“Watching and Waiting”

Mark 13:24-37

November 27, 2005

First Sunday of Advent

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Fleming

I do not know who locks the doors at your houses at night. When I was a kid and then a teenager, growing up in my parents’ house, that job belonged to my dad. It was my dad who made sure that the four doors that exited from our house were locked and then dead bolted. My folks had a practice of leaving one of the house keys in one of the deadbolt locks in the off chance that we had to get out of the house in a real hurry. Otherwise the keys lived on the counter beside our refrigerator.

After the ten o’clock news, my dad would make his way to the carport door and exit it. He would walk across the carport and down our driveway to smoke one more cigarette before he went to bed. My mom used another of the back doors to give our dogs one more chance to do their business before they were put in their crates for the night. Mom usually came in before dad, so when he entered the house, he put the key in the deadbolt, checked all four of the doors, turned off all of the lights, with the exception of the small lamp that lived on the bookcase in the den, the one that was always on. Then he went to his bedroom to retire for the night, though I suspect on his way, he looked in on his children one last time. It is funny the things that you remember.

Now that I live in my own house, I am the one who makes sure that the doors are locked. I am the one who usually makes sure that our dogs have the chance to go out before they are put up for the night. I am the one who looks in on a child one last time before I go to sleep. You see, there is no doorkeeper at the parsonage. There is probably not one at your house, either. Most houses don’t have doorkeepers and so it is up to us, the residents of these houses to make sure that the doors are locked. For some of us, besides locking the doors, we also punch in codes to alarm systems so that no one can get in while we are sleeping. If you have teenagers, the alarm is also geared so that no one can get out without your knowledge of it and without the aid of a really loud siren. There are some places in Little Rock where doorkeepers still work. We do not call them doorkeepers anymore. Instead we call them security guards. They usually work in small buildings, on the edge of properties with two armed gates nearby. One of the gates allows people to come in. The one on the other side allows people to exit. These guards may have small televisions in these huts for the times when there is not much going on. But their job is to make sure that they know who comes into the community and who leaves it. One of the qualifications of their job is that they stay awake!

Doorkeepers were a little more prevalent in the days of Jesus. Instead of guarding communities, they guarded houses. Their job was to station themselves at the outer gate so that they would know who came and went from the house. The job description for the doorkeepers in these many years hasn’t changed. Their main job is still to notice who comes and goes, to notice the signs of the approaching of the master of their house. What got them in trouble the most, I suspect, was if they fell asleep. Because the doorkeepers were so popular in his day, maybe that is why Jesus used them as one of the two examples in our lesson for this morning about what we are to do while we wait for his return.

I don’t mind admitting to you that I am not a big fan of the first Sunday of Advent. Every year the lessons for this first Sunday point to an apocryphal lesson, one about the end of time and what it will be like. This year it is Mark’s turn to tell what those days will be like. Mark writes, “But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give it’s light, and the stars will fall from the heavens and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.”

I have mentioned Margaree Garner in an Advent sermon before. She was there when I preached my first Advent sermon, way back in 1994, at the Harmony Grove Church. Right after it, she came up to me. She was already one of my biggest fans. She gently said, “Brother John, I have been listening to sermons about the end times for more than eighty years.” Then she asked, “Do you think that it will ever happen?” I told her that I knew that it would, but I did not know when. That was eleven years ago. I still do not know when it will happen. Our Bibles, though, tell us that we are supposed to be ready for it.

The problem with preaching these Advent texts is that they presume an urgency about the Lord’s coming that few, if any of us feel. Mark gives us an unnerving glimpse of what the sky will look like on that day. He tells us that the sun will be dark and that the moon will not shine. He says that stars will fall from the heavens and then when all of the lights have been turned off, Jesus will come on the clouds, with great power and glory, and the angels will be with him, who will help him scatter the elect. We don’t know when it will happen. Mark is clear about that. He says that no one knows. He says that not even His own Son will be able to read the mind of the Almighty. And since we do not know, says Jesus, we cannot afford to get drowsy.

One of the messages of this first Sunday of Advent is a warning. We are clearly warned what will happen to those of us who fall asleep those who knuckle under to boredom will miss the master when he comes home. And when they are startled awake, they may have found that they have napped away most of their lives. One preacher put it this way. He said that Advent comes around so regularly these days that we have gotten to the point that we do not expect anything at all.

Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. Jesus says that it will be like a man going on a journey. When he leaves home, he puts his servants in charge, and tells them to do their work. They do their work, you presume, because they are not sure when their master will return. I don’t think that it is this way around here, but I can remember working for a particular guy that when he was around, I looked busy, even if I wasn’t because I was afraid of what might happen if he thought I was goofing off.

Jesus says that the master of the house could come back in the evening. You will remember that is was in the evening, Jesus ate his last meal with the disciples. He tells them that one of them will betray him. Or the master could come at midnight. Mark tells a story about that, too. Later that night, the disciples went with Jesus to Gethsemane. While Jesus prayed, the disciples, no doubt weary of waiting, fell asleep. Or perhaps the master will come first thing in the morning. Peter knew about that. Before the rooster crowed three times, he had denied Jesus.

Or it could be in the morning. It was then that Jesus was bound and led away to his trial and death. Jesus’ advice to those first disciples is his advice to all of us. Since we don’t know when it will happen; we are to stay awake.

I guess that it was easy for the followers of Jesus during Mark’s day to doze a little. After all, Jesus had said that he would be right back, but he hadn’t come right back. They were still waiting. And so are we.

In the Bible, there are two stories that speak volumes. They tell us who we are and what we’re supposed to do. The first one is the story of the exodus. That story tells us that life is a journey from where we are to where we want to be. It is a journey filled with dangers and toils and disappointments and hopes and dreams. And at the end of the trip, there is a promised land and a life the way we always hoped that it would be. It is there that life is better than we could have imagined it. We all understand the story of the Exodus because today exoduses happen all over the place. We leave where we are and we go to where we want to be. We journey toward better lives. That is the story of the exodus.

Then there is the second story, the story of the exile. In the Bible, an exile is when life arranges it in such a way that we are in some kind of a bondage and separated from the life that we used to have. We used to have a good life, but then it was taken away from us. Every once and a while, when I am not paying enough attention to Susie, she will gently say, “Why isn’t it like it was when we first started dating?” I know what she is after. I also know that she longs for a time that is not happening now. I guess that we are exiled from it. You see we all know the story of the exodus and we all know the feeling of being exiled.

We have not yet, but in this Advent season we will sing the words of the great hymn, O Come, O Come Emmanuel. The words go something like this: O Come, O Come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appears.” There is the word exile. The song says that until Christ appears that is where we are.

I heard about a girl who was blind since her birth and in her blindness she imagined what people was like. She imagined what her world was like. Her family helped her and tried to protect her from the way life really was. Then she had a remarkable surgery and was able to see. She noticed two things right off the bat. First, that the world was more beautiful than he could have imagined that it would be. She loved the colors. She noticed something else, too. She said, “I’ve been looking around. People’s faces are sadder than I imagined that they would be”

I do not know about the second coming of Jesus as much as I know that Jesus coming into our lives again gives us hope and the chance to believe that things can be better than they are. At Christmas, we announce that Jesus has come, but not in the way that he was expected. He came suddenly. It is told that he came quietly, humbly, mysteriously. That is the reason that the story is told best on Christmas eve, when it is cold and dark outside. We light the candles, we sing the words of Silent Night, Holy Night. Christmas announces that he who is to come to save has come. For unto us a child is born, but not yet. Unto us a son is given, and His name shall be called Emmanuel, which really means that God is with us.

What I want to remind you of is that Jesus never left us. Jesus has been with us all along. What I am hoping for this Advent season is that you might still be surprised. I hope that you will be surprised in the unexpected places, in the unexpected people, and in the unexpected circumstances of the season. And what I am praying for is that you will have hope, a new hope, a living hope for your life. Let us pray.