Hope

Hope

Matthew 24:36-44

December 1, 2019 • Mount Pleasant UMC

The end is near. You’ve probably heard about it on the news or during commercials on television. The end is near—an end I’ve been waiting on for 42 years. Of course I’m taking about the end of the Skywalker saga, more commonly known as “Star Wars.” Undoubtedly there will be more “Star Wars” movies to come, since Disney (who owns the franchise) isn’t going to let a cash cow go, but on December 20, the story that began on May 25, 1977 will come to its conclusion. Endings are always bittersweet, especially when I realize I’ve spent most of my life as a huge fan of “Star Wars,” always waiting on the next chapter. And having no idea how it will end is a bit unsettling, though I am certain of this: the light side of the Force will triumph, good will defeat evil, and the Resistance will defeat the evil First Order. But how we get there is anyone’s guess at this point. Still, I’m looking forward to the end.

Well, as much as I’d love to just talk about “Star Wars” today, I actually have another ending in mind for our focus this morning, and that may sound a little strange. Today is the first Sunday of Advent, which means it’s the beginning of a new season and a new sermon series and, actually, the beginning of the Christian calendar. Forget January 1. In the church, the new year starts with Advent, which makes sense because we know that at the end of this season we’ll be celebrating the birth of a baby—actually, THE baby, the Son of God, Jesus. So why am I talking about endings? Well, the way Advent is structured, we deal with endings before we get to beginnings. Traditionally, Advent begins with the end in mind. Advent, this season of four weeks leading up to Christmas, is about preparing for Jesus’ arrival—or arrivals, both of them. Typically we spend most of the time focusing on his first arrival. We love to celebrate the baby in the manger; most if not all of us have probably already decorated and Jesus is already in the manger. But Advent is also a time when we are supposed to spend some time preparing for his second coming, his return in glory. And that’s why we begin this season with hope.

This year for Advent, we’re going to look at “The Gifts of Christmas.” These are, by the way, gifts that will not break or wear out. You may not be aware that the four weeks of Advent each have a theme, a word that is supposed to lead us to the Christmas celebration. The words differ a little bit from tradition to tradition, and you might want to argue for other themes to be a part of the Advent season, but the four “gifts” we’re going to focus on this year, the four things that Advent and Christmas bring to us are: hope, joy, love and peace. Each week, we’ll be unwrapping one of these gifts to see how they help us, in this special season of the year, to better prepare our hearts for the arrival of Jesus Christ. And, as I’ve already said, today we’re going to look at what Jesus said about his return as we begin Advent with hope.

A lot of times we use that word, “hope,” as a sort of stand-in for wish fulfillment. “I hope I get a good parking space.” “I hope she says ‘yes’ when I ask her for a date.” “I hope the preacher doesn’t go too long today.” Some wishes will be granted, and others probably will not be, but wishes are not what hope is all about. Others see hope as risky, dangerous, even frightening. We see that demonstrated by the character “Red,” played by Morgan Freeman in the film The Shawshank Redemption. The story takes place in prison, a place very often without hope, but the new arrival, Andy, hangs onto his hope, even after spending two weeks in solitary confinement. When he gets out of solitary, his fellow prisoners ask how he got through it.

Hope as described in the Bible and in the Christian faith is not hope based on possibilities. Hope, for those who follow Jesus, is based in something certain. We have hope because we know that we know that this thing will take place. The people in the first century had hope that a Messiah, a Savior was coming. They didn’t know when and they didn’t know how, but they had listened to the words of rabbis and prophets, to people God had spoken through, and because God had been faithful to fulfill his promises in the past, they knew they could count on God to fulfill this promise as well. Then Jesus came, and he taught the people the way God the Father wanted them to live, and many saw in him the fulfillment of that promise, their hope. What they had known would happen had now come to pass. Then, this Jesus started talking about another hope, another arrival, a time when he would return to make all things right.

The passage we read from Matthew’s gospel this morning is just a short piece of a longer sermon Jesus preached during the last week of his life. His upcoming death is very much on Jesus’ mind, and he wants to equip his disciples for what is coming. In these chapters, he seems to go back and forth between different time periods, between what is coming for Jerusalem in a few short years, to the end of time when he returns, to their present time. It’s not always as clear as we’d like it to be exactly what he’s talking about, but in the midst of all of that, there are three things he’s telling us about the future and one action that all of his followers in every time should take.

The first thing Jesus tells us in this passage is the one we most often forget: no one knows when Jesus will return, not even Jesus himself (24:36). Only the Father knows. Not you, not me, not the TV preacher or the one who sells a bunch of books. I’m always confused why, if Jesus says he doesn’t even know, people continue to write books predicting the end. Now, here’s the question I usually get asked: how it is possible that God the Father knows when the end will come and Jesus the Son does not? We believe in one God, manifested in three persons. So how can one of those persons, who is fully God, not know what the other knows? I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. Are you ready for my deeply theological, long-studied answer? Here it is: I don’t know. But that is the way it is, according to Jesus. In some way, he has limited himself so that he does not know and will not know until the Father says to him, “Go get my people.” So if Jesus doesn’t know and won’t know, why do we waste so much time trying to figure it out?Do we honestly think we’ll figure out something Jesus doesn’t even know?

That leads us to a second thing Jesus tells us about the future: ordinary life will go on as usual clear up until the end (24:37-39). That’s the whole point of the illustration of Noah. Until the flood came, life went on just like normal. Now, it’s a little bit amazing that Noah spent decades building the ark and no one seems to have wondered why. No one thought to change their ways. Instead, they just ignored him. Life went on, and that crazy old guy out there building a boat in a desert—well, just don’t pay any attention to him. Life went on as usual until the flood came (cf. Genesis 6-7). Jesus says that’s the way it will be until he returns. There will be no special signs or announcements. Life will go on—there will be meals and marriages, eating and drinking and so on until the coming of the Son of Man. So when people ask me if I think we’re in the Last Days, I say, “Absolutely.” We’ve been in the Last Days ever since Jesus walked the earth and we will be until he returns. He said life will go on like usual until he comes.

The third thing, then, Jesus wants us to know is that he will divide people. He gives this mini-parable about two men and two women going about the ordinary business of the day and suddenly one is taken and the other is left. One is on Jesus’ side and the other is not. He said something similar earlier, when he was giving his disciples instructions about their ministry: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to being peace, but a sword…A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household” (10:34, 36). He went on to draw the line very clearly: “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (10:37). He doesn’t say not to love family members, just that loving him is more important, that if a choice comes between loving him and loving those we can see and those we know, we want to get to the place where we love him more. He takes first place in our lives so that no matter what happens we will know whose side we are on. Like it or not, Jesus’ presence in our lives is divisive, even between family members (cf. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part Two, pg. 127; Augsburger, The Communicator’s Commentary: Matthew, pg. 275).

So because of those three truths, Jesus says, those who follow him are to be doing one thing: keep watch! Stay awake! Be ready! All ways of saying the same thing: we live our lives in constant expectation and constant hope. Because we do not know exactly when he will come, keep watch! Because life will go on as usual until the moment he comes, stay awake! And because his presence can cause division among those we love, be ready! No matter what happens to us here, no matter what others say about us and no matter how we were treated by that relative at the Thanksgiving dinner table (you know the one, the one who is always arguing with everyone about their political and religious ideas), we can live as people who have hope. No matter what happens in next year’s election, no matter what challenges come up against our church or denomination, no matter who says what about us, we are people of hope because Jesus has promised—no, guaranteed—that he will return and take his people home.

Staying awake or being ready is not a matter of just standing around, looking up at the sky to see if he’s coming. Keeping watch does not mean we spend all of our time trying to figure out the secret clues and the so-called “signs of the times” so we can know when he will arrive. Honestly, in my lifetime alone, there have been so many predictions of exact dates or particular seasons that I’ve lost count—and all of them have been wrong. Now, you could argue that one day someone is going to be right, but that’s not the point. Jesus says he will come at a time when we don’t expect him (24:44) and that “you do not know on what day your Lord will come” (24:42). Tom Wright tells about a day he experienced this truth on a smaller scale. The doorbell rang and he went to answer it dressed as he was in casual clothes. It was a lazy Saturday afternoon, and the house had an air of “cheerful untidiness.” When he opened the door, there was a group of 30 well-dressed visitors. They were there to tour the house as a part of an historical tour—a tour Wright had forgotten their family had agreed to! He quickly suggested the visitors go to the garden “to get a good look at the house from the outside” and his family quickly tidied the house as best as they could in five minutes. Wright then makes this comment: “You can tidy your house in a few minutes, if you put your mind to it. But you can’t reverse the direction of a whole life, a whole culture. By the time the ring on the doorbell happens it’s too late” (Wright 125-126).

It’s a pointless endeavor to try to figure out when Jesus will return. Our call is to live in hopeful expectation. It’s far better for our soul to be people of hope, to be ready whenever, knowing without a doubt that he will come and until then, doing the work he has called us to do. One of my favorite stories tells of St. Francis of Assisi (and who knows if it’s true or not, but it’s still a good story). Francis was working out in his garden when someone asked him what he would do if he learned he would die that day at sunset. And Francis, without pausing, said simply, “I would finish hoeing my garden.” The same question could be put this way: what would you do if you learned that Jesus was returning today at sunset? Keep alert and do the work he has called you to do this day, this moment, this hour.

Jesus’ return is our greatest hope; it’s why I remind you so often that the worst thing is never the last thing. No matter what happens here, there is something better coming. This is not the end. We’ve had to live into that truth the last couple of weeks as first Cathy’s mother went to be with Jesus and then my Aunt did. At my mother-in-law’s funeral a couple of weeks ago, I got to proclaim that truth. Certainly, there was sadness in the air, and there were tears on the faces. We miss Sandy a great deal, but I was able to stand in that pulpit and proclaim the good news that Sandy believed: that Jesus is alive and because of that, we mourn with hope. We know, as Sandy knew and as my Aunt Clarice knew, that the worst thing is never the last thing. Advent reminds us of this truth just as much as Easter does because in the arrival of this baby in Bethlehem, in the certain hope of his return in glory, we find confidence for living each and every day. Let’s be honest: this world is not easy to live in. We would prefer life to be without challenges, but it is not, and even as I think back over the last year, there are some difficult things, rough stuff, that you all and we have had to deal with. No matter how much we try to pretend it’s not so, life is hard. We have to deal with the unexpected nearly every day. And yet what should mark God’s people as different is this little four letter word: hope. Even in the face of death and disease, in the midst of economic challenges and job loss, in the midst of family squabbles or natural disasters, there is still hope. Political opposition, financial downturns, divorce and separation, cancer and physical challenges—none of that can take away our hope. Our hope is sure, during Advent and on every other day of the year.

There’s this marvelous psalm that people are fond of quoting, Psalm 121, and it begins with what we think is such a beautiful verse. In fact, you might even have this on a poster or plaque or a piece of artwork. “I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from?” (Psalm 121:1). And we think of that as an uplifting verse and put it on a picture of mountains. But can I tell you that verse does not say what we think it says? The mountains, for the ancient Israelites, were the place where the pagan altars were located. You read over and over again about the bad kings building altars to pagan gods in the “high places,” the mountains. No, the singer of the psalm is not looking to the mountains for inspiration, for hope. He’s saying, “I see the mountains, but there is no help and no hope coming from there. Those are places of false worship.” You’ve got to read the next verse to hear the hope the psalmist wants to communicate: “My help comes from the Lord [not from the mountains or their pagan gods]—the Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:2). The Lord God, the one who made it all, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, he is our help, our hope and our salvation. And that is the gift of Christmas.

We remember that truth every time we come to the communion table, as we’re going to do today here at the start of Advent. Communion is a celebration grounded in profound hope. In it, we look backward, remembering Jesus’ death, but we also look forward, to his return. And, we are told to do this, to celebrate communion, until he comes again: “Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). This morning, as we come to the table, as you receive the bread and the juice, may you be filled with hope, and may you this Advent season learn to watch and wait and expect his coming. Jesus has come and is coming again. That is reason to hope, so let’s unwrap this gift of Christmas as we come to the table.