"Unannounced" (Matthew 24:3, 36-44)

First Sunday of Advent, December 1, 2019

          2019 is almost over and I just you wanted you to know that in 2020, we’re going to have Christmas; just in case you wondered.  We will have Christmas in 2020. 

          I suppose this seems absurdly obvious.  Every year we have Christmas!  It always comes on December 25^th.  Ah, that’s the catch!  In 2020, we don’t know what the day Christmas will fall.  It could be December 25^th.  But, it could fall on one of 364 other days; no, 2020 is a leap year.  It could fall on any of 366 days.  January 3; May 29; December 1.  One day in 2020, you’ll wake up and be informed that today is the day!  Today is Christmas. 

          I’ll get back to that weirdness in a minute, but before I do, I’d like to lob this oddity into your laps.  To prepare for this message, I read Matthew 24:3, 36-44, and then I looked at some commentaries written by Bible scholars and theologians.  One made a suggestion.  Introducing his approach to writing about Matthew he says, “I hope readers will [see] that by following along [this commentary] they may discover how we are read by the story Matthew tells.”[i]  We read the story Matthew tells.  How are we read by it?  How does Matthew read us?

          We come to this text on the first of the four Sundays of Advent.  Advent leads up to the church’s celebration of the birth of Jesus.  It may at first appear odd to be reading a passage from the end of the Gospels in anticipation of the birth, something that happens in Matthew chapter 1.  But, we know Jesus was born 2000 years ago.  Our Advent anticipation is a rehearsal.  We try to again feel the wonder the shepherds and Mary and Joseph felt when the Savior first came into the world in a human body. 

          That reenacted anticipation is Advent.  So too is our hope and longing for Jesus’ promised return.  In the final words of Matthew, Jesus tells us, “I am with you always to the end of the age.”  On that day at the end of the age, we believe Jesus will return in resurrected, bodily form, and we, also resurrected will be with him forever.  This Second Coming of Jesus stirs our anxious longing with greater pull than our rehearsed celebration of his first coming.  Advent, the season of waiting and anticipation begins with Matthew awakening our deeper sense of hope, but not yet fully realized hope. 

          That’s why I proposed the scenario of changing the date for Christmas 2020, but not telling the new date!  In Matthew 24, Jesus and the disciples are in Jerusalem in the days leading up to Passover, and we know, because we have read Matthew, leading up to the crucifixion.  The temple and the entire sacrificial worship system is about to end and a new age about to begin. 

          When Jesus tells the disciples a new age is about to begin they breathlessly beg him, “Tell us when this will be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

          That question is posed in Matthew 24:3.  Jesus spends the rest of the chapter answering that question.  When?  He warns them not be swayed by false witnesses.  When?  Jesus tells of coming natural and man-made catastrophes.  When?  Jesus tells his disciples they will be hated, arrested, tortured, and executed precisely because they are faithful to him.  Who can be saved in such dire times?  “The one who endures,” Jesus says (24:13).  Jesus warns of terrifying, ominous signs and foretells His coming (24:30).

          Finally he brings us to the word of today’s reading, still answering that simple, obvious, necessary, burning question.  When?  “About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (24:36).  Throughout Christian history and especially in the history of American evangelicalism, Bible readers have attempted through convoluted reading that combine Mark 13, 1 Thessalonians 4-5, and Revelation to predict the date of Jesus’ return.  Hal Lindsay’s book The Late Great Planet Earth ranked as America’s top selling non-fiction work of the 20^th century other than the Bible.  He, like so many before and after him predicted the date.  How?  Why?  Jesus couldn’t be clearer.  He is coming back.  No one knows when. 

          The doctrine of the Second Coming of Jesus is a central Christian belief.  It is at the heart of our hope.  We absolutely count on Jesus, God the Son, returning, setting things right, and initiating the resurrection of all who had died in Christ. Of course we want to know when.  Jesus didn’t reject his disciples for posing the question.  But his answer is crystal clear.  When?  We don’t know.  If a famous author or a famous Christian on TV or someone you greatly trust tells you they know when Jesus is coming, listen carefully. They’re wrong!  To claim to know is to contradict Jesus, something I don’t want to do. 

          To amplify his point, Jesus goes on to talk about the days before the great flood.  Noah and his family built an ark.  The rest of society went on with life as if nothing was coming, “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,” as Jesus said (24:38).  His second coming will be unexpected just as the world had no idea what was coming before the flood. 

          To drive the point home, Jesus paints a picture.  On the day He returns and, the end of the age comes, he will call his followers to himself, and those not with Jesus will face God’s judgment.  Two will be working in the field, and one will be taken, one left behind.  Two will be grinding meal, and one will be taken, one left behind.  When Jesus returns, the world will be going about normal, daily life, whatever that is.  Jesus has no use for people watching the sky, wondering “Could today be the day.”  He encourages the longing, but forbids stopping life or predicting the day.  No one knows when.

          To review, Jesus is returning and when he does, it will be the end of the age.  No one knows when that will be.  There will be signs, but the indications call us to a type of living.  We are not to stop life.  We are to be actively engaged in life.  His return will be unannounced and the world will not be ready. 

          One more important word comes from our Lord in Matthew 24, and this is where we find the answer to the question, how does Matthew read us?  “Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know the day your Lord is coming” (v.42).  Keep awake; not as straightforward as it sounds at first.

          Several years ago, someone was going through our neighborhood in the middle of the night committing crimes, or trying to.  One neighbor was home in the middle of the night as the burglar tried to break in.  He manage to keep his door shut and the thief ran off.  Others came out in the morning to find that sometime in the night, they had had their cars broken into. 

Would my house be the next one the invader visited?  I started trying to keep watch and sleep at the same time.  You can’t do that.  If you’re watching out, you can’t sleep.  I went for a month without much sleep as the smallest of 3AM creaking noises in the recesses of the house convinced me the intruder was at my door.  Keeping watch and sleeping cannot be done simultaneously.

In the final verse of the reading Jesus says “you must be ready because the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”  Unannounced.  How do we stay awake?  How do we get ready? 

Try this phrase on for size, this phrase Bible scholar Michael Wilkins calls his life’s motto.  Live as though Jesus is coming back today.  Plan as though he is not coming back for 100 years.

Live as though Jesus is coming back today.  What do you want Jesus to catch you doing when you don’t know He’s watching?  This is not Santa’s naughty-and-nice list.  We are saved by grace, our sins forgiven, our punishment nailed to Jesus’ cross.  But our understanding and closeness to the eternal life we’ll have with Him in resurrection is related to how we live here and now.  If on his return, he catches you loving, giving grace, spreading hope, and helping people, and doing good in his name, your entry into his embrace will be akin to diving deeper into the glorious soft warmth of God cavernous love. 

Live as though Jesus is coming back today.  What do we want Jesus to catch us doing when we don’t know He’s watching? 

Plan as though he is not coming back for 100 years.  How do we live our discipleship for 80 years, the course of a lifetime?  Commitment to prayer, immersion in the story (the Bible), deep connection to Church (the community of believers) and regular practice in Christian ministry, mission, and faith-sharing; we need all of this to be the content of our lives.  In  these things, we grow in Christ and see more of God.  Staying awake does not mean watching the skies forlornly hoping this’ll be the day we see Jesus in the clouds.  Staying awake is living life engaged in the world as an on-mission disciple of Jesus. 

Don’t worry.  Christmas in 2020 will fall on December 25, just like it always does.  Don’t worry.  Jesus is coming back.  Even though it will be unannounced, his disciples will be ready.  You are invited to be his disciple. 

AMEN

  

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[i] Hauerwas, Stanley (2006).  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible: Matthew, Brazos Press (Grand Rapids), p.19.

Advent Hope

With the start of Advent, December, 3, 2017, our church, like many, gives attention to the Lectionary texts and to the themes of Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace.  The Lectionary is a series of prescribed readings that cover a three-year span.  Each week there is a Gospel, a Psalm, an additional Old Testament reading, and an additional New Testament reading.  There are several lectionaries.  I typically refer to the Revised Common Lectionary.

Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace.  Jesus brought each of these ideals to the world.  In him these words are realities that we live as we live our lives in Christ.  These came with his birth and in Advent we remember.  These come as we walk with Christ in our lives.  In Advent, we long for these things and anticipate. 

Us anticipating the story of Jesus’ birth  is not exactly like the way the creation anticipated his coming prior to when Joseph and Mary made their way to that stable.  We know the story.  But, it becomes new in our lives each year.  So Advent, for Christ followers, is really the start of rebirth as we once again reach for God even as God reaches to us in Christ and in the Holy Spirit.

Additionally, we anticipate the Second Coming of Christ.  When Jesus returns, as it is promised he will (Acts 1:11b), then we will see these value, these dreams – hope, love, joy and peace – in ways we have never seen them.  The qualities will be fulfilled as all things will be.  Thus our Advent is remembering and living into life in Christ and anticipating the fullness to come with his return.

The first week is hope. One of the reading is 1 Corinthians 1:3-9.  Verse 8 says, “God will strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  This verse and the longing for hope and the assurance of hope has hit me in a most unwelcome way this week.  One of my dearest friends, Rev. Kevin Ly, died suddenly while doing a morning weightlifting routine.

Kevin was a high school senior when I began as a pastor.  I was 27.  I stayed at that church long enough to see him go through school and he became our youth minister.  He was the first person I mentored in ministry.  We were linked at the heart – linked because we both heard God’s call so clearly.  Over the years, I have encouraged certain people in churches I’ve served to consider ministry.  It rarely leads to them becoming pastors.  I never had to encourage Kevin.  He was called, driven to serve the Lord.  I just had to give him opportunities, to stay out of his way, and to help if he needed it. 

Earlier this year, he got his first senior pastorate.  Then, October 21, 2017, he married his beloved Jackie. I don’t understand his death, just one month and six days after his wedding.  It doesn’t make any sense.  For my own sadness, I have needed that promised Advent hope – that Jesus fulfills everything.  I have needed the 1 Corinthians promise, “that God will strengthen you.”  I don’t feel strong.  I cannot imagine how Jackie feels and how Kevin’s parents and siblings and church members feel. 

For Kevin, I trust that 1 Corinthians Advent Hope promise.  In Christ, he will meet God blameless.  When Kevin sees God face to face, all of Kevin’s sins will be gone, covered and removed by Christ.  God will, smiling, look at Kevin and see Christ’s righteousness.  I am steadfast in my confidence of this hope for Kevin.  It doesn’t reduce my sadness.  But it does mean sadness is not the only thing I have.  There is sadness.  There is also joy.  Yes, it is possible to hold both at once.

Do you have troubles, losses, pain that you carry as Christmas approaches?  Let the Advent hope extend beyond Sunday morning to your heart and your mind and your life.  If you have sadness, it’s OK to sit in it.  In fact, that’s the right thing to do.  I don’t ask why because I don’t think there’s a good answer.  I don’t console myself with platitudes such as “Now Kevin is singing with the angels.”  I’m sad.  But, in my sadness, I have turned my eyes upon Jesus.  His hope washes over me.  His Holy Spirit sits with me in my sadness as long as I need him to be there. 

Are you sad or hurt or lost?  There is hope – real hope for you today.  It began with the child in the manger, grew through his life and teachings, and spread worldwide with the coming of his Holy Spirit and the growth of his church.  It grows as you grow in relationship with God’s Holy Spirit.  Turn your eyes upon Jesus.  He will strengthen you now and make you blameless when you meet God on the day of his return.

Made Ready for God's Kingdom (1 Corinthians 1:3-9)

1^st Sunday of Advent, November 30, 2014

          As I read 1 Corinthians 1, I imagine our church family.  The Apostle Paul traveled around the Greek-speaking world talking about the Jewish Messiah who he believed was God in human form, had been resurrected, and was and is the Savior of the world.  Himself a Jew, Paul believed God had come in the flesh in Jesus.  The Jewish Messiah had come for Israel and for all people.  Paul staked his life on this.  So he traveled about and churches grew from groups of people who accepted what he said about Jesus.

          After leaving the churches he wrote letters back to encourage them and keep them on the path of discipleship – the Jesus way.  First Corinthians is one of those letters.  Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit, so what he said to first century congregations fits 21^st century congregations all around the world.

          His words speak to our church. 

“³ Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴ I give thanks to my^[b] God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, ⁵ for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind— ⁶ just as the testimony of^[c] Christ has been strengthened among you— ⁷ so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

I am thankful because I am enriched by being one among you.  I thank God because we are a church family motivated to love people.  We hear the call to go into the world proclaiming good news, and we answer. 

As do the work of God church, we rest in the promise Paul writes in verse 8.  “⁸ He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  The end of the world is coming and God makes us ready for it.

Of course we know we are not blameless.  We are sinners in a world of sinners.  Beth and John read from Isaiah 64.  In verse seven the prophet says, 

⁶ We have all become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.
We all fade like a leaf,
    and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

          When Isaiah says, “We all fade like a leaf,” he could be describing the American cultural scene at the outset of the 21^st century.  We are impressed by our scientific advances.  It is the age of technology and people use the knowledge humans have acquired to do amazing things in medicine and communication and travel.  But, our tendency to sin covers over the good we do.  Before God, humans striving for greatness fall short and always will.

          It is the Spirit of Jesus that lifts us up.  Through death and resurrection, Jesus has removed our sin.  Through the continuing presence of His Holy Spirit, we who continue to be quite fallible and guilty are indeed blameless.  He makes us clean, innocent, and right.  As Paul says, by His grace, he strengthens us to the end, which is most definitely coming.

          During Advent we remember the coming of Jesus, we live by His Spirit, and we anticipate his return.  The world will be judged, history will end, and all who are in Christ will live eternally in the Kingdom.  Until that time, He strengthens us, makes us ready.  Right now, the Spirit is at work in our hearts, shaping us in the way of Christ. 

          Again, in Isaiah 64, we see a world moving further and further away from God. 

There is no one who calls on your name,
    or attempts to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
    and have delivered^[c] us into the hand of our iniquity.

That is the world as it is.  Then remember Paul’s encouragement that as the world sinks deeper and deeper in sin, The Spirit strengthens us.  In the next verse Isaiah says it this way. 

⁸ Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;
    we are the clay, and you are our potter;
    we are all the work of your hand.

          A couple of things are clear to me.  First, the world is not going to become a better place by human effort.  We should strive for peace, for health, for love.  We should do our dead-level best to make the world as a good as we can.  But we do so as an act of obedience and appreciation to God.  We don’t have illusions that we will end hunger or find every cure for every disease or eventually come to a generation in which all mankind has love for each other. We reach for those things because they are all realities in God’s eternal kingdom.  But we reach knowing sin cannot be conquered.

          The second thing I hold onto is even though we know sin won’t be conquered by human striving, it has been defeated by Jesus.  His Spirit is at work.  As the world falls deeper and deeper into sin, those in Christ are made more and more ready to live in the eternal Kingdom where death and sin are no more.  Everyone who is in Christ has an assignment from God to invite all who do not know Him to turn to Jesus; this is a turn away from sin and death and a step onto the path of everlasting life. 

          One of the recommended readings for the 1^st Sunday of Advent is the prophecy of Jesus found in Mark 13 and other places.  He speaks of suffering and the urgency of the hour.  Now is the time to hold tight to our faith and to lovingly, patiently, draw people to Jesus.  In our celebration his birth, we rest in the promise that His Spirit is holding us and guiding us until He returns.  We read Mark 13, and we don’t understand every word of it, but the Spirit helps us.  As we read, we know world is moving toward decay.  We also know the Spirit makes us ready for the day Heaven and Earth will come together in the eternal Kingdom.

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Mark 13:24-37

Reader 1: 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.

Reader 2: 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.

Reader 3: ²⁸ “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. ²⁹ So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he^[e] is near, at the very gates. ³⁰ Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. ³¹ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

Reader 1: ³² “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³ Beware, keep alert;^[f] for you do not know when the time will come.

Reader 2: ³⁴ It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.

Reader 3: ³⁵ Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, ³⁶ or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. ³⁷ And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

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          We hear Jesus say, “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.”  Shortly after he spoke these words, he was crucified and he rose.  A few decades later Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans.  In the sense that the center of God’s work on earth shifted from the City of David, Jerusalem, to the person of Jesus, then what he said was literally true.  That generation of disciples met the risen Christ before any of them died.

          In a representative sense, his continuing presence in the world, the Holy Spirit at work in His Church, has not passed away.  The church will always be present bearing witness to Jesus until the end.  Paul reiterates the promise when he says God will strengthen us to the end.  We can count on it.

          We cannot predict it.  Jesus is very clear.  The Advent message over and over is “Keep awake.”  We don’t know when the end will come.  We only know, the world is falling away from God, in Christ we are being made ready to be with God and we are commissioned to invite the lost, dying world to turn from death by turning to Jesus.  We have the promise of eternity and the mission to live into eternity as we invite others to come along with us.

          Paul’s words from the last chapter of 1^st Corinthians sum up our stance, how God equips us especially in Advent.  This is how we live as Jesus’ people – people who bear witness to Him in a secular age.  This is from 1^st Corinthians 16: “Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love” (v.13-14).

         

          I pray we will, filled with the Spirit, be examples of God’s patient love as we show that love and show great patience in waiting for the day of the Lord and in living among fallen sinners as we wait.  Remember, we are empowered by the Spirit, empowered to love.  We have the promises of God to motivate us and the Spirit of God to uphold us.  Those around us who are mean or short-tempered or foul-mouthed or insulting need the Spirit that fills us and the promise that gives us hope.  I pray Jesus will be seen in us and the world around us will be drawn to him through us as we go about our lives in the hectic but also blessed season that has begun.

AMEN

Hebrews 9:27-29

I have thought recently about how to come alongside people as they walk through life. God calls us – “us” being the church – to walk alongside one another through the difficult times in life and to share the gospel of his salvation with those who don’t know him and to help one another when help is needed. Care; evangelism; compassion; prayer – we are called to these things.

Four of us, along with 12 others from other churches will go Ethiopia in April to tell 100 children about Jesus’ love. The participants on this trip are hard-working middle class Americans. Most Ethiopians who are employed and have their own apartments would be considered poor by American standards. Most among those in that nation who would be considered to be doing well – would be seen as impoverished in our nation. We are not visiting people who are doing well by Ethiopian standards. We are not even visiting those who are poor by that country’s measurements. We will spend a few days with children who have nothing, those at the very bottom of the latter.

What do we know about their lives? How can we possibly tell them what is good? We fly in on a big metal bird, rich people who appear for a few days and then leave. We want to answer God’s call and share the good news and carry his love. But it’s not easy. It is a struggle.

People around us are grieving: husbands die; fathers die; family members are sick with cruel, chronic illnesses. Some of these illnesses impose suffering on families for years before they finally end the sick person’s life. What good is the good news for a person who is in the middle of that?

I have spent time with people who are in the midst of tribulation. The father has left and the family is falling apart. Or, the police kicked in the front door of the home to arrest the oldest son. They are trying to make the neighborhood safe, but how safe does it feel when the police don’t protect her son; they violently haul him off in chains.

She just lost her job. At some point she’ll pull herself together, polish up the resume, get her name out, and move on. Right now, she’s devastated, hurt, and paralyzed by fear.

Jesus came to bring Heaven to Earth. In his first coming, He established once and for all the Kingdom of God, a kingdom where sins are forgiven, where there are but two rules – love God with everything that is in your and about you, and love your neighbor as yourself. It is a kingdom where God himself is in real relationship with human beings.

But she doesn’t want to hear about kingdom or forgiveness or relationship; she wants a job. That mother wants her son home, safe. That family wants to wake up and realize it was all a bad dream and daddy is still there. In the hospital waiting room, there is no desire for sermons, not usually. All things are a blessing from God. He’s gone on to a better place. How about this? How about healing? That would be a good blessing!

And those hundreds of kids in Ethiopia who experience multiple 30 and 40 hour famines not because of their spiritual discipline but because the school that feeds them has run out of food– what is good news for them? Kids, not only do you get fed, you get seconds.

I have been thinking about preaching and giving a witness in contexts where pain makes it impossible to hear the good news we have to share. I know that the answer is presence.

The best way to describe ‘heaven’ is not as a place but as being in the presence of God uninterrupted and without any obstacle. To be with God in physical, bodily form, knowing we are completely forgiven of sin, that’s heaven. I suppose there is a place called heaven. But mostly in the New Testament, the description is about presence. Revelation talks about a city and a river and an orchard – the images are piled on top of one another, superimposed. The images help us envision it. The bulk of the description though is implication with more weight being given to presence than some dreamy place. Our endgame is resurrection –these bodies, in some form, are raised to life just as Jesus was, and in resurrected form, we are with him.

That’s presence – God come to earth in bodily form in Jesus, and again in Jesus’ second coming, or appearing as it says in Hebrews 9. As we live between his appearances, between his coming and dying on the cross and rising from death– between that and his second appearing, our opportunity to talk about Jesus and share the Gospel comes through presence. We show love before we tell of it. As he showed what God is like, we show love before we tell of the redemption we have when we give our lives to Jesus.

I know this. I know the good news starts with just sitting at the hospital bedside for a few minutes or silently waiting in the waiting room, maybe for hours; listening as the pain is described. Listening and caring deeply, feeling the hurt along with the one who is hurting – this comes before words are spoken.

I don’t have to go through what you’re going through if I am willing to listen and let you tell me about it. You don’t have to know what your friend is suffering. You don’t have to have endured her struggle. Simply walk alongside her in it as she invites you. Be present, open, and filled with grace. Be persistent in love and care. I don’t need to know the specifics of going hungry to travel to Ethiopia and hug a child and hand him a simple care package and hug him again. I should educate myself about hunger and poverty facts. I should, as much as possible, know what I am stepping into – the airplane that takes me to the third world school compound; the metal detector outside the courthouse where I will sit with my friend throughout the custody hearings; the elevator that takes me to the ICU wing; the doorway leading into the broken home; the gates of the cemetery. I know as much as I can and proceed even with what I don’t know because as God was present in body in Jesus and is present in Spirit, we make ourselves a presence of his love.

We love until we are invited to share.

Ironically, the passage in Hebrews 9, about his absence, is a source of words for us when it is right to speak the Gospel, after we’d lived it.

“So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time.” He came and is coming – but right now, he’s not here. All I have talked about is presence. How does Jesus’ absence give us words of hope to share when we are present with people who are burdened by grief and pain?

First, his absence means he accomplished what he came to accomplish. He came to die! He died for the sins of the world and because he did, Hebrews 9 reports that when he comes again, it won’t be for the sake of sinners or for the purpose of removing sin. That’s accomplished. We can say with utter confidence that the Bible states emphatically that Jesus has borne the weight of the sins of the world. All who turn to Him for salvation and give their lives to Him are forgiven.

Second, the promise is clear here just as it is in Luke and throughout Paul’s writings. He who came and is now in Heaven at God’s right hand will come back. Jesus is coming back. We don’t know when. But just as we are completely ignorant of when, we are 100% assured it will happen. The one who came to save us and goes before God on our behalf and is himself God in the flesh inviting us to be sons and daughters of God is returning. We will see Jesus in his bodily, resurrected form. We will touch him as sure as touch one another in warm handshake or a firm embrace or an exchange of the kiss of peace.

Third, he who has paid the price for sin (it is accomplished) and is coming back (there is no doubt) will complete salvation. At His appearing, the new age will have begun. In these last days, between his departure and his return, the new age, the age of the Kingdom of God, is beginning. As we grow in our knowledge of the Holy Spirit and in our relationship with God, more and more, in our time we step through the last days and into the eternal kingdom. Salvation is being completed. When Jesus comes at the final hour, at the judgment, Salvation will be fulfilled.

That’s when, as it says in Revelation, there will be no more tears, no more, pain, and no more dying. We are moving toward that. When Jesus comes, we will have arrived. That hope is what we share with those around who have fear, doubt, pain, grief, and struggle; and hunger. We share it after we have given the hungry bread, sat at the bedside of the one whose body is dying, hugged the brokenhearted, and invited the lonely into our homes.

Complete forgiveness of sins; promise of Jesus’ appearing; the fulfillment of salvation – this is Hebrews 9:27-28. We live this by being in the lives of people no matter what their lives are like. We inhabit one another’s lives walking alongside each other through good and bad.

Even then, there are days when it is hard to see the good news. N.T. Wright says, “The point of stressing ‘appearing’ [Jesus’ second coming] here is that, though in one sense it will seem to us like he is‘coming,’ he will in fact be ‘appearing’ right where he presently is – not a long way away within our space-time world but in his own world, God’s world, the world we call heaven. This world is different than ours (earth) but intersects with it in countless ways, not the least in the inner lives of Christians themselves” (Surprised by Hope).

When we care and are present with those in pain, we are in those places where heaven and earth intersect. I don’t mean and N. T. Wright is not saying that we speed up Jesus’ appearing by reaching out to one another in love. Jesus is here in Holy Spirit and will come in bodily form in God’s time. What we are saying is in a life of caring, we set ourselves up for moments where we are blown away as we feel the power of heavenly hope. A lot of times, caring is just hard.

Right now, I know a family who is helping a woman in her late 80’s clean out her apartment. She has no family and she has never thrown anything away. She’s got an apartment that’s floor-to-ceiling full and in her weakened condition, she cannot empty. She’s already in the nursing home bed. This Christian couple I know in another town, they’re retired, and working harder than they did before they stopped employment. When I talked to them this week, they did not say anything about holiness or “thin places,” those places where you can sense Heaven’s presence. They just said they were exhausted.

They are entering this woman’s pain. They and she will see the hope of sins removed, Jesus coming, and salvation fulfilled. In their love, they’ll know heaven. That’s how it works. That is church. We are the church. We lock arms, we sing praise, we lift one another up, and together we eagerly await his appearing.

AMEN