‘At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.’ Luke 21:27
Brothers and sisters, I remember my grandmother once describing to me a terrifying sound that a few of you in this room may still remember. She stayed in London during a lot of the blitz and said of all the sounds that they’d heard while holed up in their air-raid shelter, the one that scared her the most was the sound of the V1 rockets. The V1 was sort of a precursor to modern cruise missiles, an unmanned weapon that was fired at London by the Germans from across the ocean and what made it so terrifying, to my Granny, was that they made a low humming sound when they were in flight. The sound would get louder and louder as the rocket approached and then would go silent as the bomb started to fall. The terrifying thing, to my Grandmother, was the waiting in silence for the bomb to hit. It was almost impossible to know for sure where it would hit and, when it did, it could take out a whole street in mere moments. My Grandmother and everyone else listening in those few, seemingly endless seconds of silence, were utterly helpless and held their breath, waiting for the worst until… bang! Many people spend their whole lives living in the way that my Grandmother did in those few seconds. Even as Christians, we may not sit around waiting for a bomb exactly, but we sometimes make the mistake of thinking that our whole reason for being Christians is dependent on what comes next, upon what happens when we get to heaven. We think that life is something to flitter away, but that’s not right at all.
That is what I’d like to think about today, perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of Advent because, you see, in Advent we look forward to the coming of Christ by living the life of Christ who has already come. We are already supposed to live the life of followers of Christ, as if he has come and live in the knowledge that He is coming. We are not hiding our faces in fear of the bomb that’s about to drop, we are not flittering away our lives on useless pursuits, because we are already living the life of one who saved us from the bomb. In other words, this Advent, we should live the life of the coming Saviour. There are three parts to our Gospel reading (Luke 21:25-33) today. First, fear of what is to come for those who do not believe. To them it really will be like a bomb dropping, as Jesus says “On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory…” To the people who chose to ignore God and live as though Jesus was never coming back, which may even be many who go to Church every week (people who may understand bits of faith and yet do not live the life of the coming Saviour) there will be anguish and perplexity. So, there is fear of what is to come for those who do not believe. Second, there are those who live as in the summer of God’s kingdom. Jesus says “When these things begin to take place, you [people who believe in Christ and live the life of the coming Saviour] stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” So for us who do live that way, there is abundant hope which Jesus describes as being visible in the way we live before the summertime. And then, third, the certainty of the coming of that kingdom no matter how much time has passed, that this message is relevant to all generations in the present tense, “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” The judgement is very real, the anguish and pain of those who do not and will not trust in Jesus is palpable. We see it already in the broken world. Yet today we have a choice, to trust in Jesus and live our lives as the coming Saviour, who isn’t just someone who lived two thousand years ago, but is someone who is coming back. We should live our lives as people who trust in the coming Saviour.
This week that, according to the 2021 census, officially less than half of the people in the UK are Christians. Perhaps this isn’t shocking news considering the trajectory over the past few years and yet it stirs something in me. This news doesn’t make me angry, or scared, it makes me sad; sad that that many people do not know the joy and love that comes from living a life of trust in the coming Saviour. That that many people are waiting, braced for the bombs to drop, are like children screaming for their parents in a dark room; when instead they could be living the life of those who trust in the coming Saviour. However, let me end with a message of hope and light as we look forward to the return of the Saviour. Yes, less than half of the UK are now Christians, yes, many are living their lives like a bomb is about to hit or flittering their lives away and yet, how great and beautiful a task have we been given, to live our lives as people who trust in the coming Saviour, who takes away our sin and shame. So today let’s make a decision to make this advent a time when we do turn away from sin and start to live our lives as those who trust in the coming Saviour. Let us put all our trust in him and tell others about him too. Let us not leave anyone in our community left unsure of who to trust but instead let us proclaim the coming of our Saviour, in whom we trust, from the mountaintops, both with our words and in the way we live our lives.
You see, if we don’t have faith then the Second Coming is going to hit like a bomb. If we don’t believe in Christ, the second coming would be terrifying, but to us it is a holy gift that we are called to share with others. I challenge each of you, therefore, to tell just one other person of the Good news of the coming Saviour this week, to tell them about the way that you trust in the coming Saviour, and all the ways that that trust has changed your life. Amen. (from Fr Jordan).
All Saints Church Chorley 