The End of the World as We Know it (2)

Certainly 2020 has seemed to turn into the year that is the end of the world as we knew it. Stay at home orders, the closing of non-essential businesses, financial stresses resulting from disrupted economic activity, anxiety surrounding our election, Covid rates rising again… As has been said over and over during this year, so much of what has happened in 2020 is unprecedented – at least unprecedented within our lifetimes. This has been a year when our world seems to have been turned upside down and inside out. And, while we long for things to “return to normal,” we are repeatedly (and I would say very accurately) reminded that we won’t ever be going back to what was. We are – and will be – living into a “new normal” – whatever that “new normal” might look like.

Unlike the changes we have faced, unexpected and unwelcome changes, Jesus’ disciples expected change – big change, potentially even cataclysmic change. They expected what the prophets called “the day of the Lord” – a day in which all wrongs would be made right. On that day Israel would be both restored to her former glory and revealed to the Gentiles as God’s people.

This expectation commonly took the form of several rather specific hopes: The Jews, so long subjected by various Gentile empires, would become the most powerful nation in the world. Everyone would see that Jerusalem – and specifically the Temple – was the true place for worship. Israel’s Lord would be recognized as the true God by all. And all of this would happen because God would come into Israel’s midst and work in wondrous ways – ways that would be like – or even greater – than God’s acts at the time of the Exodus.

That means, to some degree, what Jesus said to His disciples wasn’t surprising. Still, despite the expectations of a dramatic restoration of Israel, what Jesus said probably wasn’t exactly what they expected. The kind of cataclysmic disruptions in all of creation that Jesus spoke of weren’t necessarily “standard fare” when it came to Jewish expectations about “the day of the Lord.” Yes, there were some who thought the world and history would come to an end in such a dramatic fashion. But this was not necessarily the popular expectation. As a result, Jesus’ disturbing words probably were not quite what his disciples would have expected to hear from him.

In much the same way when we think about Advent and Christmas, we don’t expect to hear such disturbing Scriptures – Scriptures which proclaim the end of the world as we know it. However, the truth is Advent is about “coming.” Advent is about Jesus’ coming in Bethlehem, yes. But it is also about Jesus’ coming again. Advent is not just about an event on a day the Gospels tell us about in the distant past, but also about another event Scripture speaks of – an event whose day and hour is not known. In other words, Advent isn’t simply about the birth of a baby, but also about the coming in final victory of the one who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

So what does that coming day mean for us, even – especially – if we don’t know the day or hour? How does that day impact us right now? Even more basic, with some 2000 years having passed since Jesus spoke these words, how do we know God is at work in our day?

The truth is, it can be difficult to point to places where God is visibly, unmistakably at work in a way that everyone will recognize and acknowledge. However, as Christians, we know God is at work in our world, because God has always been at work throughout all history. Still, we must remember God has been at work on God’s timing, not ours. We also know God works in incredible and unexpected ways – coming as a helpless baby in Bethlehem at a time when so many were asleep – literally and figuratively. At that moment God broke into our world in a manger as a helpless baby. He came not clothed in power and majesty, but in utter humility and helplessness.

And in the same way, God continues to break into our world in surprising and unexpected ways. We cannot – we dare not -- write off either God’s action throughout history since that day long ago, including in our time, or God’s action on that unexpected hour which is yet to come.

So where is God unexpectedly at work in our world today? As I said, it can be hard to point to where God is at work. Yet, in the midst of all that has filled 2020, I find myself wondering… Is it possible that amid the disruptions of this year God is breaking into the life of the church, reforming us and remaking us into people who are more attuned to the world around us in this day? Is it possible that this upside down, inside out experience called 2020 is pregnant with God doing an unexpected work in and through us?

Let’s be honest, prior to 2020 we were all acutely aware our world had changed. We’ve been naming the effects of those changes for years now: Our pews are no longer full. Money is becoming a serious issue – paying the bills and supporting ministry and mission is harder and harder. The younger generations are mostly absent from our congregations, with children often even more scarce unless their grandparents are raising them.

Although we know, at least at one level, that things have changed in the world around us because of what we have seen inside our church buildings, have we really responded to those changes? Have we even really sought to understand the many changes in the world about us? Have we sought to appreciate the realities that our younger families and our children face in today’s world?

It seems to me all too often when and if we have responded, we have done so by doing the same thing, only more of it. We continue to do Bible studies like we’ve always done, we just add one for young adults. Or we have responded by simply tweaking what we had been doing. We change the kind of music we incorporate into worship and “update” our language, hoping it will attract younger generations. We’ve done this things in the hope that somehow it will now appeal to new people – people who are not darkening our church – or any church – doorway. Yes we have to admit, things just aren’t working the way the used to work. Honesty means we have to admit, while world may have radically changed, the truth is we have resisted really changing with it.

Recognizing our tendency to resist truly changing in the face of the changes in our world about us, is it possible that the disruptions of this year are, among other things, a way of God coming into our (that is our church’s) history? Has God come in our history in the heart of this cataclysm called 2020, forcing us to rethink how we do ministry and mission in a world that has radically changed over the past 20 years while we have remained essentially unchanged as a church?

The good news is God is there in the disruptions. God is there in the midst of the messiness and unpredictability and dislocating events we call history – even the history of 2020. God was unexpectedly, unpredictably there in a baby in Bethlehem. God is unexpectedly, unpredictably here right now doing things we can only imagine. And God will be there at the end, bringing in a new heaven and a new earth that are beyond our ability to envision.

And since God is there at the end, we can live with hope and confidence in the midst of the messiness, unpredictability and dislocation of today. We can live as those who stand on tip-toe, looking for what God is doing here and now. Even if most of the world is sleeping, as it was on the night Jesus was born, we can be those who are awake and waiting with hope and expectation, scanning the horizon to see where God is at work.

And, knowing that God is going to radically change our world, we can dare to change as well. We can dare to find new ways to proclaim the old, old story of God’s love. We can find new ways to embody the good news of God coming into our midst. We aren’t limited to the way we’ve always done things – or even to just making minor tweaks of those ways. We can join with God in responding in new ways to a world that is radically different than the one in which we grew up – or the one of 20 years ago. We can join with God in creating a whole new world – a world unlike anything we have ever known.

The good news of Advent – the good news of Christmas – is God has come into our midst, that God remains in our midst, and that God will come again. The good news is that the world the way we have known it has – and will – come to an end. The good news is that God’s kingdom has – and will – come into our midst. The good news is God is here, in the middle of the unprecedented and dislocating events of 2020, working to bring newness into our lives and our world, bringing to an end the world as we know it.