ADVENT I 2013

• Isaiah 2:1-5 •
• Psalm 122 •
• Romans 13:11-14 •
• Matthew 24:36-44

  

  Kandinsky -- Angel of the last Judgment

  
  
  
  On Advent Sunday a new cycle of readings begins. This year the Gospel passages (for the most part) come from Matthew rather than Luke, from which they were taken over the course of last year. But on Advent Sunday itself, the change is not so very significant. Whatever the year, the readings for the first Sunday in Advent are always powerfully apocalyptic – all about the end of time and the final judgment.
  
  
  Generally speaking, the modern world has greater difficulty in believing in an apocalyptic end to time than people had in centuries past, and the popularity of 'the Rapture' and  'left behind' theology in some quarters, has resulted in 'adventism' being regarded as an extreme, even by sincere, more mainline Christians. Yet, doctrine of the Second Coming  and the Last Judgment in not an esoteric invention. Here they are in the appointed common lectionary. So what should we think about them? How are they best understood?
  
  

  

  Breughel -- Last Judgment

  The first point to emphasize is that, despite the frequency (and enthusiasm) with which people have tried to predict ‘the end of time’, Jesus is quite clear -- “about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father”. In other words, all this will happen in God’s time, not ours. Secondly, ‘if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into’. The message seems to be this: don't try to predict the end of time, but always be aware of its possibility.
  
  
  
  Since each of us has our own ‘end of time’ – the hour of our death -- this makes sense. It does not matter when God brings the whole of history to a close, if we have met the end of own lives quite unprepared.
  
  

  

  Bosch - Last Judgment

  Suppose with the inevitability of death in mind, we take the message of Advent to heart. What then are we to do by way of preparation? The Epistle for this week has the answer ‘You know what time it is now, how it is the moment for you to wake from sleep. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day’. The passage from Isaiah puts it even more simply ‘Come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!’ The world regularly confronts us with the choice of letting our thoughts and actions be exposed to the light, or hiding them in some form of darkness. The 'moment’ to choose light over dark is perpetually 'now'.