Happy New Year, and Keep Awake!

Our Gospel message recalls Jesus’ last words in Mark before he is captured and taken to be tried and crucified.  By this warning, we are introduced to the new liturgical Year and the beginning of Advent.  As Jesus’ life is coming to a close, he reminds his followers to stay vigilant, and to remain watchful.  Instead of Advent beginning with warm fuzzy love and a cooing baby Jesus, Jesus instead, opens Advent season with a parable that warns and delivers an admonition to us:  Stay alert!  Be ready!  We do not know when Christ will return.

Let us pray together:  “God of preparation and readiness, prepare us for Advent; prepare us for the coming Messiah.  Awaken us from the slumber of our repetitive lives, help us stay alert, and prepare us for the always coming of Christ.  Light our lives with Hope.  Amen.”

In this new liturgical year, we switch our main Gospel focus from Matthew to Mark.  For this last year, we have followed Jesus’ life through the eyes of Matthew—now we will switch to Mark’s version of the Good News for this year.  Next year we will hear Luke’s story, and the cycle will then repeat every three years.

Mark’s Gospel has a very different feel than Matthew’s story did.  Mark was written in about 70 to 75 CE, or about 40 years after Jesus was crucified.  Historically, this is very significant, because the Jews had revolted against Roman rule in 66 CE.  In the resultant war, Rome crushed the revolt, devastating the Jewish population and the new church in Jerusalem.  The Temple was completely destroyed.  At this same time, the new church was being pushed out of the remaining synagogues as the Jews began to see the fledgling new sect increasingly separated from traditional Jewish teaching.  So, not only had the Jewish Temple been destroyed, but the new church was increasingly “homeless.”  Things were absolutely hopeless from a human standpoint.  The political and religious worlds of the new church had been shattered.  But Christ followers steadfastly believed that Jesus was going to come back to repair all of the broken things in the world for them.  Mark just knew that Jesus was going return soon in military and political glory, destroying the enemies of the church and restoring them to wholeness.  Of course, we know, this did not happen.  Mark and we are still waiting.

Now, this period of history was not the first time the Jewish people had thought that their Messiah would come and release them politically.  Remember the crowds celebrated Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem the week before his death on Palm Sunday.  They celebrated him as their political and religious leader, their political Messiah.  But, as we all know, Jesus did not fulfill the political Messiah role they clamored for.  Instead, Jesus lived and died as the Suffering Servant, non-violently responding to the Roman’s cruelty with love, not with military or political force.
And then, here in Mark, written perhaps 45 years after Jesus’ death, Mark predicts the same thing again, saying the Messiah will return out of the clouds and release the church from its political oppressors—only this time, the political oppressors had destroyed the Temple and leveled Jerusalem.  The church and the Jews really, really needed and deserved a political Messiah now.  And they were completely convinced that Christ would appear in the heavens and politically dominate their enemies in revenge.  They were sure that Christ was going to come within the next moment.  They kept waiting: Christ did not return, at least, not in the way they expected in political power.

In this season of Advent, or season of Coming, many Christians are still waiting for the military Messiah’s coming to sweep over the earth, using force and violence to usher in the Kingdom of God.  Just as Mark was sure his generation would not pass away before Jesus returned in violence, so many today predict Christ will come to slay his enemies and overpower the earth in power and glory.  But Mark reminds us that not even Christ knows when this will happen; Christ could come at any time, so we are cautioned to keep awake!

These are powerful and shocking images.  How will a loving, peaceful and non-violent Jesus suddenly return as a violent and militaristic Christ?  Why will Christ forsake the eternal power of love for the human power of the sword?  Is this really how Christ will return?  Is this our hope?  Is this how swords will become plowshares?  Well, Christ here does say in our passage that he will return in power and glory, and Mark’s Jesus says heaven and earth may pass away, but Christ’s words will not pass away.  But what kind of power will usher Christ back into the world?  Coercive and forceful power?  Or the power of love?

As our Easter story tells us, the crowds in Jerusalem were wrong because Jesus did not save himself or them either politically or militarily.  And Mark’s prediction was wrong because Jesus did not return within that generation to save the Jews or the church either politically or militarily.

And  we are still waiting.  And watchful.  But waiting for what?  If Christ came, would we even recognize him?   I wonder.  Christ has never appeared as people expected.  We don’t know when or even how Christ will come.  He may come in unexpected times and in unexpected ways again.

Are you still waiting for a military Messiah to come and fix everything with force and violence, to put evil in its place and proclaim us victorious, just like Mark believed?  Human history is filled with humans forcing their power over other humans, but we know coercive force does not change humankind’s heart.  Force and coercive power will not bring heaven to earth.  Coercive force does not bring love or compassion.  Coercive force brings only more force and counterforce and revenge.  Killing does not bring peace.  Only love can bring peace.  So if Christ completely rejected force and violence, what then do we hope for?

Is it possible that instead of violence and militaristic power that the Messiah will come again in love and compassion and loving kindness, just as he did before?  Is it possible that God’s Realm on earth will be ushered in through gentle love and non-violence?  Is it possible that heaven will arrive not as coercive power, but as a little babe?  Jesus taught that lasting peace does not come from force, but instead through changed hearts.  What has changed since Jesus taught that?  Perhaps we need to reevaluate what we are waiting for.  Perhaps we should keep awake in hope as we watch for the Master to return in compassion and loving kindness….

Is it possible that the love that will save the world starts right here in our own breasts?  Is it possible that we are to watch and raise hope for a change in our own hearts, and that thereby, heart by heart, soul by soul, the Messiah will come in compassion and loving kindness?  Is it possible the Messiah will come again through each of our hearts, enflaming us with compassion, changing each of us, one by one, into heaven’s agents of compassion and love?  Christ is coming.  That is what Advent means, it comes from the Latin adventus, or coming.  Christ is coming.  But how and when?

We don’t know when or how.  No one knows, except God.  But we know that Mark’s world was destroyed by Roman military force, and that made Mark and his followers very anxious—they hoped and prayed that Christ was coming back soon to fix everything.  Our world is being destroyed by greed and selfishness.  A woman pepper-sprays fellow shoppers Friday so she can get a great deal on an Xbox.  Congress is frozen in the blame game.  We are mired in the deepest and most cruel recession since the Depression and Congress cannot agree about how or whether to act in compassion.  Europe is on the brink of financial collapse, the global economy is suffering from a debt hangover that may not go away.  We are abusing our mother earth in ways that may be irreversible.  So we also have become anxious for Christ to come…

And yet, we wait in expectant hope.  What do we hope for as we wait?  Will Christ come down to earth from way up in the clouds—or perhaps, will Christ come to each of us, one heart at a time?  Can we each watch and wait as the Spirit appears in our own hearts, in our own loving kindness and in our own hands?  We cannot control what the world does or thinks—but we can control our own thoughts and actions and watchfulness.  Christ may not come for a thousand-thousand more years, but the Christ-presence can be lived into the world right now, through compassion beating within each of our hearts, living the Messiah’s love within and through each of our lives.

What if we stopped waiting for Christ to come externally and militarily, and instead, invited Christ to live through us into the world—to come now into our lives and peacefully transform our hands into God’s hands, our feet into God’s feet, our lives into God’s life?  What if we were so watchful, so awake, so ready that we actively lived Christ’s love and peace into the world right now? 

That is our Hope for Advent.  Let us hope and pray that the Messiah returns through us into the world.  Our hope is that we are so transformed by love and compassion that God changes the world through us.  Now that would be a wonderful Advent gift.  Come, Emmanuel, live your love through us so fully that you empower us to change the world!  Keep awake, watch and wait!  Jesus is coming, through us!  Amen.