Already... Not Yet... Christian Hope
December 3, 2023
The Rev. Joanie Brawley
The first Sunday of Advent - the start of our new liturgical year - can sometimes feel like spiritual whiplash. Webster’s says that Advent, by definition, marks the arrival of a notable person, thing or event… which makes perfect sense as we approach Christmas. But, the spiritual difficulty comes in that there are two, quite different Advents we unite in this season: the already fulfilled arrival of the Christ-child in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, and the not yet fulfilled second-coming of Christ the Divine Ruler at the conclusion of the age.
Last week we celebrated the final Sunday of Pentecost, worshiping Christ… the King over all Creation… who will return in victorious majesty to sit on “the throne of Glory” … where He will "restore all things” and “rescue His (scattered and anxious) people.” Last week… victory, and praise, and Christ’s wondrous, yet-to-come consummation event permeated our worship.
Now, this week, we read of Christ’s coming judgement, and the dark, cosmic events which will precede His return. We are warned to “beware”… with disquieting imperatives: “Keep awake!… keep alert!” “Heaven and earth will pass away,” we’re told, and “(we) do not know when the master of the house will (suddenly) come.” This week we look forward not so much to restoration and rescue as to destruction and divine verdict.
To amplify the contrast between last Sunday’s celebration of Christ, the King… this week, we also begin our Advent journey back toward Bethlehem… where we will find no vanquishing, immortal judge … but rather a tiny, shivering infant, born to an unwed mother and banished to a barn, some 2,100 years ago. The babe we find lying in an animal feeding trough is no conquering adjudicator… but a defenseless newborn … in need of constant care and protection.
It’s no wonder that Advent has sometimes been called the “Already… not yet” season. During this unique time, we find ourselves prayerfully reflecting upon the already-given Gift of the Christ-child … our gracious Emmanuel-God with us… even as we await His not-yet-fulfilled return in conquering, winnowing Glory. We are meant to hold these two different Advents in tension… yet also in union… and that can offer unique challenges. But, perhaps through the flint-strike of these seemingly incongruent Advent-stones (stones human builders rejected)… we just might see sparks fly… igniting twinkling shards of Christ’s light… like cosmos-filling Advent candles … of Biblical Hope … given to us as guide and comfort along the stoney path …between what has been and what will be. … in this “already… not yet” season.
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In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that His return in kingly Glory will follow a time of great trial and cosmic disturbance. Thanks be to God, Jesus’ Mercy and Grace (as always) has gone before us; like a divine airplane pilot, Jesus prepares His people for the turbulence that lies ahead… so that we will be wearing our seatbelts (the full armor of God) when the flight gets bumpy. We keep awake - stay alert… because … Christ’s yet-to-be-fulfilled Advent… will usher in a wondrous, more-fully-realized, cosmos-enveloping Glory of God(!) … in which we, Christ’s family of Faith, will be united with Him in ways we cannot ask for or imagine now, from our earthly vantage point. And so we wait - not in frozen anxiety - but by continuing to use the Gifts He has given us, doing the work He has given us to do… in eager expectation of that wonder-full future certainty! “Heaven and earth will pass away,” Jesus promises, “but my words will not pass away!”
This is Biblical, Christian Hope, and it is a very different kind of hope than we experience in anything earthly. Earthly hope hangs on words like “I wish” or “they dream” or “we desire;” earthly hope is something we DO. Biblical hope is something we HAVE (have been given by our Emanuel); Christian Hope is an assured, unwavering confidence in the unfailing, eternal promises of God! So, Christian Hope … is certainly future oriented, but it is equally anchored in the past … even as it is a constant in the present. Christian Hope is eternal, grounded in the past, sustained in the present and oriented toward the future.
We need look no further than today’s OT reading to see that Biblical-Hope anchor. Nearly 800 years before Christ, the prophet Isaiah pleads with YHWH to “tear open the heavens and come down … to make your name known” to God’s people (and the world at large.) Isaiah yearns for God to do again what He had done before … to ACT in earthly history through His “awesome deeds” beyond anything His people could have expected. Isaiah is not thrashing around in some delusional, pipe-dream-longing… He is leaning into that sure and certain Hope that is rooted in the very Nature and Promises of Almighty God. Isaiah knows God’s chosen people are undeserving, have sinned, and “all our righteous deeds are like filthy cloth.” His people are helpless in their sin… so much so that they are completely incapable of doing anything righteous unless God intervenes to save them from themselves. They are as formless and useless as clay, unless God molds them by the “work of His hand.”
Here Isaiah is… hundreds of years before Bethlehem, declaring humanity’s desperate moral desolation, which only God can redeem, by breaking into human history (as He has before) … and by “tearing open the heavens and coming down.” On this side of the Cross, some 3,000 years later, Christians remembering and awaiting both Advents, hear Isaiah’s plea as an astounding prophesy … not only of Christ’s Incarnation, but the very reason Christ “came down from heaven.” Truly amazing … and perfectly magnificent!
In our NT lesson, St. Paul (writing to the willful, worldly church at Corinth, some 20 years after Christ’s resurrection) comes at essentially the same human problem - and certainly the same solution … from a slightly different… rather more pointed angle. The issues Paul had to deal with at Corinth are as familiar today as they were in 50AD; what Corinth faced then, we still face now. They are “always” issues in our fallen world. Paul opens his letter with a typical-of-the-time greeting of “grace to you,” but from that moment on, nothing - absolutely nothing… including the Corinthians’ grace and peace … rests on their own accomplishment! Everything they have is from God, through Jesus Christ. Paul writes: “Grace to you and peace from God …and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God … for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, … as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you… you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul never beats around the bush! But even as he unambiguously reminds them (again) from whom all their gifts have come… he also declares that (thanks be to God) they will be strengthened by Christ so that even they (even we!) may be blameless on the day of Christ’s return. It is GOD who is faithful to those “called into fellowship… with Christ.”
Three thousand years ago, Isaiah prophesied that hope; 2,000 years ago, Paul extolled that hope … and it is the exact same Biblical Hope we have today. Their Hope, our Hope … is anchored (has been revealed) in what God has done and promised in the past… and it was, is and ever shall be …vibrant and operative … guaranteed … in the present. And our shared Biblical Hope - the Hope of Christian Faith - is of eternal life, together with God’s people, under God’s reign, enjoying God’s rule and blessing, through Christ our Glorious, Emmanuel King.
This is where the sweeping, incongruous tensions of the first Sunday of the new Christian year lead us… and it’s where Advent always leads us …into the mysterious, one certainty of Christ’s “Already… Not Yet” Advent Hope. For, no matter what season we happen to be celebrating, Christians have always lived in Advent anticipation. From the moment that tiny infant “tore open the heavens and came down,” God has already made Himself known to His believing people. And in His mercy and Grace, until Christ returns, He has prepared us for that glorious not-yet-revealed day. So, while we wait, stay awake in eager expectation; continue using the Gift’s God has given you, doing the work He has given you to do. And, as you wait… wait in wonder, looking for the flickering glow of Advent candlelight along life’s sometimes stoney path (for lives of Faith are full of such cracks into heaven for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.) And know in the certainty of Christian Hope, that you are … surrounded by, embedded in, and will be delivered Home to God through … the Gift we have in Jesus… our Savior (and God’s perfect, protecting spiritual umbrella) whose arms stretch from the babe’s swaddling Love for us… to the reigning King’s wondrous Grace and Peace given us as we wait in already… not yet Hope. Oh, come Lord Jesus! Come! Thanks be to God! Amen.
Yr. B, Advent 1
Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7,16-18
1 Corin. 1:3-9
Mk. 13:24-37