Sunday, November 30, 2014

The Messenger: Gabriel Shares the Vision

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This Advent, I'm preaching a sermon series called "The Messenger" about Gabriel's role in Daniel and Luke, ending with his message to Mary.

November 30, 2014 - First Sunday of Advent
Daniel 8:15-27

15 When I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I tried to understand it. Then someone appeared standing before me, having the appearance of a man, 16 and I heard a human voice by the Ulai River, calling, “Gabriel, help this man understand the vision.” 17 So he came near where I stood; and when he came, I became frightened and fell prostrate. But he said to me, “Understand, O mortal, that the vision is for the time of the end.”
18 As he was speaking to me, I fell into a trance, face to the ground; then he touched me and set me on my feet. 19 He said, “Listen, and I will tell you what will take place later in the period of wrath; for it refers to the appointed time of the end. 20 As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia. 21 The male goat is the king of Greece, and the great horn between its eyes is the first king. 22 As for the horn that was broken, in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise from his nation, but not with his power.
23 At the end of their rule,
    when the transgressions have reached their full measure,
a king of bold countenance shall arise,
    skilled in intrigue.
24 He shall grow strong in power,
    shall cause fearful destruction,
    and shall succeed in what he does.
He shall destroy the powerful
    and the people of the holy ones.
25 By his cunning
    he shall make deceit prosper under his hand,
    and in his own mind he shall be great.
Without warning he shall destroy many
    and shall even rise up against the Prince of princes.
But he shall be broken, and not by human hands.
26 The vision of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true. As for you, seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now.”
27 So I, Daniel, was overcome and lay sick for some days; then I arose and went about the king’s business. But I was dismayed by the vision and did not understand it.


Sermon: “The Messenger”: Gabriel Shares the Vision

Think of the wisest person you’ve ever known.  Perhaps your grandfather’s face comes to mind, or a clear-eyed child, or a favorite writer or thinker.  (If you’re thinking of yourself, try a little harder!)

Daniel was as wise as they come.  His wisdom became his meal ticket, you see.  Dan was one of the unfortunate many exiles of Judah when Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took over like some sort of John Wayne renegade, claiming everything in sight as his.  This would have been the time for Dan to fade into irrelevance and obscurity as a refugee in a land where he had no rights whatsoever.  But Dan was wise.  News of his wisdom spread in that subversive sort of way that can make kings of paupers.  Never underestimate the power of a good reputation, whatever your station in life. 

When that gold-craving king was plagued by troubling dreams and visions, none of his so-called “wise men” could help.  His magicians and diviners tried their best, but were about as helpful as a hole in a fishing boat.  Old King Neb was not the most forgiving, you know, and he ordered all of those phonies to be killed.

This is where our man Dan comes in.  His reputation preceded him and he was brought to the king.  He interpreted those strange dreams, and I’ll not bore you with the details except to say that they all had the same basic idea: many kingdoms would rise, and many kingdoms would fall.  God’s kingdom would endure forever. 

Dan was made a high official and, in the changeable ways of kings and powerful folk, he was praised throughout the land for that wisdom of his.  And so, we really did think Dan was the man for the job.

Oh, you might at this point be wondering who “we” are.  You might wonder who I am, too!  I got so busy in telling this story that I forgot to introduce myself.  I’m Gabriel, and “we” are the heavenly host of angels who go about doing the work of God. 

I’m sometimes called The Messenger, often called an angel, and am rarely understood.  It’s not fun showing up and having people turn white as a sheet and nearly pass out, I’ll tell you.  It makes it awfully hard to blend in at dinner parties.

I’ll say those words I nearly always say when I show up somewhere: do not fear.  Yes, an angel appearing is admittedly a bit weird, but there’s always a reason for it.  My reason for showing up to Dan was that this person famous for his wisdom was really, really not getting it.

He had a vision of some wild horned beasts, and again I’ll not go into too much detail except to say that, yep, it had to do with the kingdoms of humanity falling through their own corruption and greed while God’s kingdom would be established forever.  Sounds somewhat simple right?

Well, in short, it’s not.  This is apocalyptic stuff – the story of heaven breaking in to earth in bewildering ways, and even the wisest of people can’t really understand it.  Dan couldn’t.  I tried to explain this bizarre vision to Dan, but it was like trying to feed a cheeseburger to a newborn.  It didn’t work very well, and just made us both frustrated.

I started by explaining the vision that the kings of Media and Persia were depicted as a two-horned ram.  Two kingdoms united by their will to destroy.  Then I got a little carried away talking about the king of Greece being a goat, and more weird horns growing that represented other kingdoms rising up.  I finished by talking about a final king who would wreak the sort of widespread devastation that Dan had never seen.  I did not enjoy sharing this vision with him. 

Dan looked back at me, Gabriel, with the fearful eyes of a little boy, desperate to be told it would all be okay.  But behind those eyes, I could tell he wasn’t really grasping all of this bizarre imagery.  He, the wisest of the wise, was completely stumped.  And, though God had sent me to explain this vision clearly and help him understand, I realized something that day.

I realized that there are more important things than understanding.  Sometimes, the assurance that, no matter how dark the nights may seem, the sun will rise of its own accord is more important.  Sometimes, knowing a vision brings no peace at all.  I’m not touting ignorance here, or willful distractions from reality.  I’m saying that sometimes you need to know what you need to know when you need to know it, and not before then.

And so, I said, “The vision of the evenings and mornings that has been given you is true, but seal up the vision, for it concerns the distant future.”

Seal up the vision.  Set it aside for a time until you’re meant to understand it.  This is a common call in scripture: Isaiah told the people of Israel broken by captivity and poverty to bind up the vision of the future and, as absurd as it sounds in the midst of such a time, wait on the Lord, and trust in him.  In Revelation, the vision is sealed up still – even then at the very end of things (and beginning of new things), until the last possible second when, in a forest by a river with living water, where leaves on a tree give healing to the nations, it is time for the vision to be unsealed.

And so, as I looked at that tired, befuddled Daniel, I told him to keep a vision of the evening and the next morning at the forefront, and leave the bigger vision to another time.  Think of what you’ll have for supper and whom you’ll serve the next day, and leave the apocalyptic end times in God’s hands. 

But, don’t let your focus on the immediate cloud your ability to recognize the eternal when it appears.  Because, take it from me, the unexpected happens.  God is bringing a kingdom that will defeat darkness with light, guilt with grace and fear with love.  And sometimes, when God decides to be a bit more obvious about it, God sends angels like me to reveal a small part of that kingdom.

There are lots of us, you know.  Some are in heaven – you’ve known and loved many of them.  And some are still mortal like you, but just a little special in their ability to reflect the eternal.  Each of us angels bears a message, and mine was always a vision for God’s new kingdom coming and overturning all we thought we knew about this world’s kingdoms.  That’s why I came again and again: to Daniel, to Elizabeth and finally, to Mary, explaining to her the vision of a baby that would really change it all.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  We’ll journey together through all those events this Advent.

Let me leave you again with those words God told us angels to repeat over and over again: do not be afraid.  You don’t have the complete vision – you’re not meant to.  But you do have enough – enough of a heavenly glimpse through angels like me – to recognize when God’s kingdom is breaking into this world.  When God is bringing down the powerful and lifting up the lowly, proclaiming the sort of justice this world is baffled by (and desperate for).

It might seem strange and unreal and other worldly, but take it from me, the work of God in your place, in your time, even in your complicated life, is the most ordinary, real, earthly thing there is.  You don’t have to be particularly wise to recognize it, either.  Dan showed us that.  You just have to be open to messengers of light bringing you hope of a new world this Advent. 

Because a new world is coming, even now, maybe through you, if you’ll let it.  And even if you don’t understand how or when or why, that is reason enough to hope.  So do not fear.  Have hope.  The vision will be revealed.  When you need to (and not before), you will understand it.  


Well, that is my first message for you about Dan and Neb, about sealing up visions and hoping for God’s kingdom to come.  For now, I need to cash in my frequent flyer miles and jet on to the next place God’s sending me to announce God’s reign.  It’s a busy job, but the in-flight entertainment is fabulous.  See y’all next week!  Amen.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Children of the Light

My Aunt Lolly's Puzzle Box
November 16, 2014
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
1Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. 2For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3When they say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! 4But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; 5for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. 6So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; 7for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. 8But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. 9For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. 11Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.

Sermon: “Children of the Light”

Today’s sermon is going to be a bit of a show-and-tell.  I want to show you this box (and, well, tell you about it).

This belonged to my great-aunt Lolly and, at first glance, it looks like a decorative block of wood.  There is no perceivable opening or closing, but if you look closer, beneath all of the intricate woodwork, you begin to notice faint seam lines.  But you can’t just push along those lines and force the box open.  It opens the way it wants to, in a very particular order. 

First, one side is pushed upwards, just a little, revealing that the box is hollow inside (and making you very curious as to what you might find).  You meticulously work your way around this intricate box, and finally, if you’ve followed the path in the right way, pushing here and pulling there gently, it opens. 

I wish I could tell you that, when I finally deciphered this puzzle box of my aunt Lolly’s, I found hidden within a treasure map or a priceless heirloom.  I didn’t.  All I did find within this old forgotten box was the instructions that came with it, telling you that this “Personal Secret Box” should not be dropped, forced open or (inexplicably) eaten. 

But, I found I wasn’t all that let down.  You see, I opened the box!  And that in and of itself was a success.

Our passage this morning from 1 Thessalonians reminds me an awful lot of my Aunt Lolly’s secret box.  You see, I pushed against “the day of the Lord coming like a thief in the night.”  I wrestled with this heavy imagery of a pregnant woman.  I pulled back and forth on these themes of light and darkness, soberness and drunkenness.  I manipulated the words about the holy outfit described here: breastplace of faith and love and helmet of the hope of salvation.  And try as I might, nothing happened.  I couldn’t open this box of scripture and reveal anything to myself, never mind to you.

But then I noticed something, like one might notice the faint lines indicating that what looks solid and impenetrable is not, in fact, that way.  This passage is like a secret box, holding something precious inside.  Let me explain.

Every now and then, the writers of scripture had a habit of emphasizing something really significant.  They did this through a certain writing structure, which was called a chiasm.  A chiasm basically puts things in a repetitive order of bookends, leading the hearer or reader to a central truth, like a treasure hidden within a box.  And just as, after many failed attempts, I finally discovered the order in which I had to open this box, this text opened up to me through a chaism.

So grab a Bible and watch this screen.  (*See outline below.)  I’m going to show you what this looks like.  1 Thessalonians 5:1-11: We start from the outsides of this passage and work our way inwards to the central verse.  Look at verses 1 and 2, and 9 and 10.  The beginning and end of this passage.  Do you see any patterns, any lines of similarity?  They’re both talking about the Day of the Lord, a time destined by God for salvation, of which we know neither the day or hour.  So these bookends tell us that the Day of the Lord is an unknown day, but that we do know that it will be a day of salvation. 

Moving towards the center of the text, let’s look at the next verses: verse 3, and verses 6 through 8.  These are a bit more tricky to see a parallel in, but it’s there.  You see, both pieces are talking about contrasting realities.  Verse 3 talks about the contrast between peace or security and destruction.  There are contrasting realities in verses 6 through 8 as well: wakefulness and sleep, soberness and drunkenness.  Do you see the way this text is unraveling a bit, guiding us to its center?

Next up in our chiasm, further in towards the middle of this text, gets more obvious, using nearly identical language.  Verse 4 and the second half of verse 5 both say we are not in, or of, darkness.  And finally, after following all of the repetitive clues in the right order, we get to the heart of this text, like a treasure in a complicated box.  It’s the first part of verse 5.  Can someone read it for me?

For you are all children of light and children of the day.
___________________________________________________________
CHIASTIC STRUCTURE OF 1 THESSALONIANS 5:1-11 
a: verses 1-2 Day of the Lord: Unknown Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
b: verse 3 Contrasting Realities: Peace/Destruction
When they say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! 
c: verse 4 Not in Darkness: But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief;
d: verse 5a Children of the Light/Day:  for you are all children of light and children of the day;
c’: verse 5b Not of Darkness:  we are not of the night or of darkness.
b’: verses 6-8 Contrasting Realities: Wakefulness/Sleep & Sober/Drunk: 
So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.
a’: verses 9-10  Day of the Lord: Salvation: For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him (together).

11Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.
 __________________________________________________________

That, friends, is a chiasm.  Pretty neat, isn’t it?  Piece by piece, we’ve unlocked this text, revealing the truth Paul most wanted to convey: y’all are children of light and children of the day.  Why didn’t he just say that, then?  Why the chiastic puzzle for us to solve to get there?

As you might suspect, I have a theory.  I think we human beings have an awfully hard time seeing ourselves as children of the light.  When given the choice, we will tend toward the darker side of things.  Just watch the news and you’ll see this.  Light is not lucrative or sellable, but darkness, oh, much can be done with that.  A focus on darkness is one many people take – including many people of faith, and it leads to fear, radical self-preservation and hatred of anything seen as a threat. 

Like children afraid of what might lurk in the darkness, we human beings often prefer the false comfort of hiding under a blanket to the certain comfort found in bravely getting out of the bed and turning on the light.

And so, if we are just told to be children of the light, we can quickly dismiss the idea as something that sounds nice, but naïve.  There’s too much darkness – people out to get us, disconnected families, divisive politics.  We want our faith to be a blanket to cover our heads and keep all of that darkness at bay.

But, the thing about sitting with a blanket over your head is, it doesn’t work for very long.  Eventually, it gets awfully stuffy under there, and you begin to have a hard time breathing.  Your lungs long for cool, fresh air even more than your frightened heart longs for safety and, before you even realize what you’re doing, you whip that security blanket off and breathe deeply of new air.  This text is that breath of fresh air after we’ve let the fear of darkness have its way with us.   

Paul coaxes us deeper into understanding, and finally, when he thinks we’re ready, he pulls off that heavy blanket we’ve kept our faith hidden under and proclaims: “You all are children of the light and children of the day!”

Stop cowering in the darkness, you were made for so much more.  Stop keeping your faith contained under a stuffy blanket of security and breathe in the cool, fresh air of the Spirit.  Because a day is coming – none of us know when it is – and we had better be ready.  But, unlike what you’ve heard, this day is not a day of darkness.  It’s a day of Light!  Of the Light of the World coming to set things right once and for all.  It’s the day of salvation! 

There’s enough darkness in this world without you adding to it.  Focus on what really matters – get to the heart of the puzzle box of your own life and claim your true identity.  You are not a defender of God.  You are not a weapon against the darkness.  You are child of the light.  And light doesn’t hate.  It doesn’t defend or defeat.

Light shines.  It illumines all of the dark and scary places of this world and our lives, until what looked like a big scary monster is only a frightened person caught up in their own darkness.  It fills the cracks and uneven places until we see ourselves clearly and are not afraid of what we see anymore.

Once Paul has thoughtfully led us to the heart of this text, and the heart of our identity as children of light, he tells us why it matters in verse 11.  “Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.” 

Life often feels like a puzzle box we simply can’t figure out.  We want to care for the world, but with so much darkness, we don’t know how to start.  We want to love our families, but when they are far away or near, but distant, we don’t know how.  We want our faith to mean something, but if it doesn’t mean an impenetrable truth to defend against outsiders, we don’t know what it does mean.  We push this way, and pull that way, and are even tempted to just smash this box to finally get to what’s inside, but nothing works.  We can’t solve the puzzle.

But then we see someone who is feeling as lost or weary as we are.  And we tell them we’re here for them, or we just bring them some food or an unexpected smile.  And the seams start appearing. 

Then, we have the opportunity to return darkness to someone who’s made our lives a little more shadowed, and instead, we choose to recognize their own fearful darkness beneath such actions.  And one panel of this box starts to budge under our uncertain fingers. 

Then, we decide that there is an awful lot we cannot control, but we can make the choice to shine compassion into the lives of the people God puts in our path.  We can encourage instead of tear down.  We can come out from under the blanket and have the courage to turn on the light and shine. 

And suddenly we realize that the puzzle box of our life has been open all along, that the dark, closed appearance of it has been an illusion.  And we realize that the truth buried within is a truth also written on the stars and golden leaves, in the eyes of a stranger, in fellowship around a table, in the offering of a hand and the smile of a grandmother: you are a child of the light! 

And then, despite ourselves, we can’t help but shine.  Oh, do we shine.  Amen. 

Sunday, November 9, 2014

The Sin of Sleep

Matthew 25:1-13
1“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; 4but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. 8The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 9But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ 10And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. 11Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ 12But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ 13Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

Sermon: The Sin of Sleep

I’ve chosen to rename this parable.  “The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids” conjures up images filled with pink taffeta dresses and teased hair, and so I’ve decided to improve upon it.  I hereby dub this parable “Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps.”

You see, it’s really rather simple.  There were ten bridesmaids.  Five of them were prepared for a wedding, five weren’t.  The planners among them showed their preparedness by the amount of oil they brought – bringing enough to last all night long.  The other five didn’t bring enough.  No one knew when the bridegroom would come and the wedding celebration would start.  But some were ready, and for those who weren’t, well, it was just too bad. 

Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.  Be prepared.  Don’t share what you have brought, because there’s not enough to go around. Hoard your oil (and your water, land, food, security and faith, for that matter).  It’s not your fault that other people don’t have the resources you do.  It’s their fault, and they get what they deserve, the door shut in their face.  The kingdom of heaven is one big test of who plans ahead and who doesn’t. 

The key is in that oil – in having that one quantifiable possession that makes you worthy of the bridegroom inviting you into the party.  (Think about what this is for you – this “thing” that you believe earns you God’s approval.)

Except that it’s not just about the oil.  You see, if this parable is really all about the oil, then all ten of those bridesmaids would have blown out their lamps before falling asleep, and not wasted any oil in the first place.  And if it is really about that one possession that makes you appear vigilant and awake, worthy, the oil in a burning lamp, then surely the bridegroom would have forgiven the late-comers and rewarded them for their middle-of-the-night resourcefulness in getting more.  So it wasn’t the oil that bought entrance into that wedding party. 

Then maybe the key is in the self-sufficiency of the wise bridesmaids.  Perhaps there really isn’t enough of anything to go around, and Jesus appreciates those who are very wise with their resources, investing them in the most secure of markets and never, ever giving them away to those who have proven they are not deserving.  Yes, perhaps putting your own needs first is what sets apart the wise from the foolish.  This would certainly be a popular idea.

Except that, once they did get in to that wedding celebration, these so-called wise women were not fed only what they brought with them – they feasted at the generosity of the bridegroom.  A generosity that was much more aligned with grace than greed. 

So what sets apart the wise from the foolish, if not the oil or the self-sufficiency?  The best I can figure is this: the wise stayed.  They didn’t leave.  Sure, they didn’t leave because they had enough oil in the first place, but I think that, whatever the reason, their staying was what mattered in the end.  They were present, even if they were drowsy.

We hear in this parable the call to “keep awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”  This doesn’t mean to never fall asleep, because all ten of those bridesmaids snoozed, lamps burning wastefully all the while.  Keeping awake to witness the inconvenient, middle-of-the-night appearance of the bridegroom means staying.  Being fully present in your own life and the life of the world, even when sleep tugs at the corners of your eyes and weariness seeps into your bones.  Being fully awake to this precious and precarious life even when that means being awake to pain and sorrow, to nights of not enough oil or hope or light.

Sleep is seductive.  All of those bridesmaids succumbed to it.  I think that was the greatest sin in this parable – not the lack of oil.  Because, if they hadn’t fallen asleep, they would have turned off their lamps as they waited and there would have been enough oil in the first place. 

They slept because the bridegroom was taking entirely too long to get the party started.  They slept because they didn’t want to wait any longer.  This same word was used when Jesus’ disciples slept in the Garden of Gethsemane as he prayed.  Even in moments of great importance, when the Messiah is doing powerful things, sleep entices us.  This is why I’m calling sleep a sin. 

No, I must correct my renaming of this parable.  This parable is not about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps at all.  It is about not allowing the seduction of sleepiness to get in the way of the surprising arrival of the Messiah.  The moments when the kingdom of God invites everyone who bothers to show up into the party.  And usually what puts us to sleep is exactly what we see in this parable: a preoccupation with things (like oil).  A simplification of the extravagance of a wedding feast into a works-righteousness, member’s only club.  The oil was simply a diversion – the sleep was the real problem.  (As was, it could be argued, the slowness of that tardy bridegroom!  What wedding do you know that starts at midnight?!)

Yes, we miss the point entirely if we make this parable only about oil. 
But we also miss the point if we try to make this parable another timetable for the end times, of the kingdom of heaven coming like some sort of sensationalist Nicholas Cage movie.  Jesus talks about the kingdom of heaven coming like many things: like a field sowed thoughtfully, like a mustard seed that provides shelter to birds as it grows, like yeast yielding bread that nourishes others, like a treasure hidden in a field, like a pearl of great worth and here, like a great love feast.  Nowhere does Jesus describe the kingdom of heaven as an apocalyptic military battle between the forces of good and evil.  The kingdom of heaven grows, yields, nourishes, shelters, hides and is found and celebrates love where it discovers it, even at the most inconvenient of times.

Robert Farrar Capon captures this well in his writing on the Parable of the Bridesmaids:
 "Watch therefore," Jesus says at the end of the parable, "for you know neither the day nor the hour." When all is said and done—when we have scared ourselves silly with the now-or-never urgency of faith and the once-and-always finality of judgment—we need to take a deep breath and let it out with a laugh. Because what we are watching for is a party. And that party is not just down the street making up its mind when to come to us. It is already hiding in our basement, banging on our steam pipes, and laughing its way up our cellar stairs. The unknown day and hour of its finally bursting into the kitchen and roistering its way through the whole house is not dreadful; it is all part of the divine lark of grace. God is not our mother-in-law, coming to see whether her wedding-present china has been chipped. God is a funny Old Uncle with a salami under one arm and a bottle of wine under the other. We do indeed need to watch for him; but only because it would be such a pity to miss all the fun.  (The Parables of Judgment [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989] 166).

We do not know the day or time when the bridegroom – the Messiah – will return, but we were never meant to.  What we do know is that this kingdom is already coming, and it is worth being fully present, awake, for.

The wise are not those who are worthy.  For none of us are, in the end.  The wise are those who stayed, who fell asleep, yes, but who woke up again and didn’t leave.  We do not know why God takes God’s time in showing up sometimes, but we do know this: no matter how late, no matter how inconvenient, God does show up.  A Messiah comes, waking us up to the celebration of love that is seeping into our lives, even now.

Thanks be to the Creator who rouses us again and again, to the Messiah who comes whether we’re prepared or not, and to the Spirit who kindles a flame of expectant hope within us that will never go out, amen.