Matthew 24:36-44
36 "But about that day and hour no one
knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the
Father. 37 For as the days of
Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and
drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39 and they knew nothing until the
flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of
Man. 40 Then two will be in the
field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and
one will be left. 42 Keep awake
therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But understand this: if the owner
of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would
have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready,
for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
Hope is a wonderful thing. It pushes us on though life
may be tumultuous and depressing. It allows us to live in the present while
longing for a better, fuller future. It calls our hearts and minds forward,
giving us motivation to change the present to bring about that brighter, fuller
future. But then again...hope can also be a dangerous thing. It keeps us stuck
in a rut, unwilling to accept the inevitable so we can deal with what's here
and now. It lets the ideal, the perfect, linger in the midst of a world that is
anything but ideal or perfect. It keeps us frozen, unwilling to move forward
with healing and progress. It is a double-edged sword that may cut to the quick
of joy or saw right to the marrow of desperation.
It is that same double-edged sword that cut the way for
an entire nation to persevere through centuries of defeat and devastation. By
the time Matthew penned his gospel Israel had a history laced with tragedy and
despair. They had once been the chosen people of God: blessed by the calling of
Abraham, delivered from the bondage of Egypt, only to cycle through epochs of
devotion, rejection, judgment, and disaster... devotion, rejection, judgment,
and disaster... The Israel that Matthew knew had been ruled and oppressed by
the nations of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and was now squarely
under the thumb of the Caesar and Rome. Aside from the empire’s tyrannical
display of power with the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., this was the
same Israel that Jesus knew—a nation clinging to the sharp edges of hope.
They began clinging to that hope sometime after the
Babylonian deportation (around 586 B.C.). That’s when Israel became a nation
defined by such hope—hope in a new deliverer, hope in the coming vengeance of
God, hope in his Anointed, the Messiah. By the time of the first century
messianic hopes were so high that one could easily find a messiah on just about
any street corner. The British comedy troop Monty Python illustrates just such
a point in their satirical film The Life
of Brian. In that film, Brian, just a regular, everyday guy (who just
happened to have been born in the stable next to Jesus) has to go throughout
his life fending off the crazed mobs that attempt to declare him the Messiah.
While they are rather loose with the morals and historical accuracy of such
first-century Jewish, messianic claims (all the while being completely
respectful to Jesus and his actual teachings), the boys from Monty Python
aren’t too far from the mark. Messiah’s popped up everywhere. One doesn’t have
to look too far in the records of that ancient historian Flavius Josephus to
find many of their stories.
Jesus of Nazareth, however, was different. With Jesus,
the hopes of Israel seemed to be materializing right before her people’s very
eyes! Matthew tells the story of Magi coming to worship him as the king at his
birth; he’s performing miracles and healing the sick; he’s claiming the
authority to forgive sins and interpret the Law; this Jesus was surely the
long-hoped-for Messiah! Matthew even records some of his most beautiful words
as he stood atop a hill to proclaim the coming kingdom of heaven in his Sermon
on the Mount. Israel’s hope seemed to be coming to fruition. Jesus, however, was
taking his time. There’s no mounted attack on Rome, no blueprint for the
reconstruction of the kingdom of Israel, no armory or even one sharpened stick!
In fact, for most of Matthew’s gospel Jesus only seems to hint at the coming
kingdom and always with some roundabout ethereal allusions. If he is the hope
Israel has been waiting for, when is he going to start paying dividends?
That (I think) is where Jesus’ words in this section of
Matthew’s gospel seem to come into play. In chapter twenty-four Jesus begins to
really lay the whole “end of the age” stuff on real thick. In verses three
through eight of chapter twenty-four he talks about false Messiahs and “nations
rising up against nations”—now we seem to be getting on with the stuff
Israel’s been hoping for from a Messiah. In verses nine through twenty-eight of
that same chapter Jesus speaks of coming persecutions and the desecration of
the Temple by a “desolating sacrilege.” Just before our passage this morning Jesus,
in verses thirty and thirty-one, speaks
some of the most hopeful words one in his day could have heard from such an
obvious Messiah: “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all
the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on
the clouds of heaven' with power and great glory. And he will send out his
angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four
winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” Man, doesn’t that sound
awesome!? The Son of Man (obviously Jesus) is going to send his angels to
gather all us good, Christian folks up! He even goes on to tell us we’ll be
able to discern with signs when it’s all going to go down. “Just look at the
fig tree,” he says, “as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth leaves, you know
that summer is near.” There you have it: all that Israel, all that
humankind, has been waiting for is about to bust loose all over creation: just
look for the signs.
But what’s all this about not knowing the time, being
like the folks in Noah’s day, one being taken and one being left, and being
watchful and ready in the passage in front of us this morning? Is this the
other edge of the sword called hope? I mean, we all tend to like Jesus and his
“end times” predictions up to this point, but we really get nervous when Jesus
says he doesn’t know things. In fact, some of the later Greek manuscripts we
have of Matthew leave out the expression “nor the son” because of what it may
imply about the limited knowledge of Jesus. After all, we want Jesus to know.
Heck, we want to know! We want to
know when it’s all going down; we want to know when the end is coming, when our
hopes will be realized and fulfilled.
That’s the trouble with the keen edge of hope: it’s not
enough to rely on a word from Jesus, especially if he says he doesn’t know.
It’s too difficult to be satisfied when we hear words of technical uncertainty;
words that seem to confuse us more than assure us. That’s where Israel was
prior to the first century. They had the words of the prophets; they had the
teachings of the rabbis; they knew the prophecies and myths about the coming
Messiah. But it wasn’t enough; they were too vague; they left too much room for
interpretation and confusion. So what did they do? From the gaping hole left by
the biting blade of hope they formed their own conclusions of who the Messiah
would be and what the Messiah would do. And what came of that? Well most of
them missed him altogether!
We stand on the other side of history. We see the great
cut made by hope and yet when we hear these words of Jesus we want to toss
around the possibilities of allegory and interpretation. We want to exhaust our
mind in trying to figure out when, where, and how the end will happen. Hope
isn’t enough for us anymore. We’re creatures of detail and specifics; we want
to know so we can begin to make plans, so we don’t have to hope anymore.
Because hope is a double-edged sword, and it’s razor sharp! We want the inside
scoop because hope just leaves us too far in what seems like the dark. Perhaps
that is why, however it may be, that Jesus didn’t know the day and hour when the end
of the age would come. Maybe the Father chose to conceal such information so
that there would be no way we could get away with procrastination, because
after all, we are a notoriously procrastinating species.
Whatever the case may be, theses are still words of
hope from Jesus: “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the
night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let
his house be broken into.” Yes, Jesus did say he didn’t know the day or
hour when the Lord will come, but here in these words Jesus assures us that the
Lord is indeed coming! We have hope!
And hope is a
double-edged sword. While most of us may hear these words from Jesus as words
that give us joy in the coming of the Lord and a call to immediate action for
the cause of the kingdom, there may be those who are frozen in their tracks
because of their hope in the coming of Christ. They are petrified, simply
waiting for time to wind down so they may be taken up. They are cut by the
other side of hope. The hope that comes in these words from Jesus is found in
knowing that Christ calls us to be about the work of the kingdom until that
unknown hour, so that we may be found “in the field” or “grinding
meal together,” so that we may be found feeding the hungry, caring for
the sick, visiting the prisoner and the shut-in, welcoming the stranger, loving
our neighbor...
These words before us this morning are not merely words
for theological debate and amateur interpretation. These are words of
motivating hope. These are the words we hear at the beginning of Advent so that
we may know that this season is not simply a time to stretch the celebration of
Christmas. These are words we hear to begin Advent so that we may be motivated
by the hope of the coming Lord to be about his work until he comes—to be ready!
So when you hear these words, what feelings of hope do you have? Are they
feelings of motivating joy, causing you to pursue the will of God and the
coming of his kingdom? Or do your feelings of hope leave you fixed where you
stand?
Jesus says in verse 44, “Therefore you also must be
ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” Are you ready? Are you
ready for the fulfillment of the hope of Advent? Will your hope make you ready,
when the Son of Man comes at an unexpected hour?
Amen.
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