Silliman University Church Reflections

The well-known artist Pablo Picasso lost his passport while traveling in Europe, a story goes. When he came to a border crossing, he explained his loss to one of the immigration guards. Giving his name to the official, Picasso hoped he would be recognized and allowed to pass. The guard, however, said that many people attempted to cross the border by claiming to be persons they were not. Picasso insisted that he was the man he claimed to be. “All right,” said the official, “we’ll give you a test, and if you pass it we’ll allow you to go through.” Handing him a pencil and a sheet of paper, he told the artist to sketch several peasants standing nearby. Picasso did it so quickly and skillfully that the guard was convinced he was indeed who he claimed to be. His work confirmed his word!

John the Baptist could not confirm who Jesus was through his works. John had preached that the Messiah was coming, he told the people to repent, to change their ways, or they would be punished. Instead, Jesus comes and preaches compassion, forgiveness and love, and John felt perhaps, betrayed, (strong word?) at least disappointed. So, he tells his disciples (for he had quite a following apart from those of Jesus) to go to Jesus and ask him if he is the one, if he is the Messiah, if he is the one who is coming, or should we look for another?

Part of the question that needs to be answered during the time of Advent – time of waiting – is John the Baptist’s question “Are you the One?” Is Jesus the Messiah? What kind of Messiah? Like John, we are a people who wait with different expectations, hopes and fears or problems for Jesus to solve.

It was while in prison, that John began to express doubt about Jesus. What issues were running through his mind? He had expectations of the coming Messiah as one who would do wonderful things, as prophesied in Isa. 61 – “the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me, to bring good news to the lowly, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners, to announce the year of the Lord’s favor… vindication… and justice”.

“Lord, I did what you wanted me to do to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. But where is he? Where’s the fire, the axe, the judgment he’s supposed to bring? And why, if he’s here, am I in prison? Wasn’t the Messiah going to free the prisoners? I baptized Jesus in the Jordan River . It was to be the beginning of God’s kingdom. But, where is he now? Why isn’t he doing what I said he would do? Is he really the one or should I look for another?

As we wait for Christ’s coming, we ask “What Child is this who lay to rest on Mary’s lap sleeping?” The questions what child is this? and “Are you the One” are reflections of our continuing search for understanding of the one they called Jesus. But questioning who Jesus is is part of the effort to have a deeper understanding of who he is. John the Baptist is a great man of faith, according to Jesus. And great men of faith ask questions.

Paul Tillich points out that God does not stand aloof, from our questioning; rather God is in our struggle of doubt, making himself known more sharply through it. Doubt therefore is a vital part and element of faith.

Serious believers should be like John, who ask ’Are you the Christ? My daughter, who attended the funeral of a nephew of mine, last week, surprised me about her doubts about the way the medieval church, handled the Scriptures and heresies. Is it possible, she asked, the early bishops suppressed legitimate questions about the identity of Jesus Christ to preserve the church? Being somewhat familiar with the recent controversies concerning the Da Vinci Code and the archeological discovery of the grave of one Jesua, son of Joseph, outside Jerusalem, I replied, suppression of suspected heretics may have been done, but none of the bishops could have revised any book in the Old and New Testament, just to make Jesus Christ appear consistent to their own concept of the Son of God. Doubt is part of faith. Doubt when expressed and when answered deepens faith.

A prophet like John is important in God’s plan, not only as someone who prepares the way for Jesus, but as one who asks tough questions. There is something courageous about asking questions. It admits your ignorance. But once answered, the question removes your ignorance. Sometimes people are unintentional prophets. Dr Everett Mendoza proposes this in a sermon he gave at the Chapel of the Evangel last Sunday. He argues that Sen. Trillanes in occupying Peninsula hotel and in saying that “Dissent without Action is Consent” has raised a question about our courage to take a stand, that forces the churches to redefine its understanding of God’s location at this time. He suggests that perhaps Trillanes, who is now in prison, may point to someone who will give an answer to the people’s questions.

Jesus answers John’s disciples: 4 “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5* the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. Jesus answers John’s question, not just with words, but with deeds — The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, but on the crucial question, the prisoners are freed, Jesus is silent. John remains in prison. We find no further questions from John after this, partly because soon he is beheaded preceding Christ’s crucifixion.

This is the theology of Advent. The Christ we wait for, is not the political ruler he was supposed by John the Baptist. Not the Messiah who would repulse Rome and set free the Jewish rebels and set forth a Jewish kingdom. He is not someone who will solve your problem for you.  Instead, the Messiah was to be like a lamb led to the slaughter, he was as Handel’s Messiah most poignantly proclaims …”a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He has borne our grief and carried our sorrows…He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all.” (Isa. 53: 3-6). The Messiah is Emmanuel, God with us. It is in saving us, that we are freed from sin and guilt and all things that hold us in bondage. Advent brings us hope and courage to face our world, not to run away from it.

Three important lessons for us are:

1.     “Are you the One?” the answer is yes. Jesus did not fit John’s expectations, but Jesus said loud and clear through His actions that He was indeed the Messiah, that the Kingdom of God had been inaugurated, and was beginning to take hold, and that the Day of the Lord’s Favor, was beginning. But these great events would not fully come until the Day of Judgment, the Second Coming of Christ. We are waiting for that time. And this is the essence of Advent. We are as Rev. Harry Pak’s book says, “Living in the Meantime.”

2.       If we sincerely heart fully, faithfully anticipate the coming of Jesus Christ as a baby or as Final Judge, trust that God will bring about changes in our lives in often surprising ways. God’s kingdom program is on course in spite of our desires to formulate it or manipulate it according to our perceived needs. Our text tells us that John was a forerunner of the Divine Messiah. John had a concept of Jesus mission that was specific to Jews, and Jesus corrected him. John submitted to Jesus teaching. Proof that the world will be transformed according to God’s own plan and according to our obedience to God’s love in Jesus Christ.

3.       God’s kingdom is already here but it has not yet come. Jesus inaugurated the Kingdom of God and is strengthening it through his presence in your life and in mine. The phase of the kingdom today is one of building your faith and mine. It is a time for tests and trials, a time for repentance to bear good fruit. How much good fruit have we borne?

Before John the Baptist was beheaded, I am sure, his question had been answered. Jesus was the lamb whose blood would wash away the sins not only of Israel but the whole world. This was Jesus answer verified on the cross.

(Sermon delivered at SU church, 10 am, Dec. 16, 2007)

Matt. 24: 36-44

Merry Christmas. Today is the first Sunday in Advent, the beginning of the church year. In our liturgical calendar, this is the day when we prepare for the coming of Jesus Christ. We begin to light the candles, we begin to sing the Advent hymns – and we begin to wait – in hope.

There was a young man who fell in love with a maiden in the next town. This was before the internet. Boy loves girl and sends her love letters saying “Good News! I love you”, everyday, for months. He waited in hope for the girl to say “I love you” too. At first the girl seemed interested, and then just respectful, until one day she wrote, “Good News! I am inviting you to my marriage. I fell in love with the postman who brought your letters to me every day.” The young man waited in hopelessness. 

We wait in hope for Jesus to come to us in three ways: First, we celebrate the first coming at his birth in the 1^st century. We re-enact the birth in the manger and sing Christmas carols.

Secondly, we celebrate his coming to us now – through the Proclamation of the Word and in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. We celebrate how Jesus identifies with the least of our brothers and sisters, whom we are called to serve. Jesus comes to us today through the poor and needy.

Thirdly, we wait in hope for Jesus’ Second coming, at the end of time to judge creation and to bring about a new heaven and a new earth, where peace and joy reign as described in Isaiah 2 today. To everything there is a beginning and there is an ending, of that we can be certain. But when the end comes, we do not know.

One of the most disturbing facts in Science is that the stars have a lifespan. Although they have an average lifespan of 13 billion years, which is a long, long time, they have an end. Our Sun is supposed to be middle aged i.e. 5 billion years old. Another 5 billion years and it will expand and eat up Mercury and Venus. The Sun will expand to about 99% of the distance to the Earth’s present orbit. By that time, the orbit of the Earth would have expanded, stripping the Earth of its oceans and atmosphere as the Sun’s luminosity increases several thousand fold.

Pessimists predict the end of the world not in billions of years, but in another century through nuclear war, earth collision with a meteor or the Greenhouse effect. The end will surely come. When? We do not know.

Last month we had three deaths in this congregation. These are reminders that we do not know when our lives end. One died in his 30’s, another in her 40’s and another in his 80’s. When each of these people was growing up, living their lives passionately in pursuit of their life’s goals, they had no idea that this month would be their last. We do not know either, and more than that, we are not going to know.

The End of the World is a fascinating topic. Many people spend much energy in trying to discern the time of the Second Coming. A whole theological orientation “Apocalypticism”, and many churches and sects have been built around the imminence of the Second Coming. End time communities are right now waiting for the End of the World, in Nikolskoye, Russia . 29 members have retreated into a cave threatening mass suicide if authorities attempt to disrupt their activities. They were told by their sect leader that Doomsday is coming in May 2008.

There was the Dami Mission’s church in Seoul, Korea that awaited the Rapture. Rev. Lee Jang-rim the minister predicted that the Second Coming would occur on 28 Oct 1992. On that day 1,000 “faithful” assembled in church. But the appointed hour came and went, uneventfully. Rev. Lee, was sentenced to two years in prison for fraud and for possessing over $4 million in followers’ money.

Then there was Rev. “Jim” Jones the American founder of the Peoples Temple, who brought 900 members to Jonestown, Guyana to establish an agricultural end time community after the sect was investigated for tax evasion. The US congress sent an investigation team to Guyana led by Cong. Leo Ryan. On Nov. 18, 1978 Jones ordered 900 of his members to take cyanide as the entourage of US congress investigators neared his place. Over 900 people died from cyanide poisoning that day.

The Branch Davidians originated from the Seventh Day Adventists. The sect inherited Adventism’s apocalypticism. In 1993, the FBI tried to enter their Center near Waco, Texas to investigate reports of a murder. The Davidians fought back.. Result: 82 Davidians, including its head David Koresh, were killed.

This has been going on for centuries and will continue, no doubt. Many speculate and make it their business to predict the Rapture despite (Matt. 24:36) “No one knows about that day or hour”. Because Rapture type of literature is selling briskly in Christian bookstores, some cynics suspect that this is a business racket that feeds on fear and anxiety. Our advice is remember Matt. 24:36. We will not know the time and day.  To want to know is to replay Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden lusting for the fruit of the tree of knowledge that would make them like God.

The one thing we need to acknowledge and admire among the Apocalyptic is their total surrender of everything to God. How I wish that ordinary Christians would devote just half of that commitment to God, without losing sight of their responsibilities in daily witnessing. The issue is, can we not wait in hope for the Second Coming and not forget God’s mission today?

Today’s text from Matthew speaks of the ordinariness of his coming. People will be eating and drinking, getting married, baptizing their children, working in the field.

Martin Luther was not given to speculating on the End Times. He focused rather on the purpose of the Word which God intends for the present time. What may happen in the future does not excuse us from what God requires of us here and now.

If we know the end is near, the temptation is to escape the world. We would create a fortress mentality to save ourselves. Instead we are to live with the tension of uncertainty, an uncertainty of when the End will happen but within a certainty that Jesus Christ is with us always.

When we stop trying to figure out when End Time will be, we will have energy to listen to what God is calling us to do today. Advent preparation is about removing the noise from our lives so that we can hear and see the coming of Jesus Christ among us today. Matthew spells it out very clearly in Matt. 25. In the Judgment Scene those condemned say to Jesus, “If we had only known that it was you in the poor and the hungry, of course we would have fed you!” Jesus comes to us today in the least of our sisters and brothers. Advent is a time to watch and wait lest we miss his coming. If we do not see Christ coming in the form of the least of our brethren, our eagerness to welcome him tomorrow when he returns from heaven, will probably not impress the Lord.

We are to live in constant readiness, attentive to Jesus who gives us hope for today and for tomorrow. We ought to live today as if it is our last. Through the vigil services this past 6 months, we have been with families who have lost loved ones. It is clear to me that vigil liturgy rehearses & prepares us for our own deaths and enables us to experience the joys of our faith. Each time we come together, we rehearse the promises and the hope that carry us through the difficult time of death — “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies.” For in giving comfort to the grieving, we wait in hope with them, and not in hopelessness. We are hopeful because as we wait, we are doing the Lord’s work. Hopelessness is waiting for the Lord, without being in the Lord’s company today.

There is a story about Colonel Davenport, the Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives. On May 19th, 1780 the sky of Hartford darkened ominously, and some of the representatives, glancing out the windows and fearing the end was at hand, called for adjournment. Responding to this clamor, Davenport rose and said, “The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. Therefore, I wish that candles be brought in.” Rather than fearing what is to come, we are to be faithful till Christ returns. Instead of fearing the dark, we’re to be lights as we watch and wait. This is the Advent spirit.

We need to take our discipleship time together seriously, in hope and joy. Our hope is in the one who came, who is among us, and who will come again. We are to heighten our awareness of his coming. We are to “Live in the light of the Last Day”  Paul says in Romans. Yet, we are to live with uncertainty, uncertainty about secondary things (when the End will be), but with certainty in the primaries – in the presence of the One who is with us and will continue to be with us, Jesus Christ.

Advent is a time to refocus and regroup. Christ came as a baby and a human person. Christ comes into our midst today through the Word and through the challenge of discipleship. And so we begin Advent – “waiting in hope” for the full disclosure of Jesus in the joy and sorrow, the laughter and the tears, the comedy and the tragedies of our daily lives here and now.

(Sermon delivered First Sunday of Advent, 10 am Dec. 2, 2007, SU church)