Sermons for the Month
Keep Awake To God's Hopes For Advent
DATE: December 1, 2002
SERVICE: First Sunday In Advent
TEXT: Mark 13:24-37“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN
Time, no one has enough time! Since Thanksgiving was late this year, there are fewer days to decorate and to shop and to bake and to send cards before it all ends on Christmas Eve. There is just not enough time, people say, as their blood pressure rises and they cancel other commitments - like attending worship - because time is SO short. Christmas will soon be upon us, so we have to do things early - before it gets really busy (maybe that's why all the Thanksgiving decorations were on the clearance tables a week before the holiday was celebrated.) I spoke with my close friend Julie last Saturday night - actually with her husband first - because she was busy wrapping Christmas gifts in an attempt to be less stressed as the days before Christmas began counting down. Time, no one has enough time. That's a huge concern in December. But, while we are concerned with chronos time, God's concern is with kairos time. Chronos is a Greek word used in scripture to refer to chronological time - the seconds, minutes and hours that make up our days and so control us. But there is another word for time in the Greek; it is kairos and the concept it conveys is very different from clock watching. Kairos is a pivotal point in history or in a person's life. It's a crucial time or a decisive moment. In today's Gospel lesson the word kairos is used when Jesus says, "…for you do not know when the time will come." Or, "…for you do not know when the crucial moment, the decisive event will come." And, when it does come, the rush to get the "stuff" of Christmas done "on time" will be immaterial. That's why Jesus tells his followers to "Keep Awake!" Those words probably meant something different to those who first heard them than is true for us. You see, when this Gospel was written in about 70 AD Christians were experiencing persecution. Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed. The words that are recorded earlier in Chapter 13 about the desolating sacrilege being set up where it ought not to be, the terrible suffering, the false messiahs and the prophets who will lead astray the elect have already occurred. Christians were separated from their families by faith issues. The faithful could either despair or reach for any glimmer of hope. So, they are reminded that 40 years earlier Jesus had announced that these terrible things, which they were experiencing, would occur. But, that's not all Jesus had said. He also had predicted a day when the powers in the heavens would be shaken, and he would return in the clouds with great power and glory to gather his elect together. In this there was hope for those early believers. And, in this promise there is hope for us. The problem is that we get all caught up in chronos rather than kairos time, which I imagine was true for our early brothers and sisters as well. We worry about the seconds, minutes and hours of our days rather than focusing our attention on kairos, on that decisive moment when Jesus will return and all will be made new. Maybe Jesus was intent on telling his followers to "Keep Awake" because he knew that we would get all wrapped up in chronos time when the kairos moment seemed, at least by our time keeping, to be delayed. And perhaps that's why our predecessors in the faith created a Season called Advent. To help us remember kairos time they created a four-week period of reflection and preparation during which we prepare not only to celebrate the first coming of Jesus, as an infant, but also to welcome him in that kairos moment. In all this there is hope. Yet, what we feel is agitation because time is short and there is so much to do and somehow Advent hope is lost. Our goal here at Faith is to reclaim Advent and to find that hope in the midst of our own challenging lives and times. One of my hopes for this Advent season is that I will be able to share some practical ways for us to observe Advent in the midst of the day-to-day realities of our lives. So, during this Advent season let's ask, "What is my greatest hope for the holidays?" And then consider this question, "What is God's greatest hope?" Writer Larry Broding suggests that we take a piece of paper and divide in into two columns. Mark one column "mine" and the other "God's". Do this as a family or with friends. If you don't have time for the piece of paper, talk about it on your way home today or during lunch. If you want to do so, write some things down now, as I'm talking. The goal is to make an honest list of your wants and desires for these days before Christmas. Perhaps you would put on that list that you want your house to be decorated by next Sunday, or that the shopping would be done 10 days before Christmas Eve. Your list might include a desire for a harmonious gathering with family or that someone you love would find peace. Write whatever you want on your hope list, including your hope for diamond earrings or a new computer. Next go to God's column and write what you think God's hope is for this moment in time. Perhaps you'll record the word "peace", or maybe you'll write that God's hope is that all would come to faith. Maybe there are some items on your list that also belong on God's list; circle them and draw and arrow. I would not be surprised if many of the items on the "mine" side are concerned with chronos time and have deadlines attached while those on God's side have to do with kairos time and describe crucial moments or events that are yet to be completed. Now what? Star one item on God's list and think of it prayerfully each day between now and December 24. During this Advent season, when we are driven by our own hopes and those of other people, be awake, be alerted to at least one hope of God and make it your own. And in that moment of reflection each day find hope in the truth that all of God's hopes will come to pass … in God's time. AMEN