by CCW | 4 December 2011 14:35
There is an ancient advent tradition about preaching on the Four Last Things: Death and Judgment, Hell and Heaven. The doctrine of the Last Things is called Eschatology. It is a part of the creedal understanding of the Christian Faith. At first glance, it may seem a rather dark and gloomy set of concepts; things that perhaps we would rather not think about at all.
The theme of judgment certainly appears in this Sunday’s gospel and certainly there is a disturbing aspect to it. “Signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars;” Jesus says, “and upon earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.” Such words are apocalyptic, cosmic and cataclysmic and such words are a feature of the advent of Christ. “Then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” This is, we might say, Luke’s Apocalypse. Yet what is at issue is not simply the idea of the end times or the idea of a cosmic judgment but our attitude and approach to judgment.
The strong message of this Sunday in Advent is that we can look upon these things with hope because of what is revealed in the witness of the Scriptures. Apocalypse means the unveiling of what lies hidden; in short, revelation. The very last book of the New Testament is the Book of the Revelation – the Apocalypse– of St. John the Divine. And far from being a book of predictions about when the end times will come, an interest which has fascinated people down throughout the ages and led to no end of prophecies about days and dates which, of course, as Jesus says, “no one can know,” we are offered an imaginative and brilliant way of thinking things from the perspective of eternity. In a way, that is what is being opened out to view.
The point is that Christian eschatology is not about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow or whenever (never mind ‘whatever’!). No. It is apocalypse now and always, we might say. What I mean is that the Scriptures open out to us the view of our lives with God and since God is truth, his coming is in every way judgment. It is light, to be sure, but the divine light that comes to a world of darkness, within and without our souls and the community of souls.
There is no point in denying this aspect of human life. Judgment is about accountability – our accountability to ourselves, to one another, and to God. Seen in this way judgment is inescapably about our human freedom and dignity. It is not about judgmentalism, which is little more than a form of moralizing domination and bullying of one another that leads to abuse and to a kind of despair of the desire for the truth and the good. No. We are being reminded that the world is God’s world and that “we are his people and the sheep of his hand” and that he has far greater things in store for us than what we could ever imagine let alone deserve or even desire. Let that thought sink into your anxious and worried souls for a moment. You see, it is really all about hope – the hope for something better. That is the hope that never disappoints, the hope that challenges us to want to be better people.
Sometimes this Sunday has been called Scripture Sunday on account of the great Collect for the day. Composed by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, it expresses a wonderful theology of revelation, of apocalypse we might say. It says something profound about the witness of the Scriptures and about our attitude and disposition of mind towards what we hear and read in the Scriptures. God, he is saying, has “caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning.” He is quoting Paul in his Letter to the Romans, explicitly mentioned in the Epistle reading for the day. “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning” Paul says.
Paul is referring to the writings of the Jewish Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, but by extension what he is saying about the things which are written extends to the entire corpus of the Scriptures for Christians. It includes, ultimately, what Paul himself is writing.
The challenge is about what is to be learned from the witness of the Scriptures and here Cranmer spells out what Paul, too, is saying. As Paul puts it, the purpose of the Scriptures and our learning from them is “that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” Hope – hope for something better – is one of the leading features of the Advent season that connects with joy and peace, two other features of this season. Paul’s prayer is that “the God of hope will fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope.” Cranmer has taken these words to heart.
His prayer is “that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.” This articulates an approach to reading which is altogether admirable, profound, and meaningful because of the purpose or end of what is revealed; “that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life.”
“By patience and comfort of thy holy Word,” not merely fearful judgment that paralyzes and destroys us, shall we find our hope, and our joy, and our peace. This signals to us the deeper meaning of the apocalypse. It is about God’s revelation of himself to us. That necessarily means as well the revelation of ourselves, the unveiling of the hidden things of our hearts, “men’s hearts failing them for fear”. Light and darkness, we might say. The Scriptures are “God’s word written,” and they are written for our learning, for our good.
It is about everlasting life. What we hear and see in the witness of the Scriptures places us with the God of everlasting life. We are more than the prisoners of time and space, more than a collection of accidents waiting to happen, more than the mere victims of circumstance and happenstance, more than the darkness of our sins and wickedness. Through the witness of the Scriptures we are granted a perspective on eternity, about our end with God.
Hope leading to joy and peace. That is the point. And it is apocalypse now and always. The hope for something better challenges us to be better people. For that is what we have to want for ourselves and for one another.
Advent is the wondrous pageant of Word and Song signalling the presence of God with us in Jesus Christ. It is always judgment but the judgment is hope. Something of God’s good will for our humanity and our world is revealed in his word. Everything else shall pass away, for that is its character, “but my words,” Jesus says, “shall not pass away.” Therein lies our hope and our joy and our peace. Our end is with God who is endless life, our hope and comfort.
Fr. David Curry
Advent II, 2011
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2011/12/04/sermon-for-the-second-sunday-in-advent-3/
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