Living in God's Presence
Zechariah 14:4-9
Psalm 50:1-6
I Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-31
Tim
Christoffersen
St. Timothy's
November 30, 2003
“There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars…Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.” The verses immediately preceding these words of Luke speak about persecution, death and betrayal by parents, brothers, relatives and friends. On the surface, not an auspicious outlook for Advent and the beginning of a new church year.
But let’s dig a little deeper and see what we find. The same discourse of the apocalypse or end times and the second coming of Jesus is also found in Mark and Matthew. In all three versions, Jesus is answering the question, “When will this be?” and “What will be the sign?” of the Coming of the Son of Man.
‘Looking for signs’ is an important clue to us. Remember that the Pharisees and other opponents of Jesus were always asking for a sign. In Luke 11, as crowds around him are increasing, Jesus says, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation.” The Ninevites repented from their evil ways and God had compassion on them and did not destroy Ninevah. Jesus is saying he is the sign to his listeners.
Do you remember how at Jesus’ birth, Jesus himself was the sign given by the Angel of the Lord to the shepherds who were tending their flocks? The Angel in Luke says to the shepherds, “…Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manager.”
The “signs in the sun, moon and stars” [to which Luke refers]also clearly refer back to the Old Testament prophets. Isaiah says, “See, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger…for the stars of the heavens…will not give their light [and] the sun will be dark at its rising.” And in Joel we read, “I will show portents in the heavens and on earth…the sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.”
The signs in the heavenly bodies point both forward to the Son of Man coming on a cloud as well as backwards as fulfillment of the prophet’s words. Luke goes on to tell us, “When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” There is some comfort in these words that our redemption is drawing near in the face of this universal calamity.
But how do we deal with the sun going dark, the stars not giving light and the moon turning to blood? And Jesus coming on a cloud? These are images that starkly confront our powers of perception and what we consider reality. Jesus coming on a cloud does not fit.
So how do we dig a little deeper now? One way is to remember what Luke told us about the interchange between the Pharisees and Jesus in chapter 17 of Luke. The Pharisees had asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come. Jesus replied to them, “The kingdom of God does not come visibly, nor will people say, ‘Here it is’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”
When we accept Jesus into our own heart and our own life, our perspective on life and the world around us changes. We are transformed from the inside out. We begin to see some things differently. We may be blest with a clear and unmistakable awareness of God’s love for us. We know deep down that our life and the world in which we live contains more than just what we can see and touch.
I have a personal fascination with cosmology and the unfolding understanding of the universe in which we live. For me, I am reminded to reserve judgment on my perceptions of reality and of other people and be more open to what God might be saying to me through them and the world around me. Most of us, including me, live our daily lives oblivious to that universe. Since yesterday, we have moved nearly a million miles as we circle the sun. I suspect none of us noticed it. But the universe is expanding and the sun is not fixed or anchored and if you take the expansion into account, then we and the sun have both moved about 3 billion miles since yesterday (based on a Google supplied website!). I can barely begin to imagine this.
With the Hubble telescope in space we see whole galaxies colliding and stars forming. As far as we currently understand it, we live in a truly incredible and violent universe. This is not the universe our fathers knew. There are certainly “signs in the sun, moon and stars” although they may not be our sun or moon.
The prophets and Luke wrote in a world where their knowledge of the sun, moon and stars were certainly less developed than what we know today. God inspired them in their writings but they still held the pen.
I remember the quote “man is short, has a small brain and doesn’t live very long.” I don’t know who said it. The reference to ‘short’ meant we could not see very far into the future or the past and that on the scale of time as we now understand it, we certainly don’t live very long. While the quote may feel a little insulting to us, it contains more than a grain of truth.
So what is the point? When we accept and believe that the kingdom of God is within us, we know that God is present and active in the world even though we may rarely be aware of it. We learn to live with openness and ambiguity about reality at least as we perceive it. It may be as simple as not judging your neighbor because you may not know everything. For me it means I can be comfortable with Luke’s words that at the Second Coming we are “to stand up and lift up our heads, because [our] redemption is drawing near.” For we know that the kingdom of God is within us.
Albert Einstein had a wonderful way of framing the issue of how to live your life in the presence of God. He said there are two ways to live your life. One way is if nothing is a miracle; the other is if everything is.
Amen.
