Advent 1

Advent 1 Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs! 11/30&12/3/06

A song, now decades-old, included the line: “Signs, signs, everywhere signs…” The truth of this song remains current: stop signs, yield signs, caution signs, construction signs, advertising signs, crosswalk signs, railroad track signs, school signs, hospital signs, speed limit signs…signs, signs, everywhere signs! Signs are all intended, provided to communicate something to us, sometimes with words, sometimes with specific colors, sometimes with symbols. Signs are all around us this season, as Christmas catalogs arrive at our front doors before the Halloween pumpkins are off the porch or the Thanksgiving turkey is selected or the fall leaves have been bagged and picked-up. This season is an intensified version of what we experience most of our lives…things going faster than we like, or remember; too much to do and seemingly too little time to do it. We move about, following the signs, though seldom certain as to where they lead us.

Our Gospel lesson begins: “There will be signs…”, as Luke presents, in apocalyptic language, a picture of that day when the Lord comes again “in a cloud with power and great glory.” (21:27) This day brings mixed reactions, with some people fainting “from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world” and, others---all who trust in Jesus---are instructed to “stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (21:28)

Although this Gospel lesson is being read on the first of four Sundays in the season of Advent leading up to Christmas, the lesson points us beyond the birth of Jesus to the second coming of Christ. Whereas some writers and preachers want to emphasize that we are living in the “end times”, this lesson reminds me that we are living “in-between times”…in between the coming of Jesus, born in a barn in the sacred city of Bethlehem and the coming of Jesus as He offers the description in this week’s Gospel.

Nearly every year some popular religious figure predicts the specific day and time of Jesus’ return. The early Church attempted to discern the signs that Jesus offered as indicators, but proved wrong in its conviction that Jesus would return again soon. Every prediction has, thus far, proven inaccurate and, sometimes tragically so. Less than 10 years ago the Heaven’s Gate suicides were front page as cult members saw signs of the advent in the Hale-Bopp comet. Despite our inaccurate, and I believe ill-founded and futile, attempts to predict the specific time of our Lord’s return, the conviction that Christ will return is critical. Perhaps the word “near,” included 3 times in our Gospel, remains, to us, unclear, but let’s be clear: Christ is coming again!

Although the signs of the times indicating the coming of the Son of Man in glory are laden with gloom and foreboding… “on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves…”(Lk. 21:25) and “pray that you may have the strength to escape these things”(21:36), it is significant that the parable Jesus offers to help us understand this teaching radiates a spirit of hope and life and promise-- “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.”(21:29-30) The signs of summer are obvious, with signs of hope, vitality, vigor, energy, and renewed life. The signs of God’s breaking into this world should be just as obvious and life-giving for those who trust Him!

We are invited to live from the past forward, remembering what God has done for us through Jesus Christ, releasing us from our sin and the power of death. But, we are also invited to live from the future backwards , from the hope that Jesus will come again and draw the whole creation to Himself, to live forever in His presence, influencing and impacting our decisions and discernment day to day! In this in-between time, as we await our Lord’s coming in glory, we are challenged to live into hope, demonstrating by our actions our conviction that “the kingdom of God is near…”---near enough so that we are able to see the first fruits of it…signs of hope, akin to the bursting out of leaves in spring!

I’m enough of a realist to acknowledge that not every sign around us seems hopeful and invigorating and assuring. There is much about our world, our times, that troubles me and I believe our world is in trouble. And, it is for just this historic situation that Jesus instructs us: “Stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is near.” I see signs of life, without denying signs of death. I see signs of giving, without denying massive greed. I see signs of hope, without denying extreme levels of unhappiness. I see signs of goodness, without denying much that is godless. As we sing in the great Easter hymn: “I know that my Redeemer lives, what comfort this sweet sentence gives” and the more contemporary song, “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow; because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know who holds the future, life is worth the living, just because He lives.” Christ is alive and coming again! AMEN.