Watchful Waiting

We turn today to the Gospel of Matthew, the focus for the lectionary readings for the coming year. The theme for the first week of Advent each year is hope, and the lectionary gives us a passage from the end of the Gospel of Matthew on apocalyptic hope. Matthew’s contribution to the birth story of Jesus is to tell us that Joseph was visited in a dream by an angel to confirm Isaiah’s prophecy that “a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and will call him Emmanuel, God with us” and that magi came from the East following a star and learned from the Jewish chief priests and teachers of the law that according to the prophet Micah, the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem. Matthew is concerned to tell us about his escape as a refugee into Egypt as Herod ordered the slaughter of all boys 2 and under in Bethlehem and its vicinity, fulfilling the prophecy of Jeremiah of great mourning and weeping for children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more. Matthew is concerned not concerned with what happened in a stable one bustling, overcrowded night in Bethlehem but with the prophecies that were fulfilled by what happened that night. The long-awaited Messiah was born.

Matthew is writing around 80-85AD. Remember Jesus’s ministry was around 30-33, and a good long lifespan was about 40 years. So even the people who were just toddlers during Jesus’s lifetime are now the elders of the community, and they’ve gone through a lot. Rome continued to oppress the nation of Israel until finally, they revolted in 66AD, and things got even worse. By 70 Jerusalem was under siege, the Temple was destroyed, and the nation of Israel ceased to exist as refugees fled north, seeking asylum in Syria. Matthew’s goal, to show that God’s Will is being done and is not thwarted, is bold. To declare hope in the midst of the wreckage that is their lives – ransacked, exiled, desperate – hope?

Matthew reminds them of Jesus’s promise to return, drawing on the prophecy of Daniel, Jesus had promised the sun would darken, and then the Son of Man would come on clouds of heaven – that promise had been fulfilled with his death, resurrection, and ascension. And, Jesus promises, he will gather his elect from the four winds, from every direction. But, when?
Jesus is clear. “About that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Stanley Saunders, who is a NT Prof at Columbia Seminary, writes that “The fact that no one knows the day on which the Lord comes should engender neither complacent business as usual nor feverish attempts to figure out what Jesus himself does not know.” There is no code. There is no timeline. There is no way to know when.

Jesus says to be expectant, but not waste time trying to know God’s timetable. Just get ready. It will happen like it did in the days of Noah, everyone was carrying on with life as usual – day after day eating and drinking, year after year getting married and then in turn giving your kids away in marriage, you’ll be doing your chores like usual, working in the field or grinding grain into flour. One will have been watchfully waiting, preparing, and ready; and the other will not be ready.

An aside – This is not a “rapture” scene – that word does not appear in the Bible. Jesus’ description of the end of time continues beyond this passage in Matthew 25 and is straightforward. Christ will come and divide humankind – the sheep and goats – in judgement and chronological time will cease giving way to eternity.

I used to babysit for a family with 3 little girls, 1, 2.5, and almost 4. The living room had white carpet, with a really comfortable oversized chair and couch both upholstered in a soft, white cotton fabric with starched, perfectly fluffed and placed ruffled throw pillows (it was the 80’s). The girls weren’t allowed in that room. It was the only room you could see into as you entered the front door, and it was always clean and ready for unexpected guests who might show up. Because when the doorbell rings, it’s too late. You only had to cross the threshold into the hallway to see that all was not white and clean and starched and perfectly placed.

Jesus doesn’t say to wait, ready for company, though. He says to prepare for his return like you would for thieves who come unexpectedly in the night. Thieves aren’t polite enough to stay in your front room, though. They don’t just look on the surfaces. They open the drawers and ransack the bottom of your closet, they look under and in, behind and through. They make a thorough search. They would learn about the red Kool-Aid stain on the flip side of the white couch cushion.

Points of this passage:
1. No one knows when God’s purposes will be fulfilled.
2. Life will be normal right up until the last minute. That’s the reason for the Noah reference, one will be taken and another left– there is no time to prepare once it starts.

It can be hard to maintain hope, to remain vigilant in watchful waiting. Presbyterian pastor and scholar Tom Long says, “…when tomorrow is just more of today and all labors of love seem poured into a bottomless pit of human suffering, indifference, and cynicism, then it is hard to march out the front door to be a disciple.” We might be tempted to just settle in and make ourselves comfortable for the long haul. When we bought our house, the previous owners didn’t have keys to give us. Nothing had happened in our neighborhood for so long that they had never locked the doors. We decided to re-key the house and lock the doors – locking them after you’ve been robbed is too late.

Hope is watchful waiting, expecting that at any moment we “may be surprised by the sudden presence of God.” So, what does readiness look like?

Readiness is living as though you believe what you say you hope. God is already bringing about the redemption of this world. We hope to draw near to Jesus not just in the manger, but in his likeness. We hope to welcome Emmanuel, God with us, beyond the never lived-in living rooms of our lives, to welcome him fully into every space of our lives.

Hope is not just looking for the return of Jesus, it is communal watching that requires us to remember the story, to draw near in devotion. It is watching for the dark places of suffering and faithfully hearing and responding to the voices of the vulnerable.

Readiness means doing the work of discipleship, day after day, time after time. It can seem monotonous. Year after year, we do many of the same things we did the year before – we provide a safe, warm place for our unhoused guests to eat and sleep, package 20,000 meals for children’s stomachs to be filled so that their minds are ready to learn, build 4 cisterns for 4 families to have access to clean water year-round, pack hygiene kits and flood buckets for Presbyterian Disaster Relief to deliver to churches in areas that have experienced disaster – flood or hurricane or tornado – so that the neighborhood church can reach out with practical help for their community in need. All year long, the baskets stay out for groceries for Oakland Presbyterian’s 24/7/365 food pantry. We have collections throughout the year for school supplies and uniforms, clothes, household items, toys…whatever Room in the Inn or First Presbyterian Church’s Soup Kitchen and Clothes Closet or, now, Covenant Presbyterian Church ask…we try to respond faithfully to the need.

Watchful waiting requires discipline to resist numbness to seemingly never-ending suffering and pain of our world. This is the message that Matthew is writing for his community as they struggle and suffer driven from their own land now living as unwelcome refugees in a foreign land. Our hope isn’t for God to be our protector and for the dangers and evil of this world to not impact us. Our hope is in Emmanuel, God with us, who comes to us and invites us to draw near, to become like him, to love like him, to allow our hearts to be slowly transformed as we place our trust in sacrifice, in laying down power, in becoming vulnerable. This Advent, may we watchfully wait for our Savior, who comes not in a king’s robes but in a swaddled blanket, not in strength but in weakness, who lies not in a gilded bassinet but in a feeding trough.