Jeremiah 33. 14 – 16
Luke 21. 25 – 36
Fr Alex
Advent, as you no doubt know, is the beginning of the Church’s liturgical year. But have you noticed that we begin our journey through the Christian year, at the end.
That Gospel reading takes us all the way forward to the end of time; the day when “heaven and earth will pass away,” and God’s kingdom will come.
And Christ tells us today that we will be able to see the signs of its coming. “Signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.”
Just before this passage he tells us of even more signs, of “wars and insurrections.” “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues.”
There are many layers of meaning in what Jesus is saying here. Some of it is very specific to one time and place: he is foretelling the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, for example, just a few decades later. Some of it is about his own death, as he says these things on the way to Jerusalem and the cross.
Some of it is indeed about an event that is beyond the marking of time, and our ability to comprehend it: the end of days, far in the future, we assume, and impossible for us to predict or describe.
But there’s something too that encompasses all times and all places: much of what Jesus says in these apocalyptic passages is all too recognisable to us, in our dangerous and fragile world. If we’re looking for signs in nature, what greater sign could there be than the climate emergency we’re living through at the moment?
People of all generations have seen these signs in wars, in genocides, in terrible natural disasters: maybe that’s why there have been so many predictions about the end of the world over the years.
How are we to distinguish the signs of the coming of God’s kingdom, when they seem to be simply facts of ordinary life as most humans experience it?
There are two statements Jesus makes in this passage today that show us a rather different way to discern the coming of the kingdom, and may help us in our keeping of Advent this year.
Jesus says that when we see these terrible signs, all this “roaring” and “confusion;” “when these things begin to take place,” we are to “stand up and raise [our] heads.”
What a strange thing to say. When we look at our world, and all the signs around us, we might be tempted to put our head in our hands; but Jesus says, “No; stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
To explain himself, he tells them a parable. “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.”
Another strangely encouraging image, so out of place in the apocalyptic language all around it. The signs of the coming kingdom are here equated with the familiar and hopeful signs of summer; signs of warmth, growth, an explosion of life and colour and fruitfulness.
What does he mean?
Well, if we take our golden rule for all parables and remember that they reveal to us something of the nature of Jesus: we see that in this budding and sprouting tree, this hopeful sign in the midst of turmoil and destruction, we see Jesus himself; the “righteous Branch” foretold by Jeremiah in our first reading, the one who “shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”
We’ve heard of that Branch before, in the other great prophecies that we always read in Advent: “A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots,” says Isaiah.
Jesus isn’t only talking today about specific times and events, like his own death or the destruction of the Temple. And although there will one day be an end and a judgement, I don’t think he’s just talking about an event that is far off, and impossible to imagine.
In the midst of all the turmoil of our world, he tells his followers to “stand up and raise [our] heads;” because he is the sign of God’s kingdom, and the fulfilment of all his promises. He is bringing in that kingdom even now; and we see the signs of its coming whenever we are aware of Christ’s continuing presence and action in the world.
And those signs, just like the signs of summer after winter, should give us hope, when all around us seems like “fear and foreboding.”
The purpose of our Christian year, which begins all over again today, is to draw us into Christ’s great work of bringing in the kingdom.
And this is one of the beautiful aspects of our Christian faith; that as we learn to grow in Christ and conform our lives to his, he begins to manifest his presence in the world through us; and we too may become the hopeful signs of God’s kingdom. We may become branches grafted onto that “righteous Branch,” heralds of a time of new life, and growth, and fruitfulness in him.
This is what will give us confidence to “stand before the Son of Man” when he comes in judgement at the end of things.
So in these brief weeks of Advent, may our prayer be that Christ will make us more like him, in our thoughts and words and actions; that may we become the signs of his presence in the world, and witnesses to the fulfilment of God’s promises. Amen.