The world all around us is sure that we are headed toward winter – both in season and the global winter of climate change. We hear the drumbeat of those who warn of fossil fuel that damages the environment, of green policies that preserve a world decaying too fast, of inequities which must be rectified, of injustices which must be made right, of rights that must be preserved, and of opportunities that must be acted upon now or never. We hear it; we live it; but we dare not be deceived by it.
Jesus also warns. But His warning is not to observe the signs and seasons because winter is at hand. No, here Jesus is warning of the signs of summer. Not of a time of death but a time of life. The fig tree betrays not the warning of death but the promise of life. Christ is this life and the Word of the Lord and the prophets who speak that word are calling the world to notice that the only and the real life is come. We wait for summer. We endure the winter. So this is a call to live in joyful anticipation of what is coming.
Christians are prone to despair and some even to indulge in sensual pursuits because they live with anxiety and in despair. But our hope was never for a repair for this world or an extension of a brief and passing moment. Our hope lies in the life of the world to come where sin, death, and despair are no more and never more. This is why He calls us to let go of the fear that causes us to faint and to cast off the news of earthly distress at home here and across the world. There will be wars and rumors of wars but do not be dismayed. Raise your heads because what is coming is your redemption.
I fear that too many of us have already surrendered to the voices of despair. We are caught up in a world which is expiring and forget that we are not. We live too much by the litany of bad news we hear all around us and not enough by the good news we hear right here and right now. It should be different. It needs to be different. We are people of hope because Christ has come and our message to the world is hope. It is not the end that we are dreading but the beginning we hope for.
Talk of Christ’s return in glory is not a conversation of fear to those who know of Christ as Savior. Jesus is not trying to scare us into the Kingdom. But He is warning us against forgetting our hope or becoming complacent in faith as the world around us is gripped in bad news, wars, rumors of wars, injustice, inequities, and all the weirdnesses of the society in which we live.
Jesus knows us. Our hearts will most assuredly be weighed down and we will find ourselves drawn to all kinds of ungodliness in our despair until we so lose our connection to Christ that His coming will not be the day we have been waiting for but the surprise day of dread we do not welcome at all. We will become like those who do not know the comfort of Christ’s death and resurrection nor His presence among us in His Word that endures forever and in His Sacraments of life and worship. Then we will be lost at precisely the moment when Christ comes to carry us home.
So what is the remedy? A safe place in which we can live without challenge or trial or trouble? Where would that be? Since sin lives in our hearts, where do we go to escape it? No, the remedy lies in being awake to God’s mercies at all times, to be so strong in the Lord that we are not weak before temptation and fear, and to stand now in Christ so that we may stand before Him when He comes in His glory.
The summer of God’s love and redemption are coming, when life is fully apparent to us and death is no more. Look at the signs not in the times but in the sign of the cross. If Christ is for us, who can be against us? Do not cower in fear of what might be but stand firm in what God has done and in who you are by baptism and faith. The Kingdom of God is near you. As near as the baptismal water that gave you second birth, as near as the Word that addresses you with the voice of your Good Shepherd, as near as the absolution that tears down every sin before it becomes the wall of your prison, and as near as the bread and wine that feed Christ’s body and blood into us and with it forgiveness and life everlasting.
This is not the winter of your discontent. This is springtime of hope which flowers from the tree of the cross and empty tomb. It is the promise of a future where there was once only a past. It is the gift of a strong life that death cannot destroy. You belong to the Lord and to His abundant life. Yes, the powers of the earth will be shaken and the things that seemed so certain will give way to the new creation of God that can never be destroyed. But it is the promise of summer, of warmth without death’s coldness, of flowers instead of sins, of new growth instead of old death. This is also Advent, indeed, the most important part of Advent. So, long for this future and delight yourselves in what God has delivered you into. Long for that tomorrow not as a day of dread but as the long anticipated and expected day of the Lord for your salvation. There is no death of winter in your future; only the summer of life now by God’s promise and forever in His presence.
No comments:
Post a Comment