Hope

Text: Matthew 24:36-44

Focus: Advent Hope

Function: To help people hope in the power of Christ to change the world.

Form: Bible Study

Intro: I think I used this as an intro to my first Advent sermon last year, but I just can’t get the idea out of my head.

I love the 4 Themes of Advent because they all focus on the 5^th theme from their own particular perspective. The 5^th week, Christmas Day or Eve, the focus is on Christ alone. The rest of the weeks focus on Christ from these 4 perspectives:

1^st -Hope. 2^nd -Peace, 3^rd -Joy and the 4^th -Love.

We know that great scripture from 1 Corinthians 13: There are three things that remain, Faith, Hope and Love and the greatest of these is Love.

Paul describes emphases on three aspects of our Christian faith as if they are three legs to a stool, the kind of stool I used to use when I was a drummer, it has one strong weight bearing leg and two more for balance.

Hope is one of those other legs that provides balance and support to our faith.

Without hope, faith sort of dies.

But without hope, love is hard to muster.

I believe that Christ Jesus is the source of our faith, hope and love through His Holy Spirit that dwells inside of us.

So again, Brother Paul instructs us to stir up the Spirit of God inside of us.

Today, let us stir up hope.

Our lectionary text goes back to the apocalyptic literature of the time.

We touched on this theme a two weeks ago when we read that there are always times when people are saying that the end is near and most of those events are merely the common stories of tragedy that have occurred during the history of humanity. Don’t panic, seems to be the message that Jesus is preaching.

But here, we read different aspects of the account from Matthew. The scene is Herod’s temple. It was indeed a tremendous wonder. It had a solid gold roof. It was the Roman’s attempt to appease the Jews. They built this incredible temple that took 46 years to build for the Jews, but they also attached the Roman seat of government there to remind them of their domination.

However, the temple was indeed opulent and a fantastic building and it gave the Jewish people a great sense of pride and national identity.

And the disciples are marveling at it when Jesus tells them that before this same generation has died off, there will be a total destruction of this great building.

And tragically, in the year 70, the Israelites rebelled, the Romans came and destroyed all places of worship in Jerusalem, sowed the fertile fields with salt and ruined them and that was the end of the Jewish nation until 1948.

This passage is a prophecy about those events.

Taken at face value, there isn’t a lot of hope offered in this passage. In order to use it to tell us to wait in hope as a symbol for the coming of Christ celebrated at the first Advent of Jesus takes it way out of context.

But, look specifically at verse 42, out of context: ⁴²Watch out, then, because you do not know what day your Lord will come.

In a very real sense, the verse itself is out of context. Jesus is explaining the coming terrible tragedy and then He tells the crowd to watch out for Him in the midst of this calamity.

In the midst of hard times, focus on Jesus. We do not which direction or what source God will use to send us the answer we are hoping for. We do not know if God will send us reprieve. We know this, focus on Jesus.

Jesus is explaining the calamity and He tells them that in the middle of it, stop and look toward Him and for His coming.

What is God doing in the world through this?

What does God want me to do in the middle of this?

And again, by looking at Jesus, we can get some sort of idea.

Jesus tells them that no one knows God’s plan for when God will arrive. God keeps that a mystery. My guess is because it builds faith.

So God, knowing full well that 74 years later, in the year 70 AD, the entire nation that Jesus came to save will be destroyed.

A Jewish/Roman historian, Josephesus, said that they ran out of wood to build crosses because they crucified almost the entire Jewish population. The destruction that Jesus is prophesying about was more brutal than Auschwitz.

I think about that. I read a book written by Rudolf Vrba, an escapee from Auschwitz. The title was “I Cannot Forgive.” In it, the author concludes that there cannot possibly be a God because there is no way any loving God could permit such evil.

And yet, out of that tragedy, the Jewish nation was reborn.

So, back to Jerusalem, AD 30, 40 years before the events of this prophecy and the book of Revelations take place.

Jesus is prophesying a coming tragedy that we know from history was worse on the Jewish nation than the Nazi’s.

People then, just like Mr. Vrba, were wondering where God was and why God was letting this happen.

We, however, from the hindsight of history we could literally answer when they say: “where was God?” with the statement: “God was actually right there, 40 years before.”

Of course, that might not be much comfort, but the point that Jesus is making is this: In the midst of your life, look toward Me.

And that time, the Church was born and the Western culture reset its clock to year 0 to celebrate the first coming of Jesus Christ.

God is at work in history.

And there is much more to this passage.

There is the hope in this passage of deliverance.

Although this part of the story is included in the prophecy about the destruction of Israel in 70 AD, there is also a reference, unique to the Matthew account of this sermon, about the Second coming of Christ.

One of the things I love about Advent and the celebration of Hope and how Jesus taught us to love one another and Jesus’ teachings, if they are ever applied across the world, will indeed bring peace and the coming of God’s kingdom of love, mercy and grace instead of man’s kingdoms of dominance, oppression and exploitation.

I call that “the Christmas Spirit.”

But the other part of the celebration, the hope that still keeps us alive is that Jesus is still coming to us. This prophecy is about Jesus coming again and again into our lives, into the situations of the world, of God having God’s own hand in history.

Jesus is coming again. Maybe that will be when the teachings of Jesus change enough of humanity that we will beat our weapons into plowshares.

Maybe it will be a miraculous Kingdom after a Millennium where Satan is bound in a real live pit somewhere. Only God knows.

But the fact is, Jesus is here. (point to heart).

Jesus is in the face of these children right here. Jesus is in the face of (start naming people).

And Jesus says it like this: One will be taken and one will be left. Taken by whom? Taken by the enemy? Raptured into heaven? The only idea here is that one will be in safety and one will not.

There is a subtle message in it which is “do not be taken unawares.” Apparently our own watchfulness has something to do the outcome or he would not have told us to prepare. But then, Jesus says that we can not be adequately prepared unless we are constantly vigilant.

Is it a warning of fear like “The thief is always there, so you better not sleep tightly, live in fear?” Or is a warning of faith, “keep your eyes focused on Me, Jesus?”

I hear this from Jesus:

Look for Me. (pause)

Look toward Me. (pause)

Look at Me. (pause)

It is Advent, let us look in hope at Jesus.