I got nothin’; have at it.
Mark 13:24-37; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Psalm 80:1-7,17-19; Isaiah 64:1-9
Today is the first Sunday in Advent, the season of the church year in which we await Jesus’ two arrivals to earth: his birth and his second coming. It’s a time of preparation, repentance, and most of all watchfulness. The texts for this week especially are focused on looking at things going on in the world and finding God in them.
First let’s look at the gospel lesson. To give a little bit of background, Jesus and his disciples were walking through Jerusalem in the week before Jesus’ death, and one of the disciples commented on how amazing the temple and other buildings looked. Jesus tells them that all the buildings will be destroyed. The disciples kind of left this alone until later, when Peter, James, John, and Andrew approached him privately and asked, “Umm … Jesus? That stuff you mentioned before, when is it going to happen? How will we know it’s coming?”
So Jesus told them. “Be careful not to be deceived, many will claim to be me, but they won’t be. You’ll hear of wars, but don’t worry about it. You’ll hear of earthquakes and famines, but that’s just the beginning of things to come. You’ll be arrested, but the Spirit will be with you. When the ‘abomination that causes desolation’ stands where it doesn’t belong, then run to the mountains and hide. But this is why I’m telling you this, so that you’ll be prepared. But after this, you’ll see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with power.
“Think about the trees; you know summer is near when they start to bud leaves. Just like that, when you see these things happening, know that it is near. No one knows exactly when it will happen, not even me, but only the Father, so keep watch. I say it again, Watch!”
Jesus is calling the disciples to pay attention to things that are going on. In particular, the focus is on the beginnings of the end, but it’s more than that too. It’s about paying attention to see what God is doing.
Too often, we find ourselves thinking of God as a faraway being who isn’t interested in our lives, because we don’t see anything that he does. But the trouble with that is not that God isn’t working, but that we’re not watching. God is always working in our lives, we only have to take the time to watch and notice.
But God doesn’t often move in what we think of as God-like ways. It’s not usually a huge miracle with flashy lights and giant neon sign saying “God did this!” Usually God uses small things to work his will, or many small things which add up to a big thing.
There’s an old joke I’m reminded of: An old preacher was caught on the roof of the church in a flood. He prayed and asked God to save him from the flood, and he fully believed God would do it. After a while, a man in a makeshift raft came by, and asked the preacher if he wanted a ride to shelter. The preacher declined, saying God would rescue him. A little later, someone came by with a boat making the same offer, and again the preacher decline, stating that God would rescue him. Finally a helicopter circled above, ready to lift the preacher to safety, but again he declined, confident that God would rescue him from his predicament.
While it’s an extreme example, it shows how we sometimes look for God in the wrong ways. In the preacher’s case, God sent three rescuers to save him, but he was so focused on what he expected from God to see His work.
In the gospel, Jesus gives us some big things to look for as evidence of what God is doing, but that isn’t all. The Bible is full of times when God acted in a small way, and we experience them today as well. Sometimes we hear stories of miraculous healings that doctors can’t explain, but other times people recover from sickness through more “normal” channels – yet both are from God. We can all look to our lives to see the ways God has worked to bless is, using big and little things, and can take confidence that no matter what is going on around us, that He is looking out for us.