment seen through eyes that see, eyes that are awake. Judgment which is hope.
Stir up your might, and come to save us!
Restore us O God; let your light shine, that we may be saved.
O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.
We read in Mark, the promises of God that cannot be destroyed despite appearances to the contrary.
Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. … Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
We enter Advent, a time of anticipation for the one who is to come. We see around us all that seeks to give us false hope and Jesus tells us we are not to be deceived, we are to keep awake and alert so that all that would claim to give meaning to life apart from God is recognized for what it is. We are to long for the coming of the one who promises release to the captives, sight to the blind, hope for you and me in the midst of all that would incite terror in us today. The hope for the world is not found in weapons or a war on terrorism. The hope for the world is found in one who comes as a vulnerable child into our world, in one who knows our fears and terrors and cries with us in the midst of the terror, but also shows us a way through the terror to hope. It is Jesus who has the power to destroy the powers that destroy people.
Our task is not to ignore what is happening in the world, but to think about the events, to watch in the light of the hope that is beyond the troubles and brings hope in the midst of despair. As one writer puts it “Jesus’ last words become our first words in the Church’s year, a call to be awake to what is happening in our world and to be looking for and in tune with the one who comes, whether for the final time – as in traditional expectation of the second advent – or to any time, for now.” (William Loader)
Watch, Keep awake, the saviour of the world is about to do a great thing. And in that is hope.