1st Sunday in Advent
Matthew 24:36-44
"What Child Is This?"
36* "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
37 As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man.
38* For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark,
39 and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of man.
40* Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left.
41 Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left.
42* Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
43* But know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken into.
44* Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. RSV
If you want to drive your family crazy and especially your wife call home from some where telling the family to get ready for someone is come to dinner. Then hang up. They don’t know who is coming, or when, whether it is some one important, or maybe a relative, a good friend, a total stranger. Their will be high until you walk in the door with this person.
We light the first candle on the Advent wreath this morning as a signal that someone is coming and we have 4 weeks to get ready. But ready for who?? Who is coming?? Our first item of business this Advent season is to answer the question posed by one of our hymns this morning: "What Child Is this, Who laid, to Rest. On Mary ’s lap is Sleeping?"
What child is this who is coming? What does he mean for us?? How will we accept him?? Does he get confused with someone else’s coming.?? Because I would imagine if we ask our children who is coming they might answer with another song that is sung often during this advent season: "You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town!! He knows when you’ve been sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows when you’ve been bad or good. So be good for goodness sake!"!"
During the next four Sundays of Advent, we will answer this question, "What child Is this?" who is coming into our midst at Christmas time.
Our gospel lesson and our first lesson tell us something of this child. It tells us that he is a judge. He will decide something about our fate. It is sort of funny, that the first Sunday of Advent, the first Sunday of the church year, has a text that looks at the end instead of the beginning.
Our gospel text and the text from the first lesson deal with the end of time, the time of God’s final judgment upon the earth. But I think it is very appropriate for us to begin here, because as we learn about this child and his message for us, we will be more ready to accept this message and live in this message if we know the promise of his second coming, or the Parousia of Christ.
We traditionally speak about this text as the second coming of Christ, but is that the correct terminology. Does this mean that Christ has not fully come into our world that we need a second coming.
From a sermon by Bill Adams Trinity Episcopal Church, Sutter Creek, CA. USA
"We so often speak of the Second Coming of Christ.... Frankly I don’t know where we got such terminology.....
The phrase Second Coming does not appear anywhere in the Bible.... The Bible proclaims loudly and clearly that the Christ... The very Word of God... was with God and is God and became flesh in the world.... not once... not twice.... but eternally.....
The inherent problem with a phrase like Second Coming is that it carries the implication of not here yet.
----- But Jesus Christ is not stuck in traffic.... The Redeemer of the world wasn’t sent to us with the wrong zip code... delayed until the Postal Department gets their act together...... the Word of God is present in everything and everyone.... everywhere.... right now!
Advent isn’t a season where we hang out for a while until Christmas happens.... Advent is a season where we learn once again to be an expectant people..... a people who anticipate.... a people who read the signs....a people who look painstakingly for the invasion of Christmas everywhere! "
I think Bill is correct, that Christ is here now, and it is the final expression of Christ that comes at the end of time. And that finality is what Matthew is speaking about. There will be a judgment time, a time that those who believe will be forever with the master. And that comes about as Christ lives in this world now, here in our brokenness and suffering.
We don’t know the time of that judgment. Some say that with all the terrorist activity we have experienced now, with the spread of aids, with the so-called moral decline in our land, that the end is near. But is it?
The text says no one knows when, you cannot look at the signs around you to know when, but be ready.
What child is this? It is a child who comes now and is here now and will judge us when the final end of time comes upon us.
What child is this? it is the child who the Bible has taught us to expect the end of the world. however, as an act of God beyond which lies the promise of God. The promise of God that is the key. In God’s judgment there is hope for the faithful, there is the promise of salvation through the Son of God Jesus Christ. The Parousia is not only the judgment of God upon the human race, but at the same time the fulfilling of his promise of salvation, of a new creation through his son. There is joy as well as readiness, or watchfulness in this coming.
What Child is this?? This child is one who will being a judgment to the human race, as well as the hope and the promise of eternal salvation for those who are waiting and believing.
Maybe the following will help us understand that in this judgment comes the promise of hope and salvation.
"David Peterson, former pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Spokane, Washington, told about a time when he was preparing his sermon. His little daughter came in and said, "Daddy, can we play?"
He answered, "I’m awfully sorry, Sweetheart, but I’m right in the middle of preparing this sermon. In about an hour I can play."
She said, "Okay, when you’re finished, Daddy, I am going to give you a great big hug."
He said, "Thank you very much." She went to the door and (these are his words) "Then she did a U-turn and came back and gave me a chiropractic, bone-breaking hug."
David said to her, "Darling, you said you were *going* to give me a hug *after* I finished."
She answered, "Daddy, I just wanted you to know what you have to look forward to!"
One meaning of Advent and Christmas is that God wants us to know, through this First Coming, how much we have to look forward to in the great final fulfillment at the end of time.
What Child is this? He is the child who comes now to bring us hope and salvation, and he will continue to come into this world until the final days when he will bring all creation under his domain and control.
We must in his promise of salvation for our time and for the future. We must trust and believe in that promise as we live in these in between times. The times between his coming at Christmas and the time of the final judgment.
Trust believe in this Child! What Child is this? This is the child that will help us believe and trust in His saving grace in our lives.
That kind of trust we need in that Child is demonstrated in the following:
"A young boy pulled his sled through unfamiliar streets late one winter afternoon, delivering newspapers for his best friend. It had been snowing all day and sidewalks were not shoveled. Very few houses had outside lights on, so the unknown addresses were invisible. He had a list in his mittened hands, but after two hours it was soggy and unreadable. Only ten papers left and he had no idea where they went.
He stopped under a streetlight and looked up into it’s comforting glow,then looked down at his list. All the light showed was something that looked like an "X" surrounded by blue ink stains. He sat down on the sled and started to cry.
"Something wrong, Son? asked an old man who happened by. After hearing the problem, the man looked at the list. "That’s an x all right. It must be Paxton and one of those papers must be mine. The boy handed him a paper apologizing.
"Why don’t you give me the rest of them, too?"?" said the man. "I can drop them off on my way home."
The old man took the papers and disappeared around the corner.
The boy wasn’t sure he should have trusted a stranger, but he was too relieved to worry about it. The next day his friend said no one had complained so he knew his trust was well-placed, but he still wasn’t sure where Paxton Street was. "
And that is the point, we don’t have to be sure only be in Christ. It is Christ who makes the promises to us that the Kingdom he began on Easter morning will come to its completion some day.
When, we don’t know. How? We don’t know. But we must trust, place our serve in his hands.
And we have a visible sign and symbol of that trust this morning as baby is baptized. In the water and words of Baptism, God through Christ, comes to her, cleanses her of her sins, brings her into his kingdom and then a process is begun in which she will have the rest of her life to learn, love and worship this God that came to her now as a little baby.
How’? We don’t know. Can we explain it?? Not really. Do we trust and believe in it,. By all means, because God through Christ declared it to be so.
In baptism we are made by God’s action kingdom people. He acts, we respond. It has been that way all through the Bible.
God acted at Christmas and continues to act through Easter and will continue to act in our lives through the last days.
What Child is this? God’s child who acts upon our lives today, tomorrow and forever!!
Amen
Written by Rev Tim Zingale November 26, 2001
