Isaiah 64: 1–9a; Psalm 80: 1-7; I Corinthians 1: 1-9; Mark 13: 24-37
A homily by Fr. Gene
Tucker, given at The
Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Springfield, Illinois, on Sunday, November 30, 2014.
“A WARNING LABEL FOR THE NEW YEAR”
(Homily text: Mark 13: 24-37)
We are
surrounded by warning labels as we live our daily lives.
For
example, as we step onto a step ladder, we see a label which says,
“Warning: Do not stand above this level
or use this as a step.” Or, while
enjoying our favorite alcoholic beverage, our eye falls onto the warning label,
which says, “Warning: Drinking alcohol
during pregnancy…..” Or, here’s my
favorite warning: A commercial appears
on the TV program we’re watching. Pleasant
scenes unfold while the announcer tells us about the wonderful abilities of a
drug to cure whatever it is that ails us.
Then, as the pleasant scenes which appeared earlier continue, the
announcer begins to warn us about the side effects of using the drug. In one commercial, the announcer even says,
“Serious side effects, including death, have been reported.”
Yes, I
imagine that death could be a serious side effect some medication or another. That must be one of the truest statements
ever uttered.
Now, imagine
that invitations have been sent out for a New Year’s Eve party. As the partygoers arrive, the hosts give each
person a written warning, which says:
Warning: Attendance at this party may create a
situation in which some in attendance might be tempted to engage in potentially
embarrassing behavior. Given the nature
of the season and the celebration, excess consumption of alcohol may lead some
to go beyond normal patterns of behavior,
which include the wearing of silly pointed paper hats and the blowing of
noisemakers. Some persons who have
indulged in such behaviors have been known to wind up wearing a lamp shades on
their heads. Such excesses usually lead
to a patterns of having a hangover, of self-recrimination and of remorse, once
the exhilarating effects of the alcohol have worn off.
Could there
be any better way to kill the spirit of the party and the season?
The new
Church Year begins today, and it begins with a warning….it comes from the lips
of Jesus as He warns us to “Beware, keep alert, for you do not know when the
time (of the coming of the Son of Man) will come.”
“Be
alert!” Be on our guard, be watching and
expecting the Lord to come at any time.
That’s the warning.
For the
Lord’s coming will bring with it divine judgment. Jesus uses traditional language, language
that talks of the sun being darkened, of the moon failing to give its light,
and of the stars falling from heaven, to describe such a judgment. The Lord borrows from the language of Old
Testament prophets such as Isaiah, Ezekiel and Joel, using their imagery to get
our attention.
But today’s
warning also comes with very good news:
The news that when the Lord returns, He will come to gather in His
people. Mark uses the word “elect” to
describe God’s people, those whom God has chosen to be gathered around the
Lord.
Welcome to
Advent.
Advent is a
time of preparation. It is as if the new
year, the new Church Year, begins not with the ecclesiastical equivalent of a
New Year’s party, but with a four-Sunday-long season of getting ready for the
party. The party we are going to is
Christmas, when we celebrate the fact that God broke into human history in the
person of Jesus Christ. God cared enough
for the world and the people in the world to intervene in human affairs, in
order to show us the way to God the Father.
Our Collect
for the Day serves as a warning:
“Almighty God, give us grace to cast
away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of
this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great
humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious
majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life
immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, now and for ever. Amen.”
This
collect warns us to put away all things that would hinder us from living a
godly and holy life, in preparation for the time when we will have to give an
answer for the ways in which we live.
This
collect beautifully wraps together the themes of Advent:
- Christ’s first coming in His birth in Bethlehem,
- His eventual coming again in power, glory and judgment,
- Our need to live in such a way that we would be able to give a good account of the conduct of our lives in between those two events.
Warning: Living the Christian life requires us to be
alert, for the Lord comes to us, day-by-day, asking us to take account of
ourselves, so that we may stand uprightly on the day of the Lord’s coming.
AMEN.
