+ In the Love of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Many Christians think of the Old Testament as being about Law and the New Testament as being about Grace, but (surprise!) this morning’s reading from the Old Testament Prophet Isaiah sounds a lot more like Grace than the New Testament Gospel of Matthew.
Again, many Christians think of the Old Testament as being about Judgment and the New Testament as being about Mercy, but (surprise!) this morning’s reading from the Old Testament Prophet Isaiah sounds a lot more like Mercy than the New Testament Gospel of Matthew.
Well, perhaps the reason the New Testament reading is so threatening is because the Gospel of Matthew was written at a time when the Roman Empire was threatening to destroy Jerusalem, and Isaiah was written at a time of peace. But (surprise!) Isaiah was written at a time when the Assyrian Empire was threatening to destroy Jerusalem.
Well, I’ve just barely begun my sermon and already we’ve had three surprises!
Let’s turn to our reading from Isaiah (2:1-5), and right away we get another little surprise: “The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.”
And now Isaiah speaks the word he has seen rather than heard:
“In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.”
Here’s another surprise: the Hebrew verb naharu translated “stream” means literally “to flow like a river.” Now as we all know, water flows downward from mountains, but here all the nations are flowing like a river up the mountain!
“Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (What a surprise it will be when that happens.)
Isaiah concludes, “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”
This last sentence contains the final surprise from Isaiah, because the Hebrew verb naharu meaning “flow like a river” can also mean “shine with joyful radiance.” So the nations, having flowed like a river up the mountain of the Lord, are now walking with joyful radiance in the light of the Lord!
Now let’s turn to our reading from St. Matthew (24:36-44) and see what surprises await us there.
“Jesus said to his disciples, ‘About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.’”
What is this day to which Jesus is referring?
Please turn to the Collect of the Day, the Collect for the First Sunday in Advent:
“Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life”― this life when we are subject to death― “in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal”― that is, to life without death.
So the day to which Jesus refers in today’s Gospel is the day when Jesus will come again in his glorious majesty, and that brings us to the first surprise in today’s Gospel― that Jesus, the Son, the One who will be coming again, even Jesus doesn’t know the day or the hour when that will happen!
Jesus continues: “For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 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, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.”
Let’s discover the first surprise in this passage. For those of you who remember the story of Noah and the flood, what was the reason for the flood? {{Congregational Response}} [the wickedness of the people] But here the problem is not their wickedness, it’s their obliviousness― they just aren’t paying attention. So when the flood comes, it comes as a terrible surprise.
But for us, there’s a welcome surprise hidden in this passage. Again, for those who remember the story of Noah and the flood, what happens at the end of the story? {{Congregational Response}} [the flood recedes and a rainbow appears] The symbolism of the rainbow is that God’s bow and arrow is now turned away from the earth, and that in turn means that God’s grace triumphs over judgment.
Here’s how St. Peter puts it in his First Letter (3:18-21a): “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. . . . God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you. . . .”
And now comes the final surprise, and also the most fun and the most outrageous surprise in this morning’s readings.
“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.”
So, who’s the thief in this passage? {{Congregational Response}} [surprise! it’s Jesus!]
The surprises continue in the Book of Revelation. Jesus tells the Church in Sardis, “If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you” (3:3).
And again, later on in Revelation, Jesus says, “See, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake. . .” (16:15a).
So here’s your assignment for this Season of Advent: be on the lookout for surprises! Because if you’re not on the lookout for surprises, then Jesus will come to you like a thief in the night and break into your heart― and suddenly you might be surprised into forgiving someone you never intended to forgive; suddenly you might be surprised into beating swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks; suddenly you might be surprised into streaming up mountainsides and walking in the light of the Lord!
And those are the very kinds of surprises which will truly prepare us for the greatest surprise of all― that the God who created heaven and earth is about to become a helpless baby, born in a manger in Bethlehem to poor, travel-weary parents.
Thanks be to God!
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