Things can happen very quickly, and in an instant life is changed. God come into lives very quickly. It is for us now, to discern the present, to seek to understand the desire of God, and how God is moving in our lives.
“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.” [Matt. 24: 37-39.]
Immediately after Rose-Mary was born they took her and I down the corridor to another smaller room where they weighed her and checked her spine and gave her a vitamin K injection, and then they left us alone, just Rose-Mary and I. I sat there with this small baby in my arms for about one hour, or maybe more, until we were able to go up to see Peta-Gai. But here I was, my first child, an inexperienced father, and what do you do with a brand new baby for one whole hour? Well I just sat there with Rose-Mary rugged up in my arms and as I did, in that moment of time, I knew life would never be the same again. One minute everything is just as it has been for ages, and the next minute life is completely changed. Of course we had been preparing for it, doing all the things that one does, but without the baby, it seems a little strange, a little early, a little unnecessary. And even when we had been preparing for it, life was still as it had been for years; we got to sleep in, to eat out, and to stay up late. One minute everything is just as it has been for ages, and the next minute, as I was nursing Rose-Mary, I knew life was completely changed.
Well there is an echo in my story of the passage we read today when Jesus explains that the coming of the Son of Man will be like the story from the Hebrew scriptures of Noah and the people. All the people who surrounded Noah were attending to their daily lives and routines, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. Noah was preparing for the coming of some heavy rain, and all there was, was one little cloud over in the corner of the sky. And throughout the story of Noah there is the niggling curiosity, as to how it must have seemed a little strange, a little early, a little unnecessary to be building a boat in the drought. You can imagine that one night there was an almighty clap of thunder and the rain began to pour down and run all over the ground and begin to flood, and in one moment everyone knew that life was about to change and that things were not going to be as they had been before. In one moment Noah Knew his life had changed and that his preparation had been necessary after all.
As we are now in Advent, and the first Sunday of Advent, we are at the time when we remind ourselves of those who waited for the coming God into their lives and world, sometimes with dramatic expectations.
Today’s passage has, as Christ told, the story of times past, oral accounts of the days of Noah, when life suddenly changed, and it compares those days of Noah to the coming of the Son of Man, or the second coming, which the New Testament writers thought would be within their own life times, and would happen suddenly. As we heard from Paul’s letter to the Romans, …” 11 … you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 12 the night is far gone, the day is near…” [Romans 13: 11-14.] Today’s passage has of course those images of the future too, things of days to come: “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….” Of course these words have captured many minds, and given some Christians a sense of doom, judgment, and the expectation of the imminent return of God in some way. I’m going to play you an older 1970’s song that reflects such a theology.
[Larry Norman – I wish we’d all been ready…]
As the early church waited for the return of Christ, so as Christians we are a people who wait with expectation, hope and anticipation and look for God’s continued presence in this world, but it is important that we wait not simply with our eyes fixed on tomorrow; we need to be a people who have hope for today, and look to the ways in which God is present with us now. The presence of God breaks into our lives as suddenly as the rain started falling for Noah, as suddenly as Luke wrote about the coming of the Lord where Jesus says, “keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” And as suddenly as God touches our lives, so does God also touch our lives unexpectedly. He touches our lives in unexpected ways. No body ever thought that the Messiah would be born into poverty. No body ever expected that the Messiah would be crucified. God is not as the world may have always expected. And so we should seek to understand that God will work in our lives, even in ways that we may not expect, or in ways that we may not have planned.
There is a saying that ‘hindsight, is the best sight of all.’ We all look back over life and think from time to time of events that happened, missed opportunities, what we did, and where we were. It is an important part of our faith as Christians to look back over our lives and to remember those times when God lifted us up, when God was present, when maybe our hope in God was all we had. After all this way of thinking is much the same as most of the Old Testament – reflecting on the way God has been with us from generation to generation. But another, far harder, aspect of the Christian faith is to look at the present time and discern what God is saying to us today, and how God is moving in our lives, in these days.
It was in discerning the present, that Mary and Joseph prepared for the coming of the Messiah.
It was in discerning the present, that people were able to follow Jesus as the Messiah throughout his life.
And it is for us now, to discern the present, to seek to understand the desire of God, and how God is moving in our lives.
Just like when you land with a baby in your lap for the first time, or just like when it rained in the story of Noah, or just like when we look to the coming of the Messiah. Things can happen very quickly, and in an instant life is changed. But it is also easy to miss these events, just as many missed believing in the arrival of the Messiah, Jesus the Christ.
Just before I finish, let’s spend a moment in silence, thinking how God might be speaking to you in your life today.
Advent is a time when we look to celebrating the coming of the Messiah, the birth of Christ Jesus, but Advent is a time to when we look to consider how God comes to us, in our lives, in these days, and the call he has placed upon us. Things can happen very quickly, and in an instant life is changed. The coming of God into life happens very quickly. It is for us now, to discern the present, to seek to understand the desire of God, and how God is moving in our lives, and to be open to his constant coming.
And so we celebrate Advent.
Amen.