Scripture:
Luke 21:25-36
I don’t know how I keep getting all the apocalyptic end of the world type texts to preach on but here we go again. It always seems such an odd pairing – as we get ready for Christmas, we hear these earth-shaking, somewhat disturbing texts about the second coming. You expect more baby Jesus, cute and cuddly type texts rather than talk of war and destruction.
Yet, that is indeed what advent is about – awaiting the coming of God into our very tumultuous and frightening world. It’s what Christmas is about – God entering into our world, entering into the human experience and becoming like one of us so that he might save each and every one of us. An unlikely – but true event. A fantastic event that is difficult at times to believe – so much so many continue to reject its validity.
Because it sounds like sheer fantasy. Too good to be true. Beyond our understanding. Yet, we Christians not only believe it, we still wait with the hopeful expectation of the fulfillment of these fantastic and unlikely promises of God.
Today we once again hear about the promise of Jesus’ return. That there will be extremely distressing events and people will react with fear because they do not understand what it all means. We’re actually going to pick up that idea for our Wednesday night mid-week services – talking about how we fight fear with faith so we hope you join us at 6:30 on Wednesdays starting this week.
But Jesus’ point is that while most people will indeed react with fear to such events, it should not be fearful for those who know and trust in God, because it simply means that their redemption is drawing near. Christ’s coming in all his glory will arrive soon.
The problem is, we focus on the disaster element so much because I think it’s hard for us to imagine such a scene. It just seems so… fantastic. So… transcendent and other-worldly. I mean, how do you picture this occurring? How do we envision Jesus arriving on a cloud? As a baby… ok. But a cloud?
