Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The readings for this First Sunday of Advent are clearly about the last judgment and events leading up to it. I am very aware of the discomfort that we have with these verses. They are not easy to read.

Ever since the Enlightenment, these kind of passages have been the focus of ongoing controversy as to the meaning and veracity of the Bible. There are those groups of Christians who read these passages concerning the return of Christ, the end of the world, and the final judgement with great interest. They treat the readings as though they hold secrets about the end of the world.

But the Enlightenment scholars who read these passages were quick to dismiss them as so much dribble discharged by irrational, primitive, or even deceitful religious types, bent on scaring the people. Their purpose was to intimidate them to submit to authority. They could rightly read in the biblical writers that the expectation that Jesus would return to judge did not occur within the first generation as the prophecies predicted. In fact, after centuries of waiting, Jesus seems to have been delayed indefinitely. This fact alone was used by the Enlightenment to discredit the Bible and, thus, the church.

The church's reaction to this challenge was many fold, but there are three broad responses. One response was to tenaciously hold to the literal truth of Jesus' predicted return. The explanation that Jesus had yet to return lay in the misinterpretation of the Gospels and Paul's epistles. This whole school of thought led the people to read the Bible as though it were a puzzle to be solved. If one could just read between the lines or if one could do the numbers, one would discover the secret concerning the end of the world. Forewarned is Forearmed!

Another response was to ignore or cut out the problematic passages and then concentrate on the more important passages like the Sermon on the Mount. These theologians chose to read the Bible and the message of Jesus as moral teaching and admonition to do good. For them, the Christian faith was an earthly kingdom of ethical action.

A third option opened to us in the 20th century was to simply read the Gospels or Paul as belonging to an age different from our time. But that did not mean to throw out the Bible. It meant to take a serious look at it and to discern its message: namely, the truth about God. This truth for us Christians is revealed in Jesus found; yes, in the Bible.

The third response calls for a new orientation to the text, one that allows the text to speak. It calls for what Coleridge taught as a "willing suspension of disbelief." After all, the text cannot speak to us if we come to it with an expectation that it will say what we want. Suspending the question about the literal or historical veracity of the text allows us to avoid the pitfalls of the first two responses by the church to the Enlightenment critique. If we come to the text expecting conformity to our world view, we will have no choice but to reject the text. But if we come to the text demanding a change in our world view, then we do not allow the text to speak to us as the people we are.

The third response has much potential for letting the Biblical text speak to us, allowing ourselves to be placed in the text's world view. Then we hear what the text announces to us and the world about the truth of our existence.

Dear congregation, the readings today are of one mind that we will on the last day encounter the judgement of God when confronted by Jesus. He will be presented as the faithful Son of the heavenly Father and thus reveal the will of God for all humankind.

The readings today reveal the dark side to the human condition, but they also bring light to the human condition before God. Of course, there is much that is dark in the human soul. We have learned from insightful thinkers like Carl Jung to acknowledge the dark side of our being while at the same time see the light with which it is mixed. Luther's insight into the Christian nature as simultaneously sinful and yet justified is not far from this thought. My only problem with some Jungians is that they are less inclined see that the dark side is not just a minor peccadillo that can be overlooked. The biblical view acknowledges that the dark side is filled with all human cruelty, violence and destruction.

This is what judgment ultimately must be about. Judgement is meant to expose this cruelty, violence and destruction to the light of God's being and to show it up for what it is. But we have in the Bible's picture of the coming of Jesus Christ, not only condemnation, but also hope. This hope is grounded in the Jesus who first came into the world to announce that our redemption is drawing near. The kingdom of God was proclaimed by him in a world which seemed to have little place or regard for God, the God of the promise who confounds the wise and the strong. This God calls Jesus who is subjected to this world, but Jesus ultimately triumphs over it through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the God who raises Christ from the dead so that he may be presented before the entire cosmos as the Lord of Glory.

"There will be 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. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." (Luke 21:25-28)

We can look at this from several perspectives: individual, social, national and international. When the times become so anxious, if not dangerous, we are not to fall into the pit. We are to stand and raise up faces because we believe our redemption is near through Jesus Christ.

So we hear in the readings that we must not live in fear and anxiety at the coming Day of the Lord. In fact, we are instructed to

"Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. (Luke 21:34-35a)

Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." (Luke 21:35)

Praying that we might have the strength to escape all these things is a lot like the prayer which Jesus taught us.

But deliver us from evil.

This prayer can be said in confidence that the God who comes to meet us is not the God of wrath, but the God of redemption, of liberation. That is why we can in the face of adversity and uncertain times "stand up and raise [y]our heads, because [y]our redemption is drawing near" (Luke 21:28b).

And the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

Amen.