"An Apocalypse of Grace”
Psalm 25:1-10 and Luke 21:25-36
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
12/3/23
1 To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
2 O my God, in you I trust;
do not let me be put to shame;
do not let my enemies exult over me.
3 Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame;
let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
4 Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
5 Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all day long.
6 Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
7 Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!
8 Good and upright is the Lord;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
9 He leads the humble in what is right
and teaches the humble his way.
10 All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his decrees. (NRSV)
Advent begins today. And while we have decked this hall with signs of the season, let’s remind ourselves that Advent is not Christmas. I’m not trying to be a Scrooge. It’s just that to celebrate something like the Incarnation of the eternal God in the person of a first-century, blue-collar rabbi takes some preparation.
Neither Advent nor Christmas were celebrations for the early church. And maybe that’s because they lacked a season of intentional preparation. And maybe that helps explain why, of the four canonical gospels, three show no real interest in Jesus’ nativity.
Matthew does tell us about Joseph’s dream, but afterward jumps straight to the visit of the Magi, who would have visited not an infant in a stable but a toddler in a carpenter’s home. Mark opens his story with an adult John the Baptist calling people to respond to an adult Jesus who’s already at work. John starts out with abstract theological reflection: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…” Then, like Mark, John moves straight to an adult John the Baptist.
Only Luke records a nativity story, and he prepares us very carefully. Before any “good news of great joy,” Luke forecasts the birth of John the Baptist by telling the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth. Then comes the story of Mary’s Annunciation. When Mary visits Elizabeth, and hears her prophecy, Mary sings her own prophetic song of praise.
When Elizabeth’s child is born, a doubt-muted Zechariah names him John. Then, when his voice is restored, Zechariah utters his own prophecy about God sending a “mighty savior [to] guide our feet into the way of peace.” Zechariah’s and Elizabeth’s son will be an Advent prophet. He will help prepare the way for thelong-expected Jesus.
At this moment in Luke, though, John is an infant, and Jesus is not yet born. There are years of waiting and struggle before these remarkable prophecies begin to take shape and to stir people’s imaginations and their hope.
That is the feeling we’re after in Advent. During this indispensable season, we stop and mull over all the prophecies. We prepare ourselves to receive and declare the news that this flesh is God’s chosen medium for God’s self-revelation. In the organ of Creation—in which we live and of which we’re a part—God incarnates God’s own self in a particular human being, and in a particular place, time, and socio-political environment. The four weeks of Advent call us to examine our own hearts and minds, our own spiritual communities, and our interactions with our own earthly circumstances. That’s why we begin Advent with texts like this one:
25“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. 26People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. 28Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
29Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; 30as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. 31So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. 32Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. 33Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
34“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, 35like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 36Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”(NRSV)
Let’s back up and look at this passage in the context of Luke’s wider story, which doesn’t end with the Ascension, but continues all the way through the book of Acts. Like Mary’s Magnificat and Zechariah’s prophecy preceding the births of their children, Jesus’ entire prophetic life precedes his passion, resurrection, and return in the person of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Always engaging political, social, and economic realities as well as spiritual realities, Jesus’ words can make us uneasy.1 He speaks of political distress and confusion. He speaks of chaos in nature. And by calling such things signs of the coming of the Son of Man, Luke presents Jesus as an apocalyptic figure—as someone speaking about the end times. And there are two primary voices at work in this passage: Jesus, the prophetic Word of God, and Luke, the first century narrative theologian.
As the first voice, Jesus—the Son of Man—points toward God’s redemption of the Creation, that is, toward God’s gracious gathering up of all things into God’s Self. And yes, the apocalyptic tradition in Judaism often describes a dramatic, even disruptive grace.
A word of caution, though: Every human attempt to define or identify some culminating, apocalyptic event has proven wrong. And we needn’t think of only within the Judeo-Christian tradition. The ancient Mayan calendar predicted that the world would end on December 21, 2012. Sometimes human effort has proven just plain silly, like Harold Camping and his multiple, failed doomsday predictions based on some absurd numerology. And Camping himself has now been dead for ten years.2
Occasionally, some have tried, with horrifying and deadly futility, to force the issue. Consider the Crusades in Medieval times. Or think of Christian Zionists who, right now, are salivating at the war between Israel and Palestine because they believe that such horrific and ungodly violence is a divinely-ordained prerequisite for Jesus’ physical return. Does that sound Christ-like to you?
While Advent it not an exercise in doomsday preparation, our faith tradition takes seriously the socio-political realities of human existence. That brings us to the second voice.
Luke wrote his gospel in the early-to-mid 80’sCE—that means ten to fifteen years after the fall of Jerusalem in 70CE. The distress, confusion, and chaos of the Jewish rebellion and Rome’s over-powering response lingered like the smell of smoke around the ruins of a burned-down home. Having a long history of enduring conquest and occupation, Luke’s Jewish readers would still feel that fresh wound and remember ancient ones. They would wrestle with God’s goodness and providence as they continued to wait for good news and deliverance.
Maybe Luke was trying to say that he expected some imminent and apocalyptic act. As followers of Jesus, we trust and proclaim that Jesus is that act. In the person of Jesus of Nazareth, born to a Jewish carpenter and his fiancé, in the town of Bethlehem, in the midst of a Roman census, God’s deliverance has come. Embracing news like that means embracing a paradox. We prepare for the fulfillment of God’s promised redemption by intentionally living our lives in the realm of Incarnate love—here and now.
Because Christmas proclaims the gift of God’s eternal presence in, with, and for the Creation, Advent, instead of being a time of busyness and acquisition, is best observed as a time of contemplation and release. It’s a time to create space to receive anew God’s ongoing apocalypse of grace.
The more we clutter our lives, or to use Jesus’ words, the more “weighed down [and trapped] with…the worries of this life” we become, the less “alert [and prayerful]” we will be. And the less able we are to recognize and welcome what God offers in Jesus.
Christmas may be the headliner, but Advent is the way of life. And without it, this time of year is, even for Christians, nothing more than “The Holidays.”
As you come to Christ’s table this morning, may you come with open hearts and unclenched fists so that you may truly receive the signs of grace. And instead of helping you to escape creation’s suffering and struggles, may this sacrament send you out to live as sprouting fig leaves, as incarnate signs of God’s redeeming love at work in a grieving, anguished, and yet beautiful, beloved, and holy Creation.
1Like so much of scripture, especially prophetic and apocalyptic texts, Jesus’ words often get misused. Many people find grace a bit fluffy and fragile, and turn to fear (judgement, shame, etc.) as means of proclamation. The gospel, then, gets lost in human efforts to make grace a merited and measurable commodity rather than that the gift it is, and which it must be to be grace.
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