Advent One 2014 All Saints Patcham ~ transcript of sermon

All Saints Patcham Advent One 2014

Isaiah 64.1-9 & Mark 13.24-37

Have you ever taken a sauna, perhaps trying to outstay someone? Then coming out you enter a very cold shower or sometimes an ice cold plunge pool, or perhaps in Sweden roll in the snow! Or perhaps you took up the Ice Bucket challenge that was going around in the late summer months.

This passage from Mark has that effect – or at least it should if you are paying enough attention!

We have missed some of the earlier passages and jumped straight into Mark’s Gospel part way through Jesus’ outlining the future.

This is shocking and brings us up with a jolt, or at least ought to.

Today is the first Sunday in Advent, the beginning of the new liturgical year with Mark as the guiding principle Gospel for the year ahead.

I would encourage you to read Mark, learn and inwardly digest.

So, why have we jumped in here and not taken the more logical step and started at the beginning of the Gospel?

Well there are good reasons for that; however Mark’s Gospel is so dynamic that wherever you jump in it is like a slap in the face.

Mark begins and offers no birth narrative but plunges straight into Jesus’ public ministry with a startling announcement – an announcement that has everything to do with today’s reading and the season of Advent.

Mark opens his Gospel speaking about John the Baptizer making a straight road, a highway for the Lord.

Familiar words from Isaiah chapter 40 and set to wonderful music and words by Handel in The Messiah, ‘Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.’

Then Jesus’ first words set a challenge both then and now.

‘At last the time has come!’ ‘The Kingdom of God is near!’ ‘Repent and believe the Good News!’

We need to bear in mind that Jesus would have heard evangelist announcing good news of the advancing kingdom as he grew up.

These evangelists, tellers of good news, would have been dispatched from Rome and called to announce some glorious military triumph or the Emperor’s birthday or some such good news!

And here is Jesus announcing another kingdom, another Lord and inviting people to make a choice.

What the Kingdom of God will look like and how its citizens should act, Jesus will go onto teach and demonstrate over the new few years.

Back to where we jumped into the Gospel with Jesus talking about the last things, the end of the age, which seem to suggest that a new age was about to dawn.

This passage must be read in the context of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in the year 70AD.

It is way beyond our comprehension to even begin to understand what this meant to Jews at that time. Scripture after scripture from their prophets told of this time to come, principally Daniel and also Isaiah.

The Jewish historian Josephus recalls the horror of the final invasion, the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple under the hand of Titus, Vespasian’s adopted son.

This was indeed the end of the world as far as the Jewish nation was concerned.

No ‘ordinary’ language could begin to describe it and so Jesus turns back to the prophets Isaiah and uses his words;

‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give out its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and heavenly bodies will be shaken.’

Not to be taken literally but as dramatic poetry.

And then from Daniel 7.13 – ‘At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.’

This reading from Daniel is the Son of Man coming to God after being subjected to suffering and now being vindicated

Following Jesus’ suffering and death there is a resurrection bringing vindication.

God’s new age has dawned; the Kingdom of God has been established up earth.

That same clarion call goes out to the four corners of the earth, ‘The Kingdom of God is here, repent and believe the Good News.’

However this is a now and not yet Kingdom.

And underlying the apocalyptic language that Jesus uses in Mark we need to hear and heed the message of Christ’ second coming.

In particular the final verses we heard from Mark’s Gospel.

‘Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back – whether in the evening or at midnight, or when the cock crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly let him not find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone, ‘Watch.’

Imagine if you will Downton Abbey, and Lord and Lady Grantham have been away and have a long journey back home and have told Carlson to be ready at any time for their return. As a diligent and dedicated Butler Carlson would make sure everything would be ready for their return at what ever hour.

A silly illustration but I hope you see the point I am trying to make.

The keyword for Advent is ‘Watch,’ a time of waiting and reflecting.

An earlier tradition considered what are commonly known as the ‘Four Last Things’ – heaven and hell, death and judgment.

That would certainly knock the edge of early Christmass jollification.

Today the four Sundays of Advent are most often focused on the Patriarchs, the Prophets, John the Baptizer and Mary.

From the Patriarchs like Abraham and then the Prophets, culminating in John the Baptizer as the Prophet of Prophets, God reveals His plan for the redemption of the cosmos. And miracles of miracles that plan included God squeezing himself into human form and sharing our life with us. He finds Mary, as a willing God bearer, the Theotokos.

Jesus born of Mary comes amongst us as we will hear from the Prologue to John’s Gospel, as the light of the world.

 Further on in John’s Gospel (14.46-48) we read...

"I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.  "If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.  "He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.…

This encapsulates the two Advent themes, Jesus coming as Saviour and then coming again as judge, when the secrets of all hearts will be opened.

And you and I as members of the Body of Christ now upon earth are called to be light bearers.

This season of Advent affords us the perfect opportunity to reflect on how well we are doing as bearers of the Christ light. Perhaps we might think back to the parable of the wise and foolish virgins with their lamps trimmed and oil at the ready for the coming of the bridegroom. We need to be alert and watch because we do not know the day or the hour when the master will return.

We have already seen and will continue to see lights decorating homes, shops and streets.  But however bright those lights are they cannot hide the darkness that remains in the world. Were thousand still die of hunger, were nearly one in four women across the world suffer abuse, were nearly 80 medical staff have died trying to treat and bring comfort to sufferers of Ebola. Where in our own country Food Banks have become normalized and we are seeing cases of rickets returning.

Sad to say, it is more often the case as a song writer once put it;

 ‘The world is living in the dark because the Church is asleep in the light.

Let us pray…

To make our weak hearts strong and brave, send the fire!

To live a dying world to save, send the fire!
Oh, see us on Your altar lay our lives, our all, this very day:
to crown the offering now we pray, send the fire!

William Booth