First Sunday of Advent Sermon

What are we to do when in feels like the end of the world?

The First Sunday of Advent

Sermon given on

November 30, 2009

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

During his 1960’s presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy often closed his speeches with a story. I know there are some of us here who may actually remember the 1960’s and JFK.  For those of us who do, we may remember this.  He would often close with a story of Colonel Davenport.  Colonel Davenport was the Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives.  On May 19^th, 1780, the sky in Hartford, Connecticut blackened ominously, and some of the representatives thought the end was at hand, that this was the end of the world.  So, some of them asked Colonel Davenport to adjourn the meeting because the world was ending. And he said to them, “It’s one of two things.  Either the world is not coming to the end and so there’s no reason to adjourn the meeting, or it is coming to an end and I, at the end, want to be found doing my duty.  So I’m not going to adjourn the meeting.”  And he ordered candles be brought in.

We’ve all heard predictions of the end time.  You may have read how the world is going to come to an end in 2012 because the Incan calendar only goes up to 2012 and the ancient Incans must have known when the world was going to end, even though Jesus told us even he didn’t know.  And of course, we all remember Y2K, you know, if the computers crash, that’s going to be the end of the world.  People have been talking about the end of the world for a long time. 

In this reading from the Gospel where Jesus talks about the end, what does he say?  He says that that’s good news.  So if someone comes up to you and says, “It’s the end of the world.”  Your response, as a Christian, is, “Great!  That’s wonderful news!”  Because Jesus says at that time we are to stand up tall and raise up our heads because we know that our redemption is near.  The end of the world means that Christ is coming near.  It’s not something to be afraid of.  So I suggest if someone tells you the world is about to end, you say, “Fine.  I want to be doing my duty.” 

There’s a Buddhist story about an old monk who was well into his 90s.  He was outside his hut planting an apple tree.  It was just a tiny little apple tree and someone walking by said, “Why are you doing that?  After all, you’re not going to live long enough to see any apples from it.”  And he looked at him, and he said, “If I knew I was going to die tonight, what I would be doing today is planting that apple tree.”  We’re doing what we’re doing no matter what, even if it is going to be the end of the world. 

So the next time someone predicts the end of the world, say, “Great.  Now I’m gonna go about doing my duties because when the end of the world comes, I want to be found doing.”  I have a little refrigerator magnet that someone gave me and on it says, “The world is about to end.  Christ is coming.  Look busy.” 

So, that’s what we’re supposed to do if the world is truly coming to an end, but we don’t know when that’s going to be. 

Like everything in Scripture, talking about the end times also has more subtle meanings for our spiritual journey, for our own growth.  We’ve all had moments in our lives when it felt like our world was coming to an end.  It might have been when you walked into that doctor’s office, and you got the diagnosis of a dreaded disease.  It might be when you got the phone call of someone you love, a spouse, a parent, a child, who is dead.  It might be when someone you cared about hurt you deeply.  It might be when you lost your job.  It might be when you found yourself in the middle of a divorce. It feels like the world is coming to an end because the world, as you knew it, is coming to an end. 

When you walk out of that doctor’s office, everything is different. When the one you love has died nothing is the same.  Your world has come tumbling down.  The question is, “How are you going to respond to the things that happen in your life?”  We all have circumstances, things that happen to us because none of us gets through life without struggles.  We all have people we love die.  We all have people we trusted to betray us.  We all have to deal with physical illness.  It’s the way the world is. 

The question for us is, “How do we respond to that?”  Rick Warren says we have a choice.  When things happen, we can either become bitter or we can become better.  We can be bitter or better.  We can take the things that happen to us and feel sorry for ourselves and blame other people or we can see it as an opportunity to grow, as a time to grow closer to Christ. 

It’s like at that “End of the World” time. We can say, “The world is ending,” and cover our heads and moan and groan and scream, or we can stand up tall and raise up our heads and reach out our hands to God because we know that our redemption is near.  When we go through these times of difficulty, we stand up and we reach out to Christ because Christ is with us, is walking with us.  They are an opportunity to deepen our faith, to deepen our compassion, to understand ourselves and the world a little better. 

One of the exercises that is sometimes done in personal development workshops is to make a timeline.  You have your life journey, and in that life journey, you mark significant events:  births, deaths, illnesses.  Then you take and you make a line showing your spiritual life, how close you felt to God.  When I do that, what I find is that the times that I felt closest to God were the ones where I was dealing with a crisis.  Ones where illness had come upon me and the only way I was going to deal with it was to reach out and grab God’s hand because I knew I wasn’t going to get through it alone.

At the times when someone I loved died, my heart was broken, and it was broken open, and I knew my need for God.  And now, going through a divorce, there’s no question that I have no option but to pray and to be with God because that’s the only way I’m going to get through it.  When our world falls apart, when it seems like the end of everything, that’s the time we realize we can’t do it ourselves.  That’s the time when we have to reach out to God and ask for help.  That’s when we know our need for God and our need to pray. 

The Psalm says to trust, “I put my trust in God and He will teach me,” We are to put our trust in God at the times when the whole foundation of our lives is trembling, because Christ is there.  When it feels like our world is coming to an end, stand up, raise up your head and know that that is when your redemption is near.  Amen.