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There’s a timeless moment at the end of the night and the break of the day — and I’m usually awake.  Not for very long, but of sufficient time for me to squint at the clock radio’s  display and wonder what day it is.  The same clock radio will soon produce an annoying beeping to tell me that time passes too swiftly  and that I’m already behind in my plans.  The Season of Advent is such a timeless moment, the sudden hush just before the conductor raises the baton.  What do we seek?   We seek the promised savior, the one who will redeem us from all evil.   How will we know him?   Ah, that’s the question!

Isaiah of Jerusalem brings us current, right off the bat. (2:1-5)  “In days to come…”, he begins.  And then  we  hear about the centrality of Zion as the world-navel of wisdom and righteousness.  But then God enlarges the horizons to instruct and guide ALL the nations, who respond by shaping “their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”  Come, o people of God, let us watch for and “walk in the light of the Lord!”

Paul exhorts the churches in Rome, “you know what time it is, how it is now the moment to wake from sleep.” (13:11-14)   (What, already??)  Like it or not, says he, a New Day is at hand, and the Lord is doing marvelous things!  So get dressed and move on from the debauchery — love that word! — of last night.  Where will God encounter us in this New Day?   Not in quarreling and jealousy; your little snits don’t help anyone….

During this Christian Year (year “A”), the Gospel reading will be from the remembrance of Matthew.  He gives us words of Jesus about The Last Times (24:36-44): only the Father knows WHEN, so keep ready.  Those near Bethlehem at the time of the Nativity weren’t much ready.   Those who were fed and healed by Jesus weren’t particularly ready.   Those around the Cross certainly weren’t ready!  Even the disciples in mourning weren’t ready….  

Oversaturated by daily history which seems to have run amok, we ask if there’s any real significance to our lives.  Advent can be that hushed moment on the cusp of a New Day when the community of faith can respond to the Claws of Santa by affirming personal worth of all our fellow-travelers.  Yes, there is a flow of history, and a knowable Presence which comes to reunite Earth with Heaven!  

Sunday is the last Sunday of the Christian Year, known mostly as the Festival of Christ the King, and Americanized into The Reign of Christ (because we don’t do royalty).  It marks the fulfillment of our understanding of the maturation of God’s Kingdom now realized:  we believe that when Jesus said from the cross, “It is finished”, it IS!   Lessons from Scripture include the ancient Hebrew expectation of the Righteous Ruler, and the later Christian awareness that such has appeared in Jesus the Christ.

The prophet Jeremiah looked for the days “when [God] will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” (23:5)   Compared to previous & corruptible shepherd-kings, this will be a holy change, and the scattered flock will be gathered in prosperity and safety.  Ensuing Jewish history reminds us that this didn’t happen quickly, since much dispersion and political instability continued.  Where IS that king?

The Epistle reading comes from the letter to the Colossian churches.  Paul wishes them to be “prepared to endure everything with patience” (1:11), realizing that God has already “rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son…”(v.13)   We could think of refugees, transported to a new place where both geography and style are much different from what we’ve been used to.  Rules and ethics are different, and so is the general understanding about civic responsibility.  God’s Kingdom brings its citizens to have new assumptions about the meaning of life!   Jesus has “first place in everything”. (v.18)

With these upbeat passages, we’re not ready to hear about the Crucifixion. (Luke 23:33-43)   Is this really the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom?  To the humble criminal alongside, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” are welcome words of life in the midst of death!   The soldiers didn’t get it:  “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”   Pilate didn’t get it:  “This is the King of the Jews”.   And most of us today don’t get it, either.  But here one era ended and another began.

With typhoons, daily shootings and arguments about health care, it’s hard to see those thin places where the Kingdom has drawn near.  Citizens of that Kingdom are entrusted to point through the fogginess of earthly confusions to announce those locations where God has already come to dwell with humanity.  Those who have traveled in Holy Realms are expected to tell the tales of the wonders to be found there, to speak of marvelous wisdom which endures, to prepare the Way of the Lord!  Even now, watch for the Star of Bethlehem….

God Bless Us, Every One                               H   B    King

In this Twenty-First Century of Our Lord, most people have given up on the Final Days.  Hasn’t happened, probably won’t.  A few would-be magi in each generation have ascertained by natural phenomena that the Kingdom of God shall now be fulfilled…but something is always amiss, and the apocalypse is deferred.  As a main-line participant, I believe that the Kingdom is even now in the process of becoming, that it actually is cascading all about us!  We just don’t see it yet.  Sunday’s lessons refer us to the coming Advent, when God’s New Thing will be glimpsed through the “mists of error, clouds of doubt”.

“Third Isaiah” is a collection of oracles given as prophecy after the return from exile in Babylon, around 525 BC.  These messages of Chapters 56 to 66 are ones of hope and assurance that the LORD is actively operating Creation, and looks with favor on the righteous.  “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” (Isaiah 65:17)  The oracle goes on to describe Jerusalem as a delight, with health and blessing and peace.  This New Start has been a dream since ancient days:  could it happen today?   We just don’t see it yet.

So is it true, St. Paul asks the Thessalonians, that some of you are just hanging out, waiting for the Day of the Lord? (II,3:6-13)   Don’t forget your duties to your community and your greater family, don’t forget that others are expecting you to pull your share of the load!  Each one has a part of the job-market to accomplish, he says, so don’t be shy about doing the work of the Kingdom, even as it unfolds.   It’s here, we just don’t see it yet.

Luke’s Gospel (21:5-19) could be seen by some as Bad News.  No, what Jesus is saying is that despite the beauty and solidity of the Jerusalem Temple, it too is prone to destruction:  “the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” (v.6)   Divine Renewal moves us from Really Nice to Perfect, often with unsightly processes!  I often mourn the demise of buildings — and ideas — which have been part of my life; yet the new structures which replace them are probably more efficient, more comfortable…better!  Believers are called to move their worship focus from the Jerusalem Temple to the person of Jesus, the Christ.  The Kingdom of God has drawn near, we just don’t see it yet.

Many will extol the virtues of yesterday and regret the excesses perceived in our current culture.  Indeed, there are many ugly evils around us, unfortunately magnified by the abundance of world-wide information.  But I’ll still tell you that the Kingdom of God is already present,with charity and beauty and hope!   We just don’t see it yet.

God Bless Us, Every One                      H   B    King

For centuries, artists and dreamers have tried to portray Heaven.   We’ve been brought up on the images of pearly gates and streets paved with gold.   Less known are the pastoral scenes of the perfect Garden of Paradise as described in the other-worldly book of The Revelation to [St.] John [the Divine].   Dante, John Bunyan and all kinds of medieval sculptors  conjured up gruesome demons to scare us into morality.   Today’s reactionary pre-occupation with televised stories of the supernatural indicate a fascination with Whatever’s Beyond.   We attempt to build our own heaven with bricks of earthly terms and the mortar of earthly valuables.

Haggai, perhaps one of  those who remained near Jerusalem during the Babylonian Exile, writes words of encouragement to those who’re building a new (second) Temple:   “Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory?  How does it look to you now?” (2:3)  In 520 BC, would the building stand as merely a shell of the faith, and would  Yahweh in all splendor ever reside there again?   Haggai continues to share the Lord’s promise that silver & gold from all the nations would “fill this house with splendor”, and that prosperity will come again to Israel.   OK, this isn’t exactly Heaven; but to the faithful returning from Babylon’s corruption it does become a renewed City of God.

To the congregations in and around Thessalonica, St. Paul writes, “For this purpose [God] called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (II,2:14)  This “glory” is more inclusive than that of Haggai, radiating not so much from blinding wealth as from the holy “wealth” of Jesus.   Here Paul IS talking about heaven, not as a celestial rest from the slings & arrows of our mortal journey, but a participation in God’s Kingdom which endows us with “comfort and good hope”.   

The passage from Luke’s Gospel begins with frivolity and moves to dead seriousness.   (Sorry!)   The Sadducees came up with this silly illustration of some woman  (“Typhoid Mary”?)  who wed seven brothers, one after another, and managed to outlive them all!  So, in the after-life, whose wife would she be?   “No one’s,”  said Jesus.(20:35)   Marriage is an earthly term and custom, but there’s evidently only one heavenly family.   Again, these folks were trying to impose mortal terms and laws on the hereafter–upon which they didn’t believe anyway.  The question, of course, is of Resurrection:   to Moses, the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac & Jacob are yet alive in God!  “Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”(v.38)   Henry the Eighth can now relax.

Where’s Grace, in all of this?   It’s implied, in between the lines:  God’s official residence, whether in the Second Temple or the unfolding Kingdom which has now drawn near, is full of glory.   And not so much in our terms, jewel-laden though they be, but in what is considered of divine value…sometimes hard to detect.    “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised”; God’s glory is beyond our understanding.

God Bless Us, every one!                H   B   King