Sermon – Mark 13:24-27 – Waiting for The Coming of Jesus

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

Sermon – Mark 13:24-27 – Waiting for The Coming of Jesus

Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Churches

First Sunday of Advent

Nov. 27, 2011

God has given us a rhythm of the seasons. The nights are getting longer and days shorter as we approach the Winter solstice. But soon the days will lengthen and the leaves will return to the trees. Winter will give way to Spring and the heat of Summer, and the cool Fall days will be with us once again.

We follow this God-made rhythm in many ways. The school year starts every September with new clothes and sharpened pencils and lasts until June. The solar year begins on January 1 with a great celebration at midnight on New Years Eve. Koreans start the lunar year with a feast of rice cake soup. And Christians begin the church year with the season of Advent.

Advent is the time of the church year when we think about the coming of Jesus. In one sense Jesus has already come as a baby born in a barn in Bethlehem. But in another sense Jesus is still coming and will come again with a new heaven and a new earth. So the coming of Jesus is both “already” and “not yet”. We finds ourselves in the middle of “already” and “not yet” and so we are both remembering and waiting. This is what Advent is all about. We wait for the Jesus we remember. So lets start this time of Advent in prayer.

“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)

NRSV MARK 13:24-27 24“But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25 and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. 26 Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. 27 Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

Picture in your minds a young girl in the 3^rd grade standing on a street corner near her house. She is waiting for the school bus. And she is waiting with a sense of dread. Today is report card day. And she didn't hand in all her homework and didn't study real hard for the tests. She fears what the report card will say and what mother will say when she brings it home this afternoon. So she waits for the bus waiting in fear.

Now picture in your minds the same girl waiting on the same corner. But this time she is waiting on tiptoe waiting for the Christmas parade to start. She is filled with joy and anticipation as she waits filled with hope for an exciting time watching the floats, marching bands and of course Santa Claus as he comes down the street. The same girl, the same corner waiting in fear or waiting in hope.

Or consider this picture. A fisherman is sitting in his living room. He has cleaned his boat and his gear and is settled down for the winter. The pond out back is frozen over. He is waiting for the return of Spring and is bored to death. He has nothing to do. He doesn't think he can wait for Spring to get back on the pond fishing. He thinks maybe next year he will spend the winter in Florida.

Now the same fisherman: He is in his boat on the pond. And he has been waiting since dawn trying to catch the large mouth bass he knows is there. He is filled with anticipation and hope that the fish with bite the plastic worm on the hook. He doesn't even notice that he has been waiting all day. The the same fisherman waiting in boredom

We all wait for things. We wait in the doctor's office. We wait for the kids to come home. We wait for the presents at Christmas. And what,s important is not that we wait or how long we wait. What's important is how we wait. Do we wait with excitement, anticipation and hope? Or do we wait in boredom, fear and anxiety?

Jesus was concerned about how his disciples would wait. Jesus knew that he would be leaving them, and he had no idea when he would be returning. So he had to prepare his people for what could be a long wait. And he had to give them something that would allow them to wait filled with anticipation and hope.

The opportunity to do this for his disciples came while they were in Jerusalem. One of his disciples commented on the grandeur of the temple. It was truly an amazing structure. A generation before King Herod the Great had expanded it and made truly one of the world's wonders. Jesus knew that within the lifetime of that disciple the Jews would rebel against the Romans and in the war to follow that temple would be reduced to rubble. Jesus also knew that within a week he would be dead crucified on a cross. How would his disciples wait for his return given these catastrophic events? Would they lose faith and go home? Would they be filled with fear and dread? Or would they wait in hope of a glorious future and Jesus' return?

Jesus wanted to ensure that his disciples would wait filled with hope in what God was about to do. But he had to give them something that would continue to sustain them with hope while they waited. And this is what Jesus did. He took four of his most trusted disciples, Peter, James, John and Andrew and crossed the Kidron Valley to Mount of Olives. There in full sight of the magnificent temple Jesus began teaching them from the Hebrew scriptures he had memorized. He quoted from the book of Isaiah and the stars falling from the sky. He talked about the book of Daniel and the exaltation of the Son of Man before the throne of God. These books had been written is times of great distress as the people of God waited for God. And these books teach us that God did act entering human history to save his people. So Jesus was teaching these disciples to use scripture to sustain hope while they waited for God to act.

And that is exactly what they did. After Jesus' resurrection and ascension to the Father all of Jesus' followers were filled with hope. And to sustain this hope throughout the period of waiting the disciples established churches where the Hebrew scriptures would continue to be taught as Jesus taught them and where the stories of Jesus could be shared with each other. By continuing to study the scripture each Sunday the new Christians were able to wait with great hope in the resurrection.

This continues today. We are still waiting for Jesus to return. And we are filled with hope throughout this wait by coming to church each Sunday and hearing scripture read and proclaimed. Through this process we remind ourselves of God's faithfulness to his people throughout the ages. Through scripture we know that no matter how bad it gets God remains with us and will act to save us.

Let me finish with one last story. Picture in you mind a breakfast table and a father reading the newspaper: Credit Crisis in Greece, Riots in Egypt, Penn State Couch Molests Young Boys. This father is gripped in fear for the future: what about America's debt, the protests in our streets, and the rising threat of inflation? He is waiting for something to happen and is filled with dread. At the same table is his young son. He can see the Christmas tree that they set up over the weekend. He has already written his letter to Santa Claus. And he waits with joy and anticipation for Christmas day and all the presents under the tree.

How are you waiting for Christ to return? Are you filled with fear and trepidation at what is happening in the world? Or are you filled with the excitement of a child waiting for Christmas morning? Jesus wants you to be filled with hope. And that is why he has given you the church with its joyful proclamation of scripture so that each Sunday you can be filled with hope and excitement as you wait for the coming of Jesus.

Lord Jesus remind us of God's faithfulness to his people in times past. Help us to see God at work through the scripture of old. And though these words of the Bible fill us with hope as we wait for you to return. This we pray, joyously, in the name of our triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.