2014B 1 Advent Advent and Eschatology (Mark 13:24-37)

Nancy S. Streufert
30 November 2014

Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I love the church year and that we Episcopalians observe it! Growing up in Iowa in the 1950s
and 60s, I attended St. Johns United Methodist Church with my family. Other than the
celebration of Christmas and Easter, I had no idea that we followed any kind of timeline in our
Sunday worship. The ministers wore black robes and I dont recall any liturgical color scheme.
Knowing what I know now, though, I suspect we did have altar frontals and other paraments
that changed colors with the church seasons.
You might conclude from this that I was woefully oblivious to the basics of the Christian faith,
and you are probably right! So for those of you who may not yet be familiar with the church
year, this brief overview is for you:
Each year begins with the First Sunday in Advent and ends with the Feast of Christ the King,
what we celebrated last Sunday. In between, we pass through the birth of Jesus at Christmas,
his manifestation to the nations in Epiphany, his passion, death, and resurrection in Lent and
Easter, his Ascension, and then the coming of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost. We call the long
period after Pentecost ordinary time, when our vestments are green. The Scripture during
this time recounts the teachings and other events in the public ministry of Jesus leading to his
passion and death in Jerusalem.
Today is the first Sunday in Advent and we are beginning a new church year. Our Sunday
lectionary, the Scripture we read each Sunday, follows a three year cycle designated A, B, and C.
Each year, one of the Synoptic gospels Matthew, Mark, or Luke respectively is featured
prominently. We have just completed Year A with Matthew and are beginning Year B with
Mark.
The four weeks of Advent follow the same timeline every year with slight variations in events as
recorded by Matthew, Mark, or Luke:
Advent 1 looks to the future, anticipating the time when Gods reign in Christ is total and Gods
mission of reconciliation of the world is complete.
Advent 2 and Advent 3 focus on the ministry of John the Baptist and his prophecy of Christs
reign. It isnt until Advent 4 that Mary enters the picture with the annunciation by the angel
Gabriel and her positive response to Gods call to bear the Christ child. And it is not until
Christmas Eve that the entrance of the crche with the Holy Family and the Baby Jesus are
appropriately displayed.
How different this is from our cultural norms of the season! When the sights and sounds of
Christmas begin earlier and earlier each year! I believe I saw ads with Christmas music as early
as the day after Halloween this year! And even many Christian churches bow to the inevitable
seasonal pull by singing Christmas carols and displaying nativity scenes early in Advent so as not
to appear out of step.

2014B 1 Advent Advent and Eschatology (Mark 13:24-37)

Nancy S. Streufert
30 November 2014

Advent is less about preparation for the birth of Christ as it is about preparing for Christs
coming in glory at the last day! As our Bishop said in his recent Diocesan eNews message:
[Advent] is a season when we are asked to note the signs of the coming reign of God in the
world, and to prepare ourselves for our Lord's return.
The earliest Christians apparently believed that the end of the world was imminent and would
come in a sudden, supernatural and cataclysmic event. Jesus cites several Old Testament
prophets in our gospel reading today in their foretelling of this future event.
As the church evolved over the centuries, the notion of a physical heaven and hell became
engrained in what theologians call our eschatological tradition. Eschatology deals with what is
more commonly called the last things associated with the end of life: our physical death and the
afterlife, heaven and hell, the end of the world as we know it. Our understanding about these
things is limited and finite but that doesnt mean we dont think about them and wonder what
will happen to us. What is the final destiny of our individual lives, the human race, the earth,
the entire cosmos? These are the questions that eschatology tries to answer.
An integral part of eschatology or last things is divine judgment. It is a central tenet of our faith
that Jesus Christ will be our judge as we affirm in the Nicene Creed when we say, He will come
again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.
Of Jesus parables and other biblical writings, many have interpreted the harshness and finality
of this final judgment literally. The expectation has been that the day of judgment would be in
the future and involve separating the good from the bad. If you were one of the righteous, you
would be with God in heaven forever; if you were wicked and evil, you would go to hell for all
eternity.
Judgment has taken on a binary classification as we find in some of Jesus parables: the
separation of the sheep and the goats or the wheat from the tares; the foolish bridesmaids who
didnt bring enough oil and who were asleep when the bridegroom came. The story of the poor
man Lazarus who is exalted into the bosom of Abraham, while the rich man who ignored him
during earthly life is condemned to the fires of hell.
Christian culture has run with this imagery. We see it portrayed in vibrant color on Vatican
frescoes, in the poetry of Dante, in the drawings of William Blake, and in the musical settings by
composers like Mozart and Berlioz. In the funeral mass of the Roman Catholic church prior to
Vatican II, the Dies Irae, Latin for Day of Wrath is the text that describes the day of judgment,
the last trumpet summoning souls before the throne of God, where the saved will be delivered
and the unsaved cast into eternal flames.
Naturally, we are uneasy about the notion that some will burn in hell for all eternity, for we
have compassion for those who for whatever reason have made terrible choices that have
demeaned their character. And, really, where will we find ourselves at the last day? Can it be
that there is a stark black and white difference between righteousness and evil?

2014B 1 Advent Advent and Eschatology (Mark 13:24-37)

Nancy S. Streufert
30 November 2014

Russian dissident Alexandr Solzhenitsyn would say no. In his book The Gulag Archipelago, he
writes, If only it were all so simple. If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously
committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and
destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the hearts of every human
being.
Is there another way to understand divine judgment?
The late Scottish theologian and Anglican priest, John Macquarrie, promulgated a more
accessible theology about judgment that correlates the notion of future judgment at the last
day with the commonly held belief among most theologians today that the reign of God has
already broken into the world with the incarnation of God in Jesus.
If we believe that God is already working in the world to reconcile us to one another and to
him, as I do, why is it not feasible that we are also being judged in the process in a loving and
merciful way by our savior who lived and died for us? And what does it mean to be judged? This
is where Jesus urging of his disciples to keep awake comes in. This is what the preparation of
Advent is about. What does it mean to keep awake, and why is it important?
I think this is explained well in the Advent 1 text of Lukes gospel, which we will get to a year
from now: Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and
drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a
trap. . . .Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things
that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.
In other words, live your life as if you will be hauled in before Christ at any moment. But not in
fear, for our judge is loving and merciful and wants to help us grow daily toward that life that
God intends us to have. In our baptismal vows, we promised (or our parents promised for us)
to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as [ourselves]. At any given
moment ask yourself how you are doing with this. Be alert to the choices you make each day as
you react to various annoyances and selfish desires. This Advent, be honest with yourself. Be
attentive and watch for the signs of Gods reign in your midst. Live fully. Keep awake.
Our collect for today begins, Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness,
and put on the armor of light. Ask yourself, in Gods presence, Am I living a life that reflects
my identity as a child of light?
Let us pray:
Grant, O Lord, that each day before we enter the little death of sleep, we may undergo the
little judgment of the past day, so that every wrong deed may be forgiven and every unholy
thought set right. Let nothing go down into the depths of our being which has not been
forgiven and sanctified. Then we shall be ready for our final birth into eternity and look
forward with love and hope to standing before [you], who are both judge and savior, holy judge
and loving savior. Amen.