December 3, 2006

(Jimmie Johnson)

Jeremiah 33:14-16

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah . In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

Luke 21:25-36

“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. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 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, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be 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.”

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With the current state of the world, is it any wonder that thinking people find themselves drawn to scenarios about how it all might end? The end of the world. Sometimes you can’t even imagine such a thing being possible. The end of earth? The end of the universe? The end of all that is or ever has been? The meaning of the life you most love or admire is a nothingness? No way.

Then there are days you can’t imagine its not ending and possibly soon. There are days when hope is that many-feathered thing perched on your shoulder, and it never stops singing, and then there are days when hope seems silenced forever.

If you are like me, we find ourselves wobbling back and forth between those days of hope and hopelessness, all the while desiring to find a place of inner rest and peace, a sense that God is real and can pull off the job of being God. And not just any old God, but the God of Hope and Love and Mercy for all and toward all. For if God can only pull off being God for a select few, then God is to be the most pitied for his colossal failure. For how could any parent rejoice when some of his or her children are lost forever or the meaning of their life is forgotten?

No, only a God who fundamentally is oriented toward unending mercy and searching is worthy of praise! Only the way, truth and life of this kind of God can give us a place of peace in our hearts. This place of holy confidence and peace is the place that this time of the year in worship invites us. Advent is about our coming in out of the cold really and truly to trust God’s character to be one of capable and confident love, a God whose heart is beyond discouragement.

When Christians think of the end of the world, we are thinking about what faith calls eschatology, the study of last things. The language of faith puts it in a peculiar symbol systemcalled the second coming or the return of Christ. “He shall come again to judge the quick and the dead” is how the Apostles’ Creed challenges us.

It’s too bad so many Christians associate the end with gloom and doom, gloom and doom occasioned by, well, a sub-Christian God who returns to judge with harshness and a bitter anger, a God evidently unable to practice what His only Son preaches about how blessed are those who practice mercy, a God whose Messiah comes back more like Conan the Barbarian,
who with the help of his angel armies destroys all of God’s enemies.

However, does God really have enemies? I didn’t say, “Do we have enemies or does the American way have enemies?” I said, “Does God have enemies?” A God, whose hands-on experience of being one of us ending with his Son praying, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know how to be human,” is this going to turn out to be a God bent on revenge when he returns? A Conan God, a Rambo God? “Forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” God can’t answer God’s own human prayer?

Of course, the return of Christ will be the fulfillment of his prayer, not its rejection. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” That’s a strange judgment upon us, isn’t it? The judgment of forgiveness and mercy. A judgment of forgiveness because Jesus believes there is always more mercy in God than sin in any of us or all of us together. This prayer on the part of Jesus as he is dying, literally his last prayer with his last breath, isn’t about a cosmic rage boiling over. It is the astonishing news that God doesn’t have enemies. God only has children! Forgiveness is for our children, not our enemies. Exactly. God only has children.

How could God be God and fail so miserably as to allow evil to be more potent than God’s own ability to love and forgive? How could God be the Light that shines into all darkness if it turns out the darkness can deflect the light and overcome the light?

The question we are asked this morning by this worship season is: what are you more confident in: God as light or humanity as darkness? This is crucial. If you don’t have more confidence in God’s goodness than in humanity’s evil, we might as well close up shop. Daily life has no meaning. Soldiering and nursing and being a diplomat are actions of silliness if God’s goodness is not more profound than humanity’s inhumanity. Mothering and fathering, being a carpenter, a banker, a professor, a teacher, a coach, a friend—it is all pointless if God’s goodness is not more final than our meanness.

What do the texts tell us this morning?

When you see the end coming, you are to stand up and rejoice with heads held high says Jesus in Luke. The prophet Jeremiah which Jesus knew by heart promises God’s future is one of salvation and safety. God’s future is not gloom and doom but shouts of astonishing “hoorays” like little children tossing their stocking hats into the air, jumping up and down with joy.

Indeed, I believe Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and that no one comes to the Father but through him. It’s just, I believe, that Jesus is astonishingly more successful at being the way, the truth, and the life as the human face of God than judgmental Christianity believes. I believe Jesus as God’s Christ is God’s permanent expression of the cessation of all hostilities towards God’s creation and children. I believe the return of Christ is the return of the greatest friend the world has ever had.

After all, if God intended judgment to end with harm, God would never have sent a baby as the sign. A God seeking power over us would never send a baby as the sign of how this God will one day return to judge. A baby means God never intends us any harm.

This is ultimately how we are to think of the end of the world, the return of Christ, the second coming, where what we mean by the words “the end of the world” means fulfillment, not failure, an ending which takes our breath away with new beginnings of great joy and peace and good will toward all.

What’s the problem with this belief? It requires me to reflect on my own enemies. It requires me to tell the truth prayerfully about how I arrived at my “enemies list.” If God doesn’t have any enemies, can I? Bingo. There’s the rub.

Christianity has never been tried and found phony. It has been tried and found difficult. Will I turn to such an astonishing mercy in my heart? Will I abandon all grasping for control and power and instead seek to be only an instrument of God’s love and peace? I suppose I am still trying to answer that question. How about you? Do you still have enemies? Or, is the most profound truth of your life the deep desire to love and bless?