Matthew 24:36-44

The reading of at least a portion of Matthew 24 is presented in the church year (year A) on the first day of advent. Generally, Advent begins with a gospel reading that is of apocalyptic nature. This at times has felt quite uncomfortable and dissonant. They are all a bit dire and foreboding and generally don’t match the overall context of the people in the church’s I have served.

We have all just begun to decorate our homes and churches, listening to Christmas music as they drive about and then the church provides words like the one in Matthew wash over us: “But about that day and hour no one knows….” Part of the problem for me is these passages bring with them the challenging way the church of my youth approached them I can hear parts of Larry Norman songs; “man and wife asleep in bed – she hears a noise and turns her head…he’s gone… I wish we’d all been ready.”

But we owe the passage a deeper look. Joan Chittister provides a helpful entry to the themes of Advent.

“When the first small flame of the Advent wreath lights the monastery chapel and the soft, clear voices of those who have sung the chants and haunting melodies all their lives open the first of the Advent vigils, there is no doubt that we have begun a moment out of time. It is the beginning of the liturgical year. Christmas is four weeks away. We are at the moment in which a new cycle of old ideas will be stirred up again within us. We are beginning a spiritual crossing on dark waters led only by an ancient chart marked by a star. Here in the dark we will begin the search for light in the soul.”[1]

This way of beginning Advent has grown in me. These passages of disturbance, turbulence and wars, and rumors of wars invites every person of every land to enter this new Advent journey. For those who find themselves in places of the most difficult of unassuaged grief or world context of danger this passage does not come as a downer but a connection. “Here in the dark we will begin the search for light in the soul” speaks to those who are in difficult places but also calls all of us to turn towards and recognize suffering in our world. With all the bright lights and cheery songs (which I do love) these scriptures are speaking the truth of this very real down to earth experience. And those who are weighted with grief might hear that this Christmas promise is not an empty promise. This isn’t a shake of those dark feelings and join in the fun kind of message. It is a light that pierces the darkness with the promise that God is not finished with your life, our lives, or the human arc of history.

Advent is a preparation (as Joan points out) for Christmas but unlike Lent it is not a period of penance. Advent is a period that focuses us on joy. A joy of expectation that God comes into all our lives and whether we are feeling on top of the world or deep into a grave the promise is that God is with us and will be with us and is coming again.

This passage from Matthew then invites us into a different kind of praying that has expectation not fear. We are invited into a different kind of hoping that sees a light beyond the mayhem. Matthew in all its apocalyptic language has hope for us to hear. We have the promise that God is bringing us to a destination where heaven meets earth, and all things are made new. The passage also assures us that God is not unaware nor blind to the upheavals in our world and God is not finished yet. This call to be watchful and to be ready is much more than a dire warning that you don’t want to be caught with your hand in the cookie jar. It is a readiness to receive what Christ has done; what Christ is doing and what Christ will do. The fear of being left behind in real but for those who love Jesus this is a misplaced focus and often creates a strange view of God. Instead, we need to remember the whole of scripture which calls us to rest in the promise of God’s care for us in all times.

We are to keep our eyes on Christ in a way that continues to give us breath and by the Holy Spirit the ability to walk the way of Christ. Even if hated or betrayed, Christ is with you, the seemingly powerful will falter and God and is not done yet. These warnings have at times created an image of a harsh God which has caused a good many of us to have at least seasons of anxious focus on getting our “rightness” in order. We are best served when we read this passage with the knowledge of God’s great love and God’s grace that keeps showing up and calling us to God’s self. We are not to obsess over lists, the Pharisees and Sadducees got the lists right and were blind to the walking /talking presence of God in their midst. It is instead a call to wakefulness while breathing in the assurance that God is not done.

There is in this passage of fearful language an underlying call for the Christian to not be disturbed or afraid but trust God and live out the life of the Spirit. We can see what disturbances create in the church and our world by our present context. Christians whose language and actions seem to be grounded in anger and fear. The in-fighting in the church often falls into a frantic energy filled with judgement and wrath rather than confession, transformation, and prayerful discernment. This is so well described in the following passage:

10 Then many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another. 11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12 And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 14 And this good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations; and then the end will come.

Into the vortex of our fighting one another will come false prophets. And in this milieu love will grow cold. And when love grows cold so does our witness. We have no hope to offer this generation if they do not see love. A love that is alive and vibrant amid disturbances. A love and grace that is committed to being an embodied representation of God’s love and grace. A love that “is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things”.[2] The language of this passage calls us to hold steady to the Christ who has been revealed. One who loves extravagantly, forgives deeply, calls us to a deepening communion with God and lives unafraid. We can gather with other disciples to remember and celebrate the good news of Jesus’s incarnation, life, death, resurrection and coming again. We can pray for faithfulness how we live in the world. And we can trust that when Christ returns (a time none of us know) we will be gathered in.[3]

This passage is not portraying a God who is playing games. It’s not as if we will miss out on God’s presence and call if we blink, or sleep or attend to the regular demands of life. It is important remember the other ways in which God has been revealed; a woman who cleans the house for a lost coin, a shepherd looking for the lost sheep, and of course the Father longing for our return. But if we ignore God, walk away there may be a time when we recognize all the life of God that we missed. This gnashing of teeth does hold within it the deep anguish of having missed out on what God is wanting to bring to our lives and through our lives for the sake of others.

Advent invites to pause and ask; where in my life, my community’s life, my world’s life is God’s good news needed? It is into that yearning for more of God that we are invited into a different kind of praying. Prayers that have expectation of God’s incarnate, active transforming love and grace. We are invited into a deeper kind of hoping trusting in God’s faithfulness. And a call of God to allow his light to shine in us and through us and between us.

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[1] Chittister, Joan. The Liturgical Year: the spiraling adventure of the spiritual life, p. 63, Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[2] 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

[3] Matthew 24: 31.