“Beware, Keep Alert, Keep Awake”

Mark 13:24-37

Our lessons today remind us, not only of the hope we have in the Coming One, but of our complacency and complicity with sin – our denial of our hope in Christ, as we await his return.

This is the first Sunday of Advent – a short season of the church year, a season of preparation for Jesus' coming into the world. We're in the middle of the "Holy Week" of the worldly celebration of Christmas – Black Friday, and Small Business Saturday are past, with only Tech Monday to go! The retailers are anxious – the projection is that spending will be up ten percent this year! At the end of the season, they will count their receipts, and declare whether they are saved for another year – or whether they will have to make deep cuts and dump their goods in the after-Christmas sales.

Jesus, in our lesson today, begins by noting the “signs of the times,” when he will come again. It has little to do with twinkle lights, the weather forecast, or register receipts. Every generation has looked for signs of his coming in their generation, and it is no less true today. The plain truth, however, is that these are “signs” that are always with us – signs of the brokenness of creation, and of humankind – the result, the scriptures say, of sin. What the lesson reveals to us today, is that, if these signs are always near us, then his coming has both to do with time and with place – his arrival is immanent, because he is always near us. While prognosticators keep looking for the day and hour of our delivery, he is already present, gathering his people from “the four corners of the earth,” both judging and saving a sinful world.

As we read this, Mark wants to hold these two ways of understanding Jesus’ coming in tension – both the time of his arrival is “near,” and the place where he is, which is also “near.” Holding both of these ideas together helps us to keep alert, watchful, and waiting in hope for his arrival.

When I read this text, I think of it as a little bit like playing “Hide and Seek.” While you hide your eyes, the others in the game run off to hide from you. The object of the game is to find them before they can get to “base.” Of course, the best strategy for them is to hide as close as possible to “base,” so that, while you are off looking for them, they can sneak in. The trick is to get the person who is looking for you to get as far away from the base as possible – to get him or her to look far way, when you are really very close.

That is the danger we face, Jesus says, as Christians. We keep looking off to the future, looking for signs of where God may be, waiting for Jesus to return to us; when in reality, he is here among us all the time. He is very near. While we look off into the future for his glorious return, with clouds of angels, in triumph, he is already present, gathering his people. His glory isn’t that of the triumphant hero, who will some day arrive home to a tickertape parade – his glory, his power, as the writers of the Gospels tell us time and time again, lies in the power of resurrected lives, lives made new in hope. That is happening here, today, among us now.

Jesus tells us that, as Christians who look for his coming, there are three things we need to do: “beware,” “keep alert,” and “keep awake.” “Beware” is a warning. It’s the stop sign that confronts us, when we were about to head out on the road. That sign tells us that things are often not what they seem; that as we prepare for him, we need to be aware that “God’s ways are not human ways.” Those things to which the world looks to for salvation and meaning are false. Particularly, at this time of the year, we see how much people depend on material things to make them happy. Pundits talk about whether the holiday shopping sprees will deliver us from ruin, and trace people’s satisfaction in life in terms of their economic well-being. And we, of course, are tempted to do the same. So there is this “stop sign” Jesus has planted in the middle of the road to Christmas: “beware!” Don't believe the Christmas hype!

The next command, “Keep alert!,” points us in another direction. It not only stops us in our tracks, it tells us to tune into what God is doing – to be discerning. It’s easy to be overtaken by the carols, the glow of colored lights, and the enthusiasm for shopping – as if these were what Christmas is all about. Or, on the other hand, to become cynical “Scrooges,” humbugging the season as just a commercial venture with no redeeming value at all. The good news is that there is “gospel” to be found everywhere, because Jesus is, in fact, present. Christmas is about the incarnation – about God taking on human flesh, and being with his people – as our scripture says, gathering them in from the four corners of the earth. He is Emmanuel, “the God who is with us, on our side.” The question is, how do we discern his presence among us amid all the false promises of the season? Can we see past, on the one hand, the crass merchandizing of his coming and, on the other, the cynicism that merchandizing engenders when it is found to be so empty, so that we may actually see Jesus, in the flesh, among us?

Can we see, perhaps, in the colored lights and the magical stories of snowmen coming to life, elves and Santa Claus, a call to see the world through the eyes of a child – to see the world with new eyes and renewed hope? Can we see, in the holiday cheer, a call to a deeper, more long-lasting joy? Can we see, in the well-wishing, the giving of gifts, the Salvation Army Santas, a deeper call to love one another, to be gifts to one another, to set aside our prejudices, fears, and all those other things that divide us – and embrace the Christ we see in the “least” of our brothers and sisters? Can we see, below the surface of these holiday traditions, deeper questions of the human heart that God answers in the coming of Christ?

Jesus' third command to us is to “keep awake!” It is the same command he gave to his disciples on Gethsemane, as he prayed against the forces of darkness that gathered there against him. It is a call to remain in the struggle with him, to not let our guard down, to continue to look to the future with hope, as we await the coming of his kingdom. It is a call to continue to choose the new order of God’s kingdom over the old order of earthly ones, to which we are always so attracted, and to live our lives in hope rather than in fear.

In terms of our Christmas celebrations, it is to ask ourselves what kind of a world the Christmas gospel declares: if its promise is that God is creating a world where “the lion lies down with the lamb,” a world of peace and justice, of joy and hope, then how do we engage that world as people of God’s kingdom, as people where “his kingdom is come and his will is done?” What can I do to bring peace into the part of the world where I live? How can my life show the hope I have in God? How can I make my world come closer to that vision – that Christmas vision of God’s world?

We should regard the parable of the fig tree in our lesson as a parable of hope for us, as well as a warning. It is so easy to give up and give in to the world – either to its materialistic values, or into despair, as we find those values to be so false and empty. But, as God’s people, these are also signs for us of God's near presence. When we see signs of materialism and shallowness, we know that he is there, ready to give deeper, more long-lasting answers to these questions of meaning. And when we see signs of hope budding in the world, we rejoice, and prepare ourselves for Jesus’ arrival – for we know he is at the very gates. His statement that, “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place,” is a promise for us, that he is present in our generation, and that, for people who have eyes to see and ears to hear, his kingdom is already present to us – and in us. His Word in us is already making us new. Christmas is just around the corner. It is already here.