Third Wednesday of Advent: Israel's Longing for the Torah

December 17, 2013 Daniel Harris

As we have seen, by the time of Jesus' birth, many of the Jews of his day were longing for their true King (their "anointed one"/Messiah/Christ) to come. When he came, he––as a descendant of David––would fulfill God's promises that David and Solomon would always have an heir as King of Israel. Following their long exile and oppression, the King would deliver Israel from their oppressors and enable them to once again truly be Israel. Once this Messiah would free them from their tyrants, he would enable them to become a true, faithful Israel by reestablishing the Temple as well as by giving the Torah its rightful central place in their life as a people.

It's virtually impossible for us to comprehend how much the Torah (the Law of Moses) mattered to many Jews in Jesus' day. It gave them the story of who they were: the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who had been enslaved in Egypt before being rescued by God and brought into the promised land. In their years there, however, they often failed to observe the law, and––as the Torah itself predicted––disaster came. The Temple was destroyed and the freedom God had given them from slavery disappeared as they went into exile.

We often mischaracterize the Torah as if it were simply God's way of setting a perfect standard no one would be able to reach through several centuries before eventually he would relent and make mercy and forgiveness available to us. While the Torah often did set high standards, that wasn't the point. It wasn't that God gave the Torah in the Old Testament as an experiment (which he knew would fail) in which people were required to attempt to earn their right standing with God. Rather, it was a pattern of life by which the people whom God rescued could show their gratitude, loyalty, and determination to live by the covenant because of which God rescued them in the first place.(1)

There were periods of Israel's history through which the Torah was not widely known and observed, and many of the writings during the exile look back and say, "We have failed to live God's way, and this is why this tragedy has happened to us." As we read through the biblical accounts of the generations from David until the exile, one person in each generation is given more of the weight of responsibility for the entire nation's observance of the Torah than anyone else: the King. Until the exile, the books of Kings and Chronicles largely judge the success or failure of king's rule by the Torah: did he do what God commanded or did he disobey, and did he lead the people to observe God's law or to stray from it?

With the wounds of exile and six centuries of oppression always before them, many of the Jews of Jesus' day had become painstakingly scrupulous in their study and observance of the Torah. It was part of their longing for God to set things right. As they waited and observed God's law, it was another dimension of their yearning for the true King to come. He would deliver them from the pagans who didn't know the Torah, didn't care about the Temple, and often forced the Jews to disobey God's law. In contrast to their foolish kings who led them into exile, the long-awaited Messiah would fulfill the Torah himself and enable all of them to do so as well.

As with the other parts of their longing we have considered this week, their hopes were going to be fulfilled, but the King who was drawing near to them would meet their longings in radically different ways than they could have envisioned.

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A Prayer for the Day:

Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought us in safety to this new day: Preserve us with your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.*

Readings for the Week*:

*Prayers are from The Book of Common Prayer and readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary. (1) N.T. Wright, Simply Christian, 82.

Third Tuesday of Advent: Israel's Longing for the Temple

December 16, 2013 Daniel Harris

To the ancient Jews, the Temple was the place where heaven and earth overlapped.(1) It was the place where they could meet with God and their assurance of his ongoing presence among them. The Temple's predecessor, the Tabernacle, was the center of Israel's life with God from the time of the Exodus and their journey through the wilderness. King David desired to build a permanent sanctuary for the whole nation, which would be God's home among his people, and his son, Solomon, completed the grandiose project.

N.T. Wright describes: "When Israel's God blessed people, he did so from Zion [the location of the Temple]. When they were far away, they would turn and pray toward the Temple. When pilgrims and worshippers went up to Jerusalem and into the Temple to worship and offer sacrifices, they wouldn't have said that it was as though they were going into heaven. They would have said that they were going to the place where heaven and earth overlapped and interlocked."(2)

Understanding that the Temple was God's dwelling place helps us to understand the devastation so often expressed in the portions of the Old Testament written after the Babylonian exile, since the Temple was destroyed by the pagan Babylonians in 587 BC. Psalm 79 laments,

O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the air for food, the flesh of your faithful to the wild animals of the earth. They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them. We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us. How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever? (Psalm 79:1-5a)

Rebuilding of the Temple began in 538 BC, and was completed in 516 BC, though it never matched the magnificence of its predecessor. Just as there was a sense in which Israel felt it had never fully returned from exile because they were continuously under the oppression of pagan empires, there was a sense in which God had never fully returned to dwell again in his Temple.

A little more than a decade before Jesus' birth, Herod the Great began to renovate, reconstruct, expand, and beautify the Temple. Though Herod had no royal blood, but was more like a warlord whom the Romans gave the title "King of the Jews," perhaps he understood something that had been passed down through all of the generations since King David: it was the king's job to build or restore the Temple and assure that God's people had access to the place where heaven and earth overlapped.

Wright notes: "The principle was established. Part of the central task of the king, should a true king ever emerge, would not only be to establish justice in the world; it would also involve the proper reestablishment of the place where heaven and earth met. The deep human longing for spirituality, for access, to God, would be answered at last."(3)

And so, by the time Jesus was born, almost six hundred years had passed while at least some of the people longed for the Temple to once again have its proper place in their life as a nation. Yet their efforts continually proved incomplete and Herod could build a magnificent building, but he was not and had no intention of being what the scriptures called for Israel's true king to be.

So Israel longed and waited for their Temple, their place where heaven and earth overlapped, and they longed for their Messiah to come and establish it forever.

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A Prayer for the Day:

O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Readings for the Week*:

*Prayers are from The Book of Common Prayer and readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary. (1) Again, much of what I say here is heavily informed by the writings of N.T. Wright. For more on today's topic, see Chapter Six ("Israel") of Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (New York, HarperCollins, 2006. (2) Wright, Simply Christian, 64-65. (3) Ibid., 81-82.

Third Monday of Advent: Israel's Longing for the King

December 15, 2013 Daniel Harris

If (as we discussed yesterday) we want to get to know the story Jesus lived in, one of the most helpful places we can start is also one of the most unlikely. If you open your Bible to the first page of the New Testament, you will see Matthew's genealogy of Jesus. Most of us pay about as much attention to that opening passage of Matthew as we do to acknowledgements listed in the preface when we open a new book, and there are some similarities: in both cases, there is a list of people's names––most of whom we don't know, and the author is indicating that the book wouldn't have come into being without them. Nonetheless, we assume that the people named have no real significance for understanding the remainder of the book. While that may be the case with most things we read, it isn't what Matthew intended nor what his earliest readers would have thought when they read that list of names. If we dig into it a little bit, we can see that Matthew's list is less like an inconsequential roll of names who preceded Jesus by historical accident, and more like a way of beginning the book with a drum roll, trumpets blowing, and a royal herald calling for everyone's attention.(1) One way that Matthew makes this clear is by dividing his list into three:

In the first section, the first three names are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which immediately lets us know that the story Matthew is about to tell us is a thoroughly Jewish story. In contrast to the understanding of the gospel represented in children's Bible app I described yesterday, Matthew can't tell his version of the story by saying, "Once there were a man and woman who lived in the Garden of Eden who sinned....[and then skip to Matthew 1:18] Now the birth of Jesus took place this way...." No, for readers of the gospel, Jesus' story is always a story of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Matthew's beginning indicates that if we don't understand the Jewish story, we won't understand Jesus.

The second section of the list indicates that not only is Matthew about to tell us a Jewish story, but it will be a story about Jewish royalty. Not only is it going to be a story of a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but also of one who traced his lineage through the royal line of David and Solomon. Almost all Jews of Jesus' day would have pointed to Abraham as their ancestor, but only a select few could claim to be a part of the line of David, Solomon, and the kings of Judah. It won't take long in this story to encounter Herod, who though he had the title, "King of the Jews," had no royal blood, and Matthew has already made it clear who has the right to the throne.

If that wasn't enough to pique our interest, the third section of the genealogy identifies the story as a messianic story. The third section begins with names who lived at the time when the kingdom of Judah was conquered, the center of their national identity (the Temple) was destroyed, and many of the descendants of Abraham were carried off from the land God had promised them into exile in Babylon. The prophets during the exile indicated that God would restore David's royal line and keep the promise that one of his descendants would be on the throne forever. Even though Jesus' ancestors had geographically returned from exile, they had never fully regained their freedom and therefore had a sense that the exile wasn't really over. They needed a deliverer who would free them from the oppression of their enemies. Even though Herod was rebuilding the Temple, there was no way he could fit the bill of their deliverer. They needed the one anointed (Messiah in Hebrew, or Christ in Greek) by God to rescue them and fulfill God's promises.

In Matthew's telling, each of these three sections of the genealogy included fourteen generations, which is also packed full of meaning. Particularly in Jewish symbolism, the number seven was a symbol of completion. Jesus was born, not at a random point in history nor in a chance place in this genealogy, but as the first one in the seventh seven of generations. As N.T. Wright comments, "Jesus isn't just one member in an ongoing family, but actually the goal of the whole list....This birth, Matthew is saying, is what Israel has been waiting for for two thousand years."(2)

Having (in week one) considered some of the present aspects of Advent through the practices we can put in place in our lives which train us to wait on God's abiding in us now, and then (last week) explored the future aspects of Advent as we wait for Christ's return, this week, we look to strengthen our Advent waiting by looking in our rearview mirror and remembering ancient Israel's Advent longing as they waited for the Messiah to come. To be able to do so, we have to begin by clarifying what the term Messiah means to us and what it meant to them as they waited through centuries for his coming.

When we read, for example, Peter's confession, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God," we read into that from our perspective now, thinking that Peter understood Jesus to be God. Rather, both the titles Messiah (Christ) and son of God were ways of Peter saying the same thing Matthew has said in his genealogy: Jesus was the promised, long-awaited, rightful king who had come at last to deliver Israel from her enemies.(3)

Matthew's genealogy sets up the story in one more vital way, by warning the reader that God accomplishes his purposes in unforeseen, even seemingly bizarre, ways. Matthew goes out of his way to include three names in Jesus' messianic, royal, Jewish lineage: Tamar (who tricked her father-in-law into sleeping with her by pretending to be a prostitute), Rahab (a prostitute in Jericho), and "the wife of Uriah the Hittite," whom we also know as Bathsheba, with whom King David committed adultery. The next part of Matthew's story begins with another young woman becoming pregnant through extraordinary circumstances as God continues to work toward the fulfillment of his ancient promises.

It's hard for us to imagine what the ancient Israelites' longing for their King, their Messiah, their long-expected anointed one, would have been like, but we will spend the remainder of this week looking at this aspect of Advent from the past. As we remember their waiting for the King's birth, and engage in the practices of waiting on him now, we will be better prepared for his return.

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A Prayer for the Day:

O God, the King eternal, whose light divides the day from the night and turns the shadow of death into the morning: Drive far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to keep your law, and guide our feet into the way of peace; that, having done your will with cheerfulness while it was day, we may, when night comes, rejoice to give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Readings for the Week*:

*Prayers are from The Book of Common Prayer and readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary. (1) Though I've communicated it in my own way, virtually everything I say in this post I learned from N.T. Wright, especially through his commentary on Matthew 1:1-17 in Matthew for Everyone. (2) N.T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 3. (3) See Wright's glossary entry for Messiah in Matthew for Everyone, 215: "The Hebrew word means literally 'anointed one,' hence in theory either a prophet, priest, or king. In Greek this translates as Christos; 'Christ' in early Christianity was a title, and only gradually became an alternative proper name for Jesus. In practice, 'Messiah' is mostly restricted to the notion, which took various forms in ancient Judaism, of the coming king who would be David's true heir, through whom YHWH would rescue Israel from pagan enemies. There was no single template of expectations. Scriptural stories and promises contributed to different ideals and movements, often focused on (a) decisive military defeat of Israel's enemies and (b) rebuilding or cleansing the Temple...."

Third Sunday of Advent: The Story Jesus Lived In

December 14, 2013 Daniel Harris

There's a difference between the people with whom we are acquaintances and those we really know well. I think much of that difference comes down to how well we know the story of which their life is a part.

You may have a coworker with whom you interact on a daily basis. They may be pleasant to work with, and you may even consider yourselves friends. However, with most of our coworkers, we don't really know the stories they live in––we don't know what their childhood was like or where their grandparents were from. We may not know if they have siblings, if they've always dealt with addictions, or whether they grew up in the city or in the country. They probably don't know those kinds of things about you either, and that's okay because of the kind of relationship you have as coworkers.

To contrast the difference it makes when we know someone's story, think of another kind of relationship: someone with whom you were close friends as a child, but now have contact with no more often than a couple of times per year. Your interactions with an old friend happen much less often than they do with your coworker, but yet there's a sense in which you still know them significantly because you know their story. You have memories of spending time in their house with their families. You can remember some painful experience they had as well as a time when they were happy. You know whether their story began in poverty or riches. You might even be able to explain some of the course that their life has taken because you know their story so well.

To really know someone well, you would have both sides of the relationships described above: the knowledge of their story plus the continued daily interactions, but I've realized that isn't how we normally think of knowing Jesus. We tend to focus on knowing Jesus in the ways that we would know a coworker. Sure, there are some obvious differences between what it would be like to know the Son of God through daily interactions and what it's like to know the person in the office next to you, but here's my point: if we don't really know another person without knowing the story they live in, neither do we really know Jesus without knowing the story he lived in. Jesus' story is the long and winding story of ancient Israel, and if we don't know that story, we don't have a chance at understanding who he was nor of comprehending many of the things he said and did. Advent is always a reminder of that story.

I recently installed a new game on my phone for my kids to play. It was a Bible app, with narration of different biblical stories and games, puzzles, etc. that the kids enjoy playing. Something caught my attention about it, though, when I looked at it for the first time and noticed the Bible stories that it includes. The first story was about God creating heaven and earth. The second story was about Adam and Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden, and then the next story was...Christmas. There was no Abraham, Moses, David, nor Elijah, even though the New Testament constantly refers to them to attempt to understand and communicate who Jesus was and what he did.

Unfortunately, though, that children's Bible app is characteristic of the way we often think about Jesus. If our theology ultimately skips straight from Eden to Bethlehem, we have an utterly context-less Jesus, and we are bound to either misinterpret or be left scratching our heads at the majority of the New Testament's content.

We began this Advent adventure two weeks ago by focusing on practical methods of waiting on God now, through daily interaction with him in our present lives. Last week, we looked to the future and sought to clarify how we are part of two millennia of followers of Jesus who have waited on his return. This week, we look to the past, seeking to understand the story Jesus lived in by remembering ancient Israel's long waiting for the Messiah to come.

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A Prayer for the Day:

O God, you make us glad with the weekly remembrance of the glorious resurrection of your Son our Lord: Give us this day such blessing through our worship of you, that the week to come may be spent in your favor; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Readings for the Week*:

*Prayers are from The Book of Common Prayer and readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary.

Second Saturday of Advent: How to Live Now in Light of What's to Come

December 13, 2013 Daniel Harris

I've attempted to say some things this week that may have ruffled some people's feathers. Don't feel bad if your brain is tired from reading it––if that's the case, I'm glad you've stuck with me to this point. Even though I wrote it, I just re-read it, and I got tired. It's been a mental stretch, and for some of us a challenge to some long-held beliefs, but I want to wrap up this week's focus on the future aspects of Advent by reminding us of why it all matters.

1 Corinthians 15 is a tremendously important passage for us as Christians. There, Paul goes to lengths to remind the Corinthians about the centrality of the resurrection for them. He reminds them of the account of Jesus' resurrection, his appearances to disciples before his ascension and why it matters immensely to them that he was resurrected in a real physical body. He talks about that day when Christ will return and all of his people will be resurrected in imperishable bodies like Christ's (or transformed into them if they are still living on that day) when death is finally defeated for all of God's people.

Then, immediately after the climax of the passage where Paul emphasizes how "death is swallowed up in victory," he closes his long argument about the centrality of the resurrection for all Christians with a statement that might surprise us:

Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Cor. 15:58, NRSV)

Although we wouldn't say it this way, we tend to think the opposite: if Christ is coming again and everything will be set straight, with the world and even our own bodies being made new, we often think whatever happens between now and then is beside the point. Sure we intend to do well, but any efforts at discipleship and service are viewed as extras which will be nice if we get to them, but if not––as long as we're on Jesus' side at the end of all of it––we're okay.

That attitude can't exist within Paul's thinking. His point in urging us to be steadfast––precisely because of what he's said about Christ's return and how our own resurrection will happen as Jesus' did––is that our lives now are of interminable importance. Because we will be given new bodies on that day, what we do in our bodies now is a way of becoming either more or less prepared for the kind of lives with God that we will lead forever. And because we are made to extend God's reign in creation rather than to escape it, how we relate to creation now is practice for the responsibilities that will be entrusted to us according to the character that we have allowed God to develop in us.

Again, N.T. Wright's words are instructive:

The truth of the resurrection of the dead and the transformation of the living is not just a truth about the future hope. It's a truth about the present significance of what we are and do. If it is true that God is going to transform this present world, and renew our whole selves, bodies included, then what we do in the present time with our bodies, and with our world, matters.(1)

Every time we show kindness, it matters. Every time we manage something well, it matters. Every time we make a decision to do the right thing when no one is looking, it matters. Every time we choose to arrange our lives in ways that give God more space to abide in us, it matters. These things have effects now that will still be resonating on the day when our King returns. As he himself said, "just as you do it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."

When we look at it in this way, we realize that our waiting doesn't only happen during Advent, but that every day of our lives as Christians is spent waiting for Christ's return. We open our lives to him in the ways we discussed last week (through prayer, reading the Scriptures, Holy Communion, solitude, silence, and loving service to others) as a way of waiting on his return. When he comes, we want to be found to be like him, already at home in the kind of world over which he will reign forever. So, we begin practicing the eternal kind of life now, and until we see him, we continue to pray again that great Advent prayer with which we began this week:

Come, Lord Jesus!

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A Prayer for the Day:

Almighty God, who after the creation of the world rested from all your works and sanctified a day of rest for all your creatures: Grant that we, putting away all earthly anxieties, may be duly prepared for the service of your sanctuary, and that our rest here upon earth may be a preparation for the eternal rest promised to your people in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.*

Readings for the Week*:

*Prayers are from The Book of Common Prayer and readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary. (1) N.T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003) 227-228.

Second Friday of Advent: Why We Long for Jesus' Appearing: New Creation

December 12, 2013 Daniel Harris

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:18-25, NRSV)

What were you and I made to do? If someone has been engaged in work that is a good fit for them, we often speak of them as having been born to do that particular thing. I have a friend whom I can say with confidence was born to be a teacher. I've known people who were apparently born to be farmers, or to work with animals, or to be engineers. My own vocation isn't quite so clear––particularly during this time of year, I feel like I may have been born to eat Christmas cookies. Even though I'm closer to the end of the spectrum of the people in mid-life or later who are still wondering what they want to be when they grow up, I'm still grateful to–occasionally–have had moments when something I have worked on has brought a great sense of fulfillment, a feeling of having done the kind of thing I was created to do rather than just wasting my days.

Regardless of how clearly each of us can think about the question of what we were made to do, here it is from a different angle: What were you and I made to do––forever? If we have bought into inaccurate understandings of what the Bible says about our future, our thoughts about the nature of our existence forever will surely also be skewed, and––honestly––we've been given some pretty silly images for what we might actually be doing "when we've been there ten thousand years" and beyond. Sometimes we're told that heaven will be similar to an unending worship service. I've had people make comments to me indicating their belief that we will grow wings and fly around among the clouds. I'm sure you can probably think of other forms of these ideas, and I'm convinced (and relieved) that they are not the biblical picture of eternity.

We can zero in on some of the dissimilarities between popular thinking about our life in heaven and what the Bible says about our future by looking again at that line from the last stanza of Amazing Grace I quoted above, "when we've been there ten thousand years..." Where is the there we expect to be for so long?

Even though we often think that our eternity with God will be spent in a vague amorphous "up there," from the beginning of the Bible in Genesis to its conclusion at the end of Revelation, part of the understanding of what it means to be human is that we are meant to exist and glorify God forever, right here, within creation. In other words, our expectation as Christians isn't that we'll be going away to some never-ending non-bodily existence, but that when Christ returns, we will experience resurrection as he did and the veil now separating heaven and earth will be removed "and earth and heav'n be one."

Part of what this means is that just as we have work to do now, we will have work to do then. What we will do forever in this new creation will be similar to what Genesis says humans were given the task of doing in the original creation: to have dominion over it, care for it and cultivate it. The number of ways we could possibly do this is surely limitless, and as Paul described in the passage quoted above, creation itself is eagerly awaiting us to take our proper place and participate fully in the work of God's kingdom in creation––forever.

Two of the writers who have influenced me most deeply have both written about this, and their words are worth quoting directly. First, from Dallas Willard, one of the most hopeful, challenging, and meaning-packed few sentences I've ever read:

We should not think of ourselves as destined to be celestial bureaucrats, involved eternally in celestial "administrivia." That would be only slightly better than being caught in an everlasting church service. No, we should think of our destiny as being absorbed in a tremendously creative team effort, with unimaginably splendid leadership, on an inconceivably vast plane of activity, with ever more comprehensive cycles of productivity and enjoyment.(2)

That alone should give each of us enough to think about for, well, ten thousand years or so. And N.T. Wright summarizes much of what I have attempted to say throughout this week:

The New Testament picks up from the Old the theme that God intends, in the end, to put the whole creation to rights. Earth and heaven were made to overlap with one another, not fitfully, mysteriously, and partially as they do at the moment, but completely, gloriously, and utterly. "The earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea." That is the promise which resonates throughout the Bible story, from Isaiah (and behind him, by implication, from Genesis itself) all the way through to Paul's greatest visionary moments and the final chapters of the book of Revelation. The great drama will end, not with "saved souls" being snatched up into heaven, away from the wicked earth and the mortal bodies which have dragged them down into sin, but with the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, so that "the dwelling of God is with humans" (Revelation 21:3).

...God's plan is not to abandon this world, the world which he said was "very good." Rather, he intends to remake it. And when he does, he will raise all his people to new bodily life to live in it. That is the promise of the Christian gospel. To live in it, yes; and also to rule over it. There is a mystery here which few today have even begun to ponder. Both Paul and Revelation stress that in God's new world those who belong to the Messiah will be placed in charge. The first creation was put into the care of God's image-bearing creatures. The new creation will be put into the wise, healing stewardship of those who have been "renewed according to the image of the creator," as Paul puts it (Colossians 3:10).(3)

We have attempted to cover a lot of ground very quickly this week, and tomorrow we'll consider what it all means for us now. If this is the picture the Bible gives us of what's to come and is that for which we are waiting during Advent, how should we live now because of it?

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A Prayer for the Day:

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Readings for the Week*:

*Prayers are from The Book of Common Prayer and readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary. (1) See Revelation 21:1-5a (2) Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 399. (3) N.T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), 217, 219.

Second Thursday of Advent: Why We Long for Jesus' Appearing: Resurrection

December 11, 2013 Daniel Harris

As part of my brief experiment with being a pastor, I once attended something we Methodists call "License to Preach School," and as you might guess by its title, part of what we learned there was guidance for preaching sermons. Each participant was required to write a sermon during the days of the course and then preach it to a small group of peers for feedback.

I was excited about my opportunity. I worked on a sermon, and I thought that it was pretty good. In my mind, I was imagining the kind of congratulatory feedback that my classmates and supervisors were going to give me. My turn came, I preached my sermon, and I felt like things were going well. When the time for feedback came, people were a little hesitant. (I thought, "Well, of course. I've just given them a lot to think about. It's probably a challenge for them to express in words how much my sermon has impacted them." Remember––this was License to Preach School, not a License of Humility.) Then, finally, someone spoke up and just as I expected––they started to talk about how much they enjoyed my sermon and what they got out of it. Two or three others followed suit, saying that those same parts of the sermon were helpful as well.

There were two problems that quickly caught my attention about their comments: first, the parts of the sermon they described as helpful weren't in any way intended to be part of my point. Second, though I imagined myself to have driven my main point home with great effectiveness, no one ever mentioned anything close to what I wanted to communicate. The thing I intended to emphasize was apparently completely missed, while they picked up on other things that I hadn't even really wanted to say.

Something of the same dynamic happens in many of our discussions about Jesus' return, but for a different reason. In the case of my preaching, my classmates' feedback was evidence that I had not been as effective of a communicator as I had fancied myself to be, and therefore my point was missed. The same thing happens with the Bible, though in the case of the scriptures, the fault isn't on the communicators' side, but on ours as the audience. We often read and see the things that we want to see in the Bible regardless of what is actually there, plus many inherent factors come into play in trying to correctly interpret a complex ancient document from a culture very different from our own. Yet the result is still the same: we miss the main points. In the case of what the Bible says about our future and the things that will happen when Jesus returns, our normal conversations tend to focus on all kinds of side-issues, while leaving out the scripture's main emphasis when it speaks of the age to come: resurrection.

When Christ returns––on that day when all of these centuries of longing and waiting for him finally end, when this yearning ache we have for him to appear is finally satisfied and there is no more need for this painful yet hopeful waiting of Advent––the two great destroyers of his people will be utterly and definitively dealt with: sin and death. Sin's defeat was achieved in Jesus' death on the cross, and––as we discussed yesterday––its downfall will be full and final when Jesus returns for judgment. Death's defeat was achieved in Jesus' resurrection on Easter Sunday, and its vanquishment will come when what happened to Jesus happens to all of us, and we are raised to indestructible life in new, death-defeating bodies like that of our Lord.

When the scriptures say that death has lost its sting and been swallowed up in victory, it isn't just spouting optimistic nonsense. Because of Jesus––the one who could defeat death, because he was the one who could defeat sin, because of the eternal kind of life that was in him through his knowledge of his loving Father––life will have the last word from that day on. Suffering will cease and be redeemed. Those whom we have loved and lost will be seen again. Everyone who has laid down their life for his sake will rise and find it.

If in our lives as followers of Jesus, the only time that we think about and talk of resurrection is on Easter Sunday, we have missed the point. Exceedingly. On the other hand, if we live in hopeful waiting expectation of the day when our King returns, sets everything right, and we will all be made alive in him forever, then Advent will have taken its intended effect upon us.

Then, one day, he will come, and we will be ready.

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A Prayer for the Day:

Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Readings for the Week*:

*Prayers are from The Book of Common Prayer and readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary.