“Start with an earthquake, then build to a climax”

 

Reflection Sunday 29^th November 2020

 

Apparently, the famous film director Cecil B. De Mille was once asked what made a great epic film. His response was “Start with an earthquake, then build to a climax”. This week’s Gospel passage in Mark’s Gospel (Mark 13: 24 - 37) has that flavour.

Normally each year as a minister I can guarantee there will be a debate, sometimes with a small “d” sometimes a big “D”, about Christmas. When should we have the Carol Service? When should we put up the Christmas tree? And so on. And each year I have to point out we have four weeks of Advent first and it’s an important time. Normally I have to accept that come the third Sunday of Advent (or the fourth Sunday if it’s a week before Christmas) we’re ready to start Christmas.

This year of course will be different. At the time of writing we don’t know what we will be allowed to do in terms of Church over the next few weeks. Even if we can worship together in church, we certainly won’t be allowed to have packed out carol services.

This year I know a lot of people are really keen for Christmas to come. People are putting up their Christmas decorations early to cheer themselves up. People are diving straight into Christmas now. And I dare say there will be some Christian people doing that too. I do understand why.

But this part of Mark’s gospel reminds us to begin our anticipation of the birth of Jesus, by waiting for his coming again. This might seem odd but it’s right because we are being placed with those who awaited the birth of the Messiah. They didn’t know when the Messiah would be born. And we are now firmly alongside those who, just after the time of Jesus, were awaiting his second coming.

Of course, our experience of waiting for the coming of God’s promised one at Christmas is quite different from the experience of those who awaited the Messiah. After all, we know what we’re waiting for. We know when the day will arrive when we will celebrate his birth. It is fixed on our calendars. We will count down the days with Advent calendars and Advent candles.

But those living before Jesus’ birth did not know the hour or the day of his arrival, so the faithful lived in a continual state of watchfulness. By anticipating the return of the Son of Man here at the beginning of Advent, we are, or certainly should be, waiting in the same level of anticipation for Christ to come again.

It is hard to do. It requires an expectant watchfulness because we never know when He will appear. This expectant watchfulness requires us to be actively waiting.  What do I mean?

Some waiting is passive. If we’re waiting for a bus or a train say, we are passive in our waiting. It will come at some point - and if we’re fortunate on time! But we just don’t have to do anything. We are passive.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to London to watch the Lord’s Mayor’s Parade. It is well worth doing sometime. We’ve been several times. We’ve got “our” spot, just behind St Paul’s Cathedral. And it is active waiting. There is a sense of excitement that builds and builds as the parade comes closer. And you know it is coming closer because the sound of the parade comes through the streets until suddenly it is there! “Hark! we hear a distant music, and it comes with fuller swell;”

When you’re actively waiting you daren’t leave your spot. You daren’t be doing something else in case you miss the moment. Because you know the event will happen at some point but don’t know when exactly.

It is this that Jesus has in mind when he says to his followers

³³ Be on guard! Be alert^[e]! You do not know when that time will come. Mark 13:33

Or as The Message version puts it

So, keep a sharp lookout, for you don’t know the timetable. 

Jesus clearly does not intend for us to predict when he will return. Rather he is urging us to live our lives as if his return is just around the corner. As if we are standing on our spot behind St Pauls waiting for the Lord Mayor’s Show to arrive! There’s no time to nod off in a waiting room. As Martin Copenhaver puts it “We are to be more like a waiter who is continually busy in serving others and so has no time to sit down and count the tips”

Now, I should say that we must get the balance right. There can be a danger in being so “busy” with church stuff that we forget what our true purpose is which I would say is loving God and loving our neighbour. Some of our busyness can be those things of course, but it is my fervent hope, that once we are through this Covid 19 thing, (and we will get through it) then the Church, the Methodist Church, “our” Church, will take stock. I hope that this time of “being laid aside” (as we say in our Covenant Service) will allow us all to consider what we should really be doing as we wait for Christ.

I’ve mentioned before I’m sure a T shirt I saw years ago with a slogan “Look busy, Jesus is coming”. And that is the danger - we look busy, we are busy, but often we are not being busy in our time of waiting in the ways Christ wants.

Of course, what we must not forget is that Christ has already arrived. And therefore, in our waiting, we need to be attuned to where we see evidence of that.

And this brings us to one of the most important paradoxes in the Gospels. (A paradox being “a self-contradictory statement” – Chambers Dictionary) We have the “already / but not yet” quality of Christ. Already Jesus has come into the world and established how we are drawn into God’s family. But not yet do we live in complete communion with God. Already we see evidence of the kingdom of God in our world and in our own lives, but not yet is it fully established.

It is only with Christ’s coming again that the “not yet” parts be resolved.

In this portion of Mark’s gospel Jesus addresses those who have to live in the time between “already” and “not yet”. By keeping alert and awake, by living our lives in the way Christ who has already come would want us to live, not only will we be prepared to live in the promised realm of God when it comes, but we may experience even now some of what life is like in that realm.

One clergy family decided to let their five-year-old son record the message for their home answering machine. The rehearsals went smoothly: "Mummy and Daddy can't come to the phone right now. If you'll leave your name, phone number, and a brief message, they'll get back to you as soon as possible." Then came the test. The father pressed the record button and their son said sweetly, "Mummy and Daddy can't come to the phone right now. If you'll leave your name, phone number, and a brief message, they'll get back to you as soon as Jesus comes."