Strength to the End

Mark 13:24-37; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9

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One evening during the summer of 1986 I was having dinner with my grandparents.  We were sitting at the kitchen table eating supper and watching the evening news.  A very interesting news story came up. People were coming from all over the place to some little town in Ohio to see what appeared to be the face of Jesus rusting up on the side of a town water tank.  I looked over at Granddaddy and it appeared that he had become rather interested in this story and was becoming visibly angry for he had stopped eating. All of a sudden he blurted out, “What in the world! The Bible says Jesus is coming back on clouds of glory, not on the side of some water tank. Ain’t that right boy?” and I said, “Yeah.” Then he just shook his head for a minute or two while the story finished and then went back to eating.

Granddaddy’s response begs a very important question: “Why were so many people, and good Christians at that, searching for hope on the side of a water tank?”  For Granddaddy, the Bible said quite specifically that Jesus would be coming back on clouds of glory and that was good enough for him.  He didn’t need the proof of Jesus coming back on a water tank.  Yet, these water tank Jesus folks, they apparently needed some proof.  It wasn’t that they needed proof that Jesus was coming back.  They rather wanted something, a miracle, to assure them that the God they believed in was real.  Person after person that the newscaster interviewed at this water tank phenomenon said just that, “This proves that God is real.  This proves that Jesus Christ is alive.”  

So, why were they coming to the water tank for validation of their faith?  Well, this was going on in the midst of the economic crisis that bedeviled the “80’s.  There was also living daily with the Cold War fear of nuclear holocaust.  The first hints of the cultural decline of Christianity were becoming visible.  The AIDS epidemic was afoot with some actually believing it to be a plague sent by God.  In the midst of all that social turmoil people just wanted proof that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost hadn’t taken the last train for coast.  

To many people, the times seemed so “Apocalyptic” (if I might misuse the term), like the world was going to end soon, and they wanted to know if God was with them.  That’s back when I first accepted the call to follow Christ (not just believe) and I remember very clearly how Endtimes-focused a good bit of American Christianity was.  You didn’t need to look too hard for a class on the Book of Revelation.  And it wasn’t just the church that this apocalyptic fervor touched.  The artist formerly known as Prince was singing “Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1999” and that song was all about an impending end of the world.  In the mid-80’s there was a strong sense of expectation of something apocalyptic in the air and those water tower Jesus people were just wanting some assurance.

Well, what’s all this got to do with Mark’s gospel and Jesus coming back?  This is the first Sunday in Advent. It’s traditionally called the Prophet’s Sunday and, on this day, we remember how the prophets of the Old Testament were filled with the expectation of a day when God would come as the Saviour/Messiah to set things right and establish his kingdom forever.  Their hopes and expectations were partly fulfilled with the coming of Jesus. They also hoped for a day when God would pour out his Spirit on all peoples and this has been happening in part since the day of Pentecost when God poured his Spirit upon the church.  They also looked forward to the Day, the Day of the Lord, when God would finally put all things to rights.  We still look forward to that same day, the day when Jesus will return and all things will be created anew.  This “looking forward” is what distinguishes the Judeo-Christian faith from all other religions.  

In our text today Jesus proclaims to us the message of the prophets to expect a day when he will return in glory. It is often the case that some find it difficult to accept that Jesus will return. After all, it’s been nearly two thousand years now and he hasn’t shown up. I could very easily accept this view point on the basis that it fits reality, but I cannot. To say that Jesus is not coming back robs our faith of its hope, a hope born in the expectation of a day when God will finally put an end to sin and an end to death. I have seen too often the difference that hope can make in a person’s life (particularly those who are near the end of life) just to dismiss the world which the prophets, the earliest Christians, and Jesus himself hoed for and imagined. 

In expectation of that day, Jesus commands us to keep awake, to not be found sleeping. It’s never a good thing to fall asleep at a time when you’re supposed to be awake.  You miss important stuff like things that are going to be on the exam or that you’re driving off the road.  Jesus commands us to stay awake meaning to keep hoping in God, to keep expecting God to act not just at the end of time but more so now, in our daily lives right now.  

We hear a lot people making semi-funny jokes about how bad 2020 is.  Humour is a good way to deal with 2020.  Yes, the times are bad now.  You would think it was the 80’s all over.  We’ve got a pandemic that’s requiring us to adapt with major changes to our lifestyles.  It’s got the global economy on the brink of a shambles.  There’s the instability of the American political situation.  There seems to be no such thing as straight up news anymore.  Even the weather report seems to be a biased opinion piece, but I guess that’s always been the case with the weather.  Everybody just seems to believe what they want to believe.  Sometimes I scroll through Facebook and see some of the stuff that people I went from elementary to High School with post; particularly the political stuff.  I can’t believe we went through the same schools and had the same teachers and see things so differently.  There’s still the threat of nuclear attack but more so from a terrorist group than from another nation.  There’s societal distrust of the institutions of authority but blind allegiance given to authoritarian figures.  Then, there’s the impending Climate crisis.  That one really worries me.  

Jesus said, “But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers will be shaken.”  That’s a style of writing called “Apocalyptic” and he’s just saying that that all the institutions and beliefs and what not that hold a society together get shaken to where nothing makes sense.  It’s like clearing an Etch-a-Sketch so you can start over.  We are in such a time as that now.  Now more than ever hope and a people who live according to hope are necessary.

Jesus says, “Keep awake.”  God will come to us in this time of upheaval, and its best we not be sleeping lest we miss it.  I don’t want to sound like one of those Bible-thumping, late-night, AM radio preachers and scare people.  No.  Quite the opposite, I want to give hope.  People are already really scared and just don’t understand what the hell is going on.  We need hope.  I started out talking about people flocking to a small town in Ohio back in the ‘80’s to see what looked like the face of Jesus rusting up on water tank.  People need to see the face of Jesus right now.  It is my prayer that he shines through our faces, our lives and isn’t just rusting away on us.  We need to keep awake.  Attend to your devotional life.  Keep in contact with people especially those shut-in.  Encourage people to work together to solve our common problems particularly the problems faced by those who are struggling. All the finger pointing and labelling people as enemies does absolutely nothing towards healing divisions.  Encourage people.  

Encourage people.  In the passage I read from 1 Corinthians Paul remarks on how God had given them so much grace meaning that God had been so evidently at work in their midst.  That being the case Paul says, “He (God) will also strengthen you to the end.”  I have been through periods in my life when everything has been upside down.  This verse has meant the world to me.  Tough, tumultuous periods come but will in time come to an end and, truly, God does strengthen us to get us through them.  In these times when everything is being turned upside down and inside out be encouragers.  I’ve run a few marathons in my life and there is nothing like another participant coming alongside you at mile 19, mile 20, when everything is its most disillusioning, hurting just as much as you are and they simply say to you, “We got this.”  Then, the next 6-7 miles go by and where the strength came to finish from?  Who knows? It just did.  Friends we got this and God will strengthen us to the end.  Encourage people.  Give hope.  Amen.

 

  

Jesus, Show Your Face

Text: Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37

My grandfather was a quiet man.  My Grandmother, on the other hand,…well, she was one of those who could talk non-stop, relentlessly.  I know that’s redundant, but it helps to make my point.  My grandfather usually found a way to cope with that.  Usually with work, civic groups, and staying busy.  But, when Granddaddy retired he had to come up with something quick . It did not take long for the number of TV sets around their house to increase.  He could turn on and tune out while Grandma yattered on.  He even put one in the kitchen.  Grandma could watch her shows while she piddled in there throughout the day, but mostly it was to give Granddaddy relief at meal times.   I have a fond memory of that TV.  I was there for dinner one evening.  The news was on.  Grandma was “givin’ ‘er” with the chatter on family and neighbourhood news.  In the midst of this I noticed Granddaddy staring at the TV and becoming agitated in a way very unlike him, so I turned to look at what was on.  It was a news story about how the face of Jesus was beginning to take shape in the rust on the side of a water tower somewhere in Ohio.  Granddaddy was as angry as I’ve ever seen him, if I ever saw him angry and he blurted out, “The Bible says that when Jesus comes back he’s coming on clouds of glory not on the side of some water tower.  Ain’t that right, boy?”  I said, “That’s right”.  He shook his head in righteous indignation and went back to eating.

Now, I cannot say much for Canada, but I know that down in the Southern U.S. where I’m from, down in the Bible Belt, people are as superstitious about their so-called face of Jesus appearances as the Roman Catholics were about their “relics” back in the Middle Ages (a piece of the cross here, another head of John the Baptist there, here a finger of Peter, there a toe of Paul).  I have actually heard it reported on the news in just the last ten years that the face of Jesus has appeared on the tin roof of a barn silo, a piece of toast, on a tortilla chip, and in the mould on a bathroom wall of a run down little house somewhere in South Carolina.  I’ve even heard a news report on a Madonna and Child taking form in a Cheeto.  And, the Jesus’s all look the same – the bearded European, Shroud of Turin-y, crusader-looking guy who bears next to no resemblance to a Middle Eastern Jew.  I don’t want to be stereo-typical about the facial features of certain races, but the silo Jesus, the water tower Jesus, the tortilla Jesus, the bathroom mould Jesus, and the Cheeto Madonna none of them in any way looked like Middle Eastern Jews.  Well, the fact is we wouldn’t know Jesus to see him if we saw him, but Channel Whatever News all over the South reports these things as if they are factual proof of the existence of Jesus and people get giddy about it. 

I’m with my grandfather on this one.  The proof of the hope of our faith is not rusting up on the side of some water tower in Ohio. But, you never know.  Maybe if a face of Jesus had appeared in the brickwork of a building or two down in Ferguson, Missouri this past week legitimate cries for justice and equality before the law may not have turned so violent so easily.  Maybe if a face of Jesus had appeared somewhere when the initial altercation occurred between Michael Brown and Officer Wilson maybe it would not have ended in a needless death. 

Today, in the wake of all that I know this morning there are some people down there, faithful people, good Christian people sitting in church hearing the same passages of Scripture read that we just read and its really speaking to them because it gives word to what’s deep down in them.  “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence.”  Actually, in the Hebrew language the word we translate as “presence” is face. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your face, as when fir kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil, to make your name known to your enemies, so that the nations might tremble at your face.”  Isaiah goes on to say and I paraphrase, “You did it before when we didn’t expect it, when we didn’t deserve it.  You freed us from slavery in Egypt, and brought us to Mt. Sinai, ‘you came down, that mountain quaked at your face’.  No ear has heard.  No eye has seen any God besides you who acts for those who wait for him.”  I think there are many people down in the Southern U.S. this morning remembering how God delivered them from slavery and led them through the fight for civil rights, but this morning they are praying and shouting, “Jesus, show your face.  We are you people.  You made us who we are.  Where are you Jesus?  Come down and show your face.  Put things right here.”  I know down there this morning there’s a whole lot of people wanting Jesus to show up and do something.  Yet, Jesus for whatever reason keeps his distance and so the cry of lament legitimately goes up to God.  What a profound sense of God’s absence they must feel.

This passage from Isaiah is a lament and a special one.  Old Testament scholar Claus Westermann in his commentary of Isaiah says that this passage from Isaiah is “the most profound psalm of communal lamentation in the Bible”[1].  There’s something about laments we need to take to heart.  Their very presence in the Bible let’s us know that it’s okay for us to be angry at God when he seems to be pulling a George Jones.  We bought the ticket, stood in line, found our seat, but he ain’t showing.  It’s okay to be angry with God when he seems to be a no show. Job in the midst of his trials cries out “if only I could see God face to face.  If I could find where he lived, I’d give him the what for.” (Of course, that’s my paraphrase of the first few verses of Job 23.)  There are probably as many if not more psalms of lament in the Bible than there are psalms of praise.  Folks, it’s okay to be angry with God.  If we’re not allowed to get angry with God, then we really don’t have a relationship with him.  I would even as far as to say that he must be bring us to a place of a profound sense of God’s absence before we find ourselves profoundly aware of his presence.  I think that’s the message at the heart of this passage.  God makes us feel his absence and somehow in the wake of that he makes his presence known.

Have you ever looked looked at the state of your own life and felt the profound absence of God?  Have you ever found yourself powerless over the course of your life and in need of God’s help and yet it seems he’s nowhere to be found.  Have you ever been on your knees crying out, “Jesus, where are you?  Come!  Tear open the heavens and come down.  Jesus, show me your face.  You’ve done it before.  I’ve read my Bible It’s full of stories of your steadfast love and faithfulness, of how you did miraculous things for those who wait for you.  You did it for them.  Why don’t you do it for me?  I know it is you who has made me who I am so where are you?  Jesus, show your face!”  If you have ever felt that profound sense of God’s absence and spoken your lament, then you know what this first Sunday in Advent is about; this gut-churning waiting for God to act in the midst of the painful profoundness of his absence.  It is not Christmas that we hope and wait for.  Christmas has happened and so we stand on it in faith.  God has once and for all gotten involved in his Creation to deliver it by becoming Jesus the Christ.  Christmas has come.  It’s the completion of Christmas that we await.  It’s his coming again to put things right that we await.  The strong feelings underlying lament are mysteriously the seedbed of hope and faith through which he eventually makes his presence known.  It’s okay to be angry with God and it’s okay to let him no it.  Lament is part of how faith and hope work.  Amen.

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[1] Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40-66, (David M. G. Stalker, trans.; OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), 392.