Advent Sunday

“May God so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.” I Thess 3.13

My guess is that most of you haven’t been to see the big new apocalyptic disaster film 2012 which was released earlier this month. The posters have the strapline “We were Warned!”

But warned of what? Well warned that the world was more or less going to end in a Doomsday string of cataclysmic disasters in 2012. I won’t bore you with the details, but it could properly spoil the Olympics.

It reminds me of brother George who leads this Christian Sect who are sure that the second coming and the end of the world will be on December 31st at midnight. He and his followers gather on a local hilltop, ready to greet the returning Lord. Midnight comes and they look to the skies – nothing happens. Quarter past midnight – still nothing. 1am – still nothing, even if the Lord were running on European time!

Br George’s followers gradually begin to go back down the hill until only his right hand man is left. At 2am, even he leaves – and as he passes George, he pats him on the shoulder and says “never mind George. It’s not the end of the world.”

It’s Advent Sunday again, the beginning of the Church’s liturgical year: no flowers, no Gloria, we’re wearing sober blue and the choir are singing a lot of unaccompanied plainchant.

And once again we have all these readings about the end of the world, the day of judgement, the parousia – meaning the second coming of Christ, and the apocalypse – the revelation of Christ.

So what is it all about? Men with sandwich boards in Leicester Square proclaiming ‘The End is Nigh’? Will the universe be brought to an abrupt and cataclysmic close?

The Gospel reading from Luke is typical of much apocalyptic writing of the first century. But in Jesus’ words there is more hope than usual, with a purposeful rather than pessimistic view of history.

And there is exhortation included, albeit with an uneasy tension that we still live with: “the end is not yet – don’t believe the prophets of doom” and “these are the end-time signs – like a good boy scout – be prepared!”

I ventured into the foothills of the Atlas mountains last month when I was in Marrakech. As we drove towards them (stopping off at so many of the taxi driver’s cousins who wanted to do us special deals on pots and carpets and Berber coffee tables) we realised that although we could discern the individual peaks we were not always sure which peak was in the foreground and which peak was further off in the background.

The twin peaks of this prophecy of Jesus appear to be the relatively imminent destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD and the more distant close of the age, the Parousia which we still await, his return to earth.

Now which descriptions belong to which event is not at all easy to sort out. Let’s briefly look at that first peak – the destruction of Jerusalem.

And to do that we have to go back to 168BC when Antiochus Epiphanes was King of Syria.

He desecrated the glorious Temple in Jerusalem, setting up an altar to Zeus on the burnt offering altar and sacrificing pigs. It was still raw in the memories of the Jews.

So Jesus uses the apocalyptic imagery that calls up the common memory of this horrendous event before he looks forward to an even worse event – the complete destruction of the Temple; and perhaps even further forward to the then unthought of terrors of the holocaust in the 20th century.

And in such days of suffering and confusion, our Lord warns us of false christs and prophets. False christs never seem too difficult to spot – I have had a number of people tell me over the years that they are Jesus Christ – and I have never felt the need to get a second opinion from another priest about them.

But false prophets are altogether harder to identify. Perhaps there is something in the way that they parade their miracles and signs and wonders. It is significant that Jesus never ‘did tricks’ or performed miracles on demand.

The apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, wisely left out of the New Testament canon, has Jesus making clay pigeons and throwing them in the air where they spring into life. Jesus never uses signs and wonders to compel faith or confound sceptics. They spring from compassion for the sick and needy and are often accompanied by a plea to “tell no one”.

It contrasts starkly with some of the tele-evangelists and miracle workers who are still busy around the Christian world.

But let’s move on to the verses we read today.

They are full of familiar Old Testament imagery but also use Jesus’ favourite teaching technique - the parable.

The fig tree is very common in Palestine where most other trees are evergreen. So it is one of the clearest indicators of the passing seasons. Perhaps too Luke is hearkening back to Christ's cursing of the fig tree in an earlier chapter (Luke 11:12-20) which was a pronouncement of judgement on the Temple and religious establishment.

In contrast, the fig tree of this parable is a sign of summer and hope.

In testing and depressing days it’s hard to hold on to hope. (I read on a staff notice board in school: "To make savings during government cut-backs, the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off...")

So Jesus reminds them and us that his words are more certain than the seasons and will endure longer than the physical universe: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. (v.33)

There are still groups of Christians around the world obsessed with trying to predict the date and mechanical niceties of the Second Coming.

Jesus puts an end to all such 'almanac discipleship' by asserting that he, the Son, does not know the timetable, and that if he doesn't know, then no one can know.

The pre-occupation of Christians should be with how to conduct themselves in these end times - between Christ's first coming and his Second Coming – this is the Advent theme.

Now of course some of us have become so blasé about all this that we don’t really believe the words we will say in the Nicene creed in a moment: “And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead.”

If we are theologically minded we may have bought into some form of ‘realised eschatology’ – often attributed to Albert Schweitzer and CH Dodd earlier in the 20th century – the idea that everything has already happened in the first coming of Christ. There’s nothing else to wait for.

But more commonly, we just can’t imagine an ‘end of the world’, and hope it doesn’t come before our holidays!

Scientifically, the world will certainly end, and the earth will collapse into the sun – although not while there is a labour government. And of course, through the good services of technology, we are perfectly capable of destroying all life on the planet ourselves. It’s the stuff all these apocalyptic films and novels are made of.

But this is to miss the point of our Lord’s teaching.

On the ‘how’ or the ‘when’ this parousia will happen, we must remain agnostic. We just don’t know.

Rather it means there should be a sense of 'edge' in our Christian living; a knowledge that we may not have all the time in the world, that we should ‘carpe diem’ – seize the day. We should plan for our spiritual future, by investing spiritually in the present.

Advent is about preparation for the joy of Christmas, and the church and indeed most religions have learnt that the best preparation for a feast is a bit of self-denial and spiritual self-examination.

So spend a little more time on your spiritual disciplines in the next month, in between the office parties and soirees, and see how much more you enjoy Christmas when it comes.

“May God so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.” I Thess 3.13

Living in Between - Sunday after Ascension

LIVING IN BETWEEN

"the end of all things is near..." 1 Peter 4.7

There was an architect, a surgeon, an anaesthetist and a politician, arguing about the nature of God.

“He was clearly a surgeon” said the surgeon. “His first act was removing Adam’s rib to create a woman.”

“Ahhh” said the anaesthetist, “but first he caused a deep sleep to come upon the man. He was an anaesthetist!”

“But that’s Genesis chapter two,” said the architect, “in Genesis chapter one, he first designed and built the universe. He created it out of chaos.”

“And there you have it,” said the politician, “who created that chaos?!”

Well, the waiting of the last few months has ended at last. Boris is our new Mayor. (And that has nothing to do with the choice of my text…)

Of course the speculation has now begun as to who will win the General Election in two years’ time. No sooner one arrival than another destination.

Christians are arguably always caught up in the 'in-between times'. They never arrive. It is in the nature of our faith. And although we would sometimes like to know our future, it is better that we should not know. The Bible tells us all we need to know about the future and about living 'in between'.

First there was the time between the Garden of Eden and the giving of the Law to Moses.

Then between the giving of the Law and the coming of the Messiah, the fulfilment of the Law.

And for the early disciples there was the wait between the events of Holy Week, and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost.

And some years after Pentecost Peter is able to announce that the Church was still 'in between', but that the end was nigh. The apparent delay of the Lord's Second Coming was always a problem for the early church which Peter and Paul sought to address.

So here we are on an 'in-between' Sunday - with Ascension last Thursday and Pentecost still a week away. In the drama of the liturgical year we are to wait until the Spirit comes.

When I was but a young man in Sussex I went with my Pentecostal friends to 'tarrying meetings' - from the words of our Lord to his disciples in Luke's Gospel: "but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." (Lk 24.49) - we were to pray, and wait for the Spirit to fall - or for 9pm - whichever came earliest.

I remember inviting the local Pentecostal pastor to preach at my church in Camberwell and explaining that the service had to finish by noon. He looked at me as if I were mad and exclaimed: "But sometimes the Holy Ghost don't get here till 12.30!"

So was the Holy Spirit inactive until the day of Pentecost? Or to speak of another member of the Trinity, did God the Son do nothing until he was born in Bethlehem?

The revelation of God in Trinity has had particular foci - historical events - over the past five thousand years. But the work of Father, Son and Holy Spirit has been evident, retroactively if you like, throughout all of history.

So before the Law was itemised on Mt Sinai, men and women still had consciences, and societies drew up their own laws. St Paul talks about this in the opening chapters of his letter to the Romans.

And before the saving work of Christ's passion, men and women were still saved through faith in a merciful God. The letter to the Hebrews makes it clear.

And before the day of Pentecost, God's Holy Spirit was at work through prophets and kings, through harlots and pagan dictators. Scripture bears witness to it.

Now on this Sunday in the year of our Lord, 2008, we are in between that first Pentecost nearly 2000 years ago, and the end of the world, or our own death, whichever comes sooner.

Does that mean that we will see nothing of the kingdom of heaven until 'the end of all things', the consummation of the age, the dissolution of the cosmos?

No! Before that time, retroactively, the kingdom of God is the ideal towards which we must struggle. As we will say in a moment: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven."

This was the objective of Adam and Eve as they were cursed and expelled from the garden. They would not re-enter the kingdom of heaven through the garden gate, guarded by the angel with the flaming sword.

They would only move towards paradise regained through the passion of Christ and with the help of the Holy Spirit.

It's not as if God was holding out on everyone until the day of Pentecost. As if he commanded them to love God with heart and soul and mind, and neighbour as self, way back in Deuteronomy; but had no intention of giving them the means to do so for a thousand years!

The in-between times have always been as potent as the special events. Becoming is every bit as important as arriving. All of our life, as human beings, is caught up with 'in between', which is one reason that we are so preoccupied with the passing of time. When we are young we cannot wait till the next event. When we are old we wait with some apprehension for the one and only event left for us.

Peter puts it in these practical words of wisdom: "The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins." (1 Peter 4.7,8)

A consistent theme through Scripture is to live as if life matters; to make our life count for God and for others. In the words of our Lord: "I have come that ye might have life, and have it more abundantly."

Peter's little summary here may be paraphrased that we are to live thoughtfully, prayerfully and lovingly. This will cover a multitude of sins. Sin is that destructive agent at work in our life and in our world. It is trapped in the 'in between' time with us.

But Christ has dealt with sin, and if we will live by the Spirit, then sin will not have dominion over us.

A policeman stops a man driving the wrong way up a one way street. "Didn't you see the arrows?" he asks. The driver replies "I didn't even see the Indians!"

What is important about living in the ‘in between’ time, is seeing the arrows. It is knowing where we have come from and where we are heading. Of course we don't always get it right, which is why we need the constant reminders of which way the arrows are pointing.

The whole of this mass is a restatement of the saving acts of God which punctuate our history and motivate our day by day living 'in between'. And the mass points us to the future - Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.

It is the future, whose power is present now, that draws us on, to the time when there will be no more 'in between'; to the eternity of God.

Meanwhile, we are the 'becoming' ones, always growing and moving on. I'm reminded of that now rather quaint description of this process as it is described in the 1920s children's story The Velveteen Rabbit by Marjory Williams:

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse.
"You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Margery Williams
The Velveteen Rabbit, Heinemann 1989 (1922)

In the 'in between' we are becoming - drawing closer to Christ personally, and trying to shape our society on the coming kingdom principles of justice and mercy.

Christian hope is the ability to hear the music of the future.

Faith is the courage to dance to it in the present.

"The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins." (1 Peter 4.7,8)

The Lamb Blake/Tavener

The Lamb

Trinity 2 & Adult Baptism

In the order of service sheet:

The Lamb

Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice:
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee

Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.

And mentioned in the sermon

The Tyger

Tyger Tyger. burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes!
On what wings dare he aspire!
What the hand, dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger, Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!” Revelation 4.12

My maternal grandmother lived with us until she died. I remember asking my mother when I was about 11, what granny Steele’s maiden name was. “Steele”, my mother replied somewhat curtly. In what was probably one of my last acts of childhood innocence I reasoned out loud: “so she was called Steele and then she married someone called Steele.”

I won’t give you my mother’s exact words of reply, but it was a strong suggestion that I was stupid and that I should grow up. Of course, it was unthinkable to me that this little old lady had conceived 3 children out of wedlock in the 1910s.

I began to realise that the world of adults was anything but straightforward, and that many things, in my family, among the neighbours, at church, were not what they seemed to be. And, horror of horrors, neither was I.

Loss of innocence is a gradual process, but most of us can remember some defining moments. The Bible traces the loss of innocence of Adam and Eve in the Garden, through the violence and injustice of tribal humanity that culminates in the death of the one innocent man – our Lord Jesus Christ - to the final book, Revelation, which looks to a new and different age of innocence.

In my sermon this week and in a fortnight’s time, I want to explore this Bible theme through the offertory motets. Today it is William Blake’s The Lamb.

William Blake was absorbed by this idea of loss of innocence. He grew up during the turbulent 18th C, with all the uncertainties of revolution and war in Europe. He was a London journeyman engraver. But he was more than that. He was an artist and a free thinker. His Christian views were shaped by his own mystical visions and a strange romantic mythology that he developed in his later writings.

When he was barely 30 in 1789 he published his first, very unusual book, comprising 31 colour plates of poems intertwined with design and illustrations. It was called Songs of Innocence and was influenced by Rousseau’s belief that children are free and innocent until society corrupts them.

But in Blake’s peculiar belief system, there was also a more traditional Christian understanding of a fallen creation. Blake and his wife, practised nudism, as a gesture towards returning to the innocence of Adam and Eve. They would have been at home with the 1000 naked cyclists who were here yesterday!

In the early church, baptismal candidates, both children and adults, went naked into the waters, and were then clothed in white as they emerged to a new innocence in Christ – it is a theme in the baptismal liturgy. (Time will not permit me to tell you of an adult baptism by immersion that I carried out while wearing white, designer cotton trousers, which turned transparent as I walked down into the water of the baptistry!)

In The Lamb, Blake draws a picture of an innocent child... and of an innocent God. The engraved and then painted illustration in his book shows a small naked, androgynous child, talking with an attentive lamb, in a rustic setting.

Here are two of God’s creations, harmlessly wandering in a paradisial idyll - “and was the holy Lamb of God on England’s pleasant pastures seen?” - well here, at least, it was.

Christ became a little child, and became known as the Lamb of God, meek and mild. Blake wonders at the beauty and simplicity of it all; the resonances between Creator and created; the sheer grace of God experienced in the delight of nature.

The child senses his kinship with the Lamb and all creation, and with the great God who made them all, and yet who is immanent within his world, walking in the garden with his creation. The child sends up the simplest of innocent prayers - “Little Lamb, God bless thee!”

This is the sweet innocence that haunts us throughout our adult life. If only our life could be full of simple pleasures and simple childlike trust. But it’s not.

Blake was wrestling with those age-old questions:

How do we retain our innocence, and yet grow up and gain experience?
How do we gain worldly-wiseness, and yet retain a childlike trust and sense of wonder?
How can God be all loving and all good, and yet create a world red in tooth and claw?

In 1794 Blake published Songs of Experience. The perspective of the child in Songs of Innocence is now replaced with the perspective of an older and more bitter man, who has seen the evils and suffering of the world. The poems in these two volumes run in loose parallel and the corresponding poem to The Lamb is The Tyger. (Which Tavener also set in a complementary setting to The Lamb.)

Who dared frame the tiger’s ‘fearful symmetry’? Was it the same God who made the little lamb?

Blake is unequivocal in his answer. Yes, it is the same God. There is no escape into a dualism which places blame elsewhere – in some other god of chaos. Luther’s striking words encapsulate the problem for Christians:

“Always remember the devil is God’s devil!”

The Tyger is about having your reason overwhelmed at once by the beauty and the horror of the natural world. "When the stars threw down their spears / And watered heaven with their tears" – a couplet from The Tyger.

For Blake, the stars represent cold reason and objective science. Blake greatly appreciated the explosion of scientific knowledge during his era, but he was hostile to any attempts to reduce all phenomena to chemistry and physics – such as we see in the current writings of Richard Dawkins.

Blake's contemporary "rationalists" who had hoped for a tame, gentle world guided by kindness and understanding must face the reality of the tiger.

To change the historic setting to our own, postmodernity with its ironic and wry take on the world has nothing to say to the jackboot or to the brutal rawness of nature. It has no power to tame the tiger within or the tiger without. Pure rationalism, the enlightenment project, has failed. As all the recent surveys show, human beings are irrepressibly religious. There is more to life than what we see, and it is that which humanises us and gives us hope for a second innocence.

John Tavener, who composed the musical setting of Blake’s poem, is a Russian orthodox convert and is making a similar point as he describes the icon-like nature of his compositions:

'There is in ikons an uncontrolled wildness, a coarseness almost, a deep sense of the untamed ferocity of the desert… I try to recreate today in my music just this uncivilised and surrealistic wildness'.

Our text today, comes from a passage which attempts to paint an impressionistic picture to help us in our understanding of innocence and experience. In the Revelation of St John the Divine we see the central figure as the Lamb, slain yet standing.

John has in his mind the writings of the Old Testament pseudepigraphal book, the Testament of Joseph (19.8f), in which the lion and the lamb appear together: the Lion is the Messiah from Judah and the Lamb is the Messiah from Aaron. And in this Testament of Joseph, the Lion and Lamb are not contrasting figures, they are different ways of looking at the same victorious and righteous God.

St John takes the conflation of the images one step further and proclaims Christ as both priest and victim; Passover lamb of sacrifice and the Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes who opens the seals and judges the world; the crucified, risen and ascended Lord, the lion of Judah.

There is no loss of innocence in Christ, only a carrying forward of that innocence into experience. ‘He who knew no sin became sin for us’ as Scripture puts it.

And so the Christian path becomes for us not so much a loss of innocence - our childhood is still with us, sometimes in very positive, and sometimes in very destructive ways – not loss, but a maturing of innocence.

In Emperor Constantine’s time, the 4th century, it was common practice to delay baptism until the deathbed, in the hope of passing through death in pristine innocence.

This was a mistaken understanding of baptism and forgiveness. Rather, as baptized Christians we must persevere until that time, after death, when we join all those who have struggled through innocence and experience, both in themselves and in their understanding of God.

Here in this life, we must keep on trusting even when our trust is sometimes rejected.

We must keep on loving, even when the love is not returned.

We must keep on forgiving, even as God constantly forgives us.

Then, in the life after death, at last our innocence will be restored and will make perfect sense of all our experience, and of all that we do not understand about God. Then we will join the unnumbered host and proclaim:

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!”

Advent Apocalypse

Advent Apocalypse

“…you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Cor 1.7

So Brother George leads this Christian Sect who are sure that the second coming and the end of the world will be on December 31st at midnight. He and his followers gather on a local hilltop, ready to greet the returning Lord. Midnight comes and they look to the skies – nothing happens. Quarter past midnight – still nothing. 1am – still nothing. Br George’s followers gradually begin to go back down the hill until only his right hand man is left. At 2am, even he leaves – and as he passes George, he pats him on the shoulder and says “never mind George. It’s not the end of the world.”

It’s Advent Sunday again, the beginning of the Church’s liturgical year, and once again we have all these readings about the end of the world, the day of judgement, the parousia – meaning the second coming of Christ, the apocalypse – the revelation of Christ.

And what is it all about? Men with sandwich boards in Leicester Square proclaiming ‘The End is Nigh’? Will the universe be brought to an abrupt and cataclysmic close?

Reading through Mark’s gospel, the chapter from which today’s Gospel is taken, comes like a bolt out of the blue. Everything has been fairly straightforward in this shortest, probably earliest and almost tract-like gospel – the gospel we shall follow through in the Sunday readings for this next year.

Then we hit an apparently impenetrable prophecy full of foreboding, apprehension and warning.

It is sometimes called the Little Apocalypse (the word means ‘revelation’) and is reminiscent of the sort of language and imagery found in parts of Daniel (quoted in vv. 14, 19, 26) or in the book of Revelation. There are many shared characteristics of apocalyptic writing, although these words of Jesus, probably collected together by Mark from a number of his sayings over the years, also show some distinctive differences.

There is more hope than usual, with a purposeful rather than pessimistic view of history. And there is exhortation included, albeit with an uneasy tension that we still live with: “the end is not yet - do nothing” and “these are the end-time signs - act and don’t be caught off guard.”

As you stand and look at very distant mountains, you can discern the peaks but are not always sure which peak is in the foreground and which peak is further off in the background. The twin peaks of this prophecy appear to be the relatively imminent destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD (I think Mark was writing some years before this event) and the more distant close of the age, the Parousia which we still await.

Now which descriptions belong to which event is not at all easy to sort out. Before we look at the verses in today’s Gospel, let’s just spend a moment on that first peak – the destruction of Jerusalem.

In 168BC Antiochus Epiphanes, King of Syria, desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem, setting up an altar to Zeus on the burnt offering altar and sacrificing pigs. This is often seen as the fulfilment of Daniel’s prophecy concerning the Abomination of Desolation (Daniel 12:11) Luke’s version (21:20) mentions more explicitly the King’s armies that surrounded the city.

Jesus uses the same language here (v.14) and calls up the common memory of this horrendous event before he looks forward to an even worse destruction of the Temple, and perhaps even further forward to the then unknown terrors of the 20th century holocaust.

And in such days of suffering and confusion, our Lord warns us of false christs and prophets. False Christ’s never seem too difficult to spot – I have had a number of people tell me over the years that they are Jesus Christ – and I have never felt the need to take advice on their claims.

But false prophets are altogether harder to identify. Perhaps there is something in the way that they parade their miracles and signs and wonders. It is significant that Jesus never ‘did tricks’ or performed miracles on demand.

The apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, wisely left out of the New Testament canon, has Jesus, as a boy, making clay pigeons and throwing them in the air where they spring into life. Jesus never uses signs and wonders to compel faith or confound sceptics. They spring from compassion for the sick and needy and are often accompanied by a plea to “tell no one”.

It contrasts starkly with some of the tele-evangelists and miracle workers who are still busy around the Christian world.

But let’s move on to the verses we read today.

They are full of familiar Old Testament imagery, where Jesus uses phrases from Isaiah (13:10; 34:4), moving on now from the nearer events of the destruction of the Temple, to describe the Parousia.

Jesus takes up Daniel's vision of the Son of Man (Daniel 7:13,14) coming in glory from the Ancient of Days with authority over all peoples. And the gloom is touched with the hope of glory (vv.26, 27) for the disciples of Christ in every age.

The fig tree is very common in Palestine where most other trees are evergreen. So it is one of the clearest indicators of the passing seasons. Perhaps too Mark is hearkening back to Christ's cursing of the fig tree (11:12-20) with his pronouncement of judgement on the Temple and religious establishment.

In contrast, the fig tree of this parable is a sign of summer and hope. In testing and depressing days it’s hard to hold on to hope. (I read on a staff notice board in school: "To make savings during government cut-backs, the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off...")

So Jesus reminds them and us that his words are more certain than the seasons and will endure longer than the physical universe.

There are still groups of Christians around the world obsessed with trying to predict the date and mechanical niceties of the Second Coming.

Jesus puts an end to all such 'almanac discipleship' by asserting that he, the Son, does not know the timetable, and that if he doesn't know, then no one can know. The pre-occupation of Christians should be with how to conduct themselves in these end times - between Christ's first coming and his Second Coming – this is the Advent theme.

But then some of us have become so blasé about all this that we don’t really believe the words we will say in the Nicene creed in a moment: “And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead.”

If we are theologically minded we may have bought into some form of ‘realised eschatology’ – often attributed to Albert Schweitzer and CH Dodd – the idea that everything has already happened in the first coming of Christ. There’s nothing else to wait for.

But more commonly, we just can’t imagine an ‘end of the world’, and hope it doesn’t come before our holidays!

Scientifically, the world will certainly end, and the earth will collapse into the sun – although not while there is a labour government. And of course, through the good services of technology, we are perfectly capable of destroying all life on the planet ourselves. It’s the stuff apocalyptic films and novels are made of.

But this is to miss the point of our Lord’s teaching.

On the ‘how’ or the ‘when’ this parousia will happen, we must remain agnostic.

Rather it means there should be a sense of 'edge' in our Christian living; a knowledge that we may not have all the time in the world, that we should ‘carpe diem’ – seize the day. That we should use the spiritual gifts that we have, and following on from last Sunday’s theme, the resources that we have, now while we still have time. We should plan for our spiritual future, by investing spiritually in the present.

Remember that Jesus also used the imagery of watching and waiting for the bridegroom - a much more positive metaphor. It’s like the excitement we feel in the days leading up to the visit of a long-absent and dear friend. Our waking moments are tinged with the inner flutter of anticipation of a joyful reunion.

We can’t permanently live in a state of anticipation – but this Advent season is a reminder that the re-union with our dear friend will happen, sooner or later!

“…you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Immortal Longings, All Saints 2005

Immortal Longings – All Saints

“‘Who are these, robed in white…?’ ‘These are they… who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’” (Rev 7.13f)

‘And what do you want to be when you grow up?’ Every child gets used to that question.

My earliest longings were to be a cowboy - too much Roy Rogers and Lone Ranger!

Then I discovered music and wanted to be a conductor or a famous pianist - and then when I saw it on TV, to be a pianist who conducts from the piano!

And then I longed to be a missionary - my religious phase; and then to be a professor of mathematics - my precocious period.

And the result of all those boyhood dreams? - a Church of England Curate - some might say a combination of all those longings!

It is a part of the human condition to be absorbed by longings and desires. And as we move from childhood to middle age, we fulfil some of those longings, and realise that others are never going to be acjieved.

I know now that I shall never be a bishop by 30.

But we begin also to realise that behind all our desires and longings, there is a deeper longing; at once both inescapable, and unquenchable.

Fergus Kerr, the Regent of Blackfriars, Oxford, has written a fine book with the intriguing title: Immortal Longings (SPCK, 1997).

It looks at the philosophy of Martha Nussbaum, Martin Heidegger, Iris Murdoch... and others, through Barthian spectacles. You will be glad to know that we don’t have time to discuss it this morning.

Suffice it to say, that he examines the various ways in which philosophy has struggled with this universal human longing for transcendence - for the ‘there must be more to life than this’.

In everyday terms, we see it in the realm of beauty and mystery: art, music and the glories of the natural world. There is an inner longing to comprehend their magnificence, which is at times almost painful.

We see it in the realm of love and human intimacy - that too is an immortal longing.

Today’s readings emphasise, in our Lord’s words in the Gospel, that it is the pure in heart who will see God, whose longings will be satisfied. Now this mustn’t be confused on this All Saints day with ‘being good’, never doing anything wrong.

Our texts today makes clear that our robes are dirty – they are made white and clean by the Blood of the Lamb. The Saints are not those who have led blameless lives. They are those who have a pure heart; an attitude of godliness; or as Archbishop Temple put it ‘a passionate aspiration towards the holiness of God’.

Jesus was always concerned with the direction of the heart, the object of our longings. Do we long for God or for self-satisfaction? The Scriptures make clear that everything which stifles immortal longings and turns beauty, mystery, love and sex into objects of their own end, fosters ugliness, bitterness, hatred and violence – and the eclipse of our true selves.

Adam and Eve grasp the object of desire that they might become like gods. Their longing is not for God himself, but to usurp his power. As St Paul describes this human reversal of immortal longings: “claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God... and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator...” (Romans 1.21-25)

Or as Shakespeare puts it in the words of Cleopatra – for Shakespeare struggled with the ambiguity of his own longings: “Give me my robe. Put on my crown. I have Immortal longings in me.” (Antony & Cleopatra, V/ii/283)

And all the Saints, known and unknown have had immortal longings.

It was Pope Gregory III (731-741) who consecrated a chapel in the Basilica of St. Peter to all the saints and fixed the anniversary for 1 November. Until then, only martyrs were regarded as worthy of a place in heaven with the Saints. Gregory IV, a century later, (827-844) extended the celebration on 1 November to the entire Church, although the orthodox still keep it on the first Sunday after Pentecost.

And today we keep it, anticipated from Tuesday, to rejoice with all those with a pure heart who now see God – the object of their life’s deepest desire.

But in the question posed at the beginning of our text today: ‘Who are these, robed in white…?’

Well, the theological world has moved on since Gregory IV and we live, we hope, in a more generous Christian church. The Feast of All Souls which we will keep on Wednesday, was instituted to pray for all those Christian ‘commoners’ who hovered in purgatory, never receiving the Beatific vision of the pure in heart, until we, the church militant, had prayed enough for them; given enough alms; and most important, said enough masses.

But if we answer the question, ‘Who are these, robed in white…?’ in a post-reformation and more biblical way, then there is encouragement for us all.

There is Noah, who found favour in the sight of the Lord, and who shortly after landing the ark, was found naked, drunk and unconscious by his children.

There is Rahab the prostitute who helped the Israeli spies in Jericho, and who finds her way into the genealogy of King David and so of Christ.

There is King David himself, who killed 100 philistines to gain one of his wives; who committed adultery and had the woman’s husband killed; who lied and feigned madness to escape from king Abimelech, and who wrote a Psalm about it which we sang today.
The Old and the New Testament record God’s verdict: “This is a man after my own heart.”

There is the common thief who was crucified next to Christ – “today you will be with me in paradise!”

And seeing some of our friends from St Mary’s Bourne Street here today, there is Mildred Steele – a dear companion whose loss we are mourning.

Any of you who have visited St Mary’s would remember her: the 5 foot Hollywood actress with a ten foot personality; married three times – forty years to her last husband; with many Hollywood adventures recorded in the obituaries last week which recalled her MGM sobriquet, 'the pocket Venus'.

But Mildred had a pure heart, and a deep devotion to Christ, and now her colourful clothes, hardly spotless after 94 years, have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. She has joined the great army of saints triumphant, worshipping the Lamb that was slain, who yet lives.

And so let all our immortal longings, our pure hearts, our singleminded devotion, lead us to the immortal God and his overwhelming love and care for us. Then we will join with All the Saints, as we do this day around this table, and rejoice in the Lamb.

“‘Who are these, robed in white…?’ ‘These are they… who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’” (Rev 7.13f)

Living in Between

Living in Between

"the end of all things is near..." 1 Peter 4.7

A church member who was a devout golfer, getting ready for retirement, came to talk to his priest one day. "Tell me, Father," he demanded, "are there going to be golf courses in heaven? I have to know."

"Well," said his priest, "I'm not really sure, but tonight I'll say a special prayer and see if God will tell me the answer."

The next Sunday, when the service ended and the congregation was shaking hands with the priest on the way out, the golfer cornered him again. "Did you get the answer, Father? Are there going to be golf courses in heaven?"

Well, George," the priest replied, "I've got good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"

"Tell me the good news first," George said.

"The good news is that, yes, there are golf courses in heaven. Beautiful courses, where the sun is always shining, the rough is not too deep, there are no sand traps, and you never have to wait to tee off."
"Hey, that's great!" exclaimed the golfer excitedly. "But what's the bad news?"

"Well, the bad news is that St Peter has you down to tee off this coming Tuesday morning at 8."

Christians are arguably always caught up in the 'in-between times'. They never arrive. It is in the nature of our faith. And although we would sometimes like to know our future, it is better that we should not know. The Bible tells us all we need to know about the future and about living 'in between'.

First there was the time between the Garden of Eden and the giving of the Law to Moses.

Then between the giving of the Law and the coming of the Messiah, the fulfilment of the Law.

And for the early disciples there was the wait between the events of Holy Week, and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost.

And some years after Pentecost Peter is able to announce that the Church was still 'in between', but that the end was nigh. The apparent delay of the Lord's Second Coming was always a problem for the early church which Peter and Paul sought to address.

So here we are on an 'in-between' Sunday - with Ascension last Thursday and Pentecost still a week away. In the drama of the liturgical year we are to wait until the Spirit comes.

When I was but a young man in Sussex I went with my Pentecostal friends to 'tarrying meetings' - from the words of our Lord to his disciples in Luke's Gospel: "but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." (Lk 24.49)

- we were to pray and wait for the Spirit to fall - or for 9pm - whichever came earliest.

I remember inviting the local Pentecostal pastor to preach at my church in Camberwell and explaining that the service had to finish by noon. He looked at me as if I were mad and exclaimed: "But sometimes the Holy Ghost don't get here till 12.30!"

So was the Holy Spirit inactive until the day of Pentecost? Or to put it another way, did God the Son do nothing until he was born in Bethlehem?

The revelation of God in Trinity has had particular foci - historical events - over the past five thousand years. But the work of Father, Son and Holy Spirit has been evident, retroactively if you like, throughout all of history.

So before the Law was itemised on Mt Sinai, men and women still had consciences, and societies drew up their own laws. St Paul talks about this in the opening chapters of his letter to the Romans.

And before the saving work of Christ's passion, men and women were still saved through faith in a merciful God. The letter to the Hebrews makes it clear.

And before the day of Pentecost, God's Holy Spirit was at work through prophets and kings, through harlots and pagan dictators. Scripture bears witness to it.

Now on this Sunday in the year of our Lord, 2004, we are in between that first Pentecost nearly 2000 years ago, and the end of the world, or our own death, whichever comes sooner.

Does that mean that we will see nothing of the kingdom of heaven until 'the end of all things', the consummation of the age, the dissolution of the cosmos?

No! Before that time, retroactively, the kingdom of God is the ideal towards which we must struggle. As we will say in a moment: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven."

This was the objective of Adam and Eve as they were cursed and expelled from the garden. They would not re-enter the kingdom of heaven through the garden gate, guarded by the angel with the flaming sword.

They would only move towards paradise regained through the passion of Christ and with the help of the Holy Spirit.

It's not as if God was holding out on everyone until the day of Pentecost. As if he commanded them to love God with heart and soul and mind, and neighbour as self, way back in Deuteronomy; but had no intention of giving them the means to do so for a thousand years!

The in-between times have always been as potent as the special events. Becoming is every bit as important as arriving. All of our life, as human beings, is caught up with 'in between', which is one reason that we are so preoccupied with the passing of time. When we are young we cannot wait till the next event. When we are old we wait with some apprehension for the one and only event left for us.

Peter puts it in these practical words of wisdom: "The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins." (1 Peter 4.7,8)

A consistent theme through Scripture is to live as if life matters; to make our life count for God and for others. In the words of our Lord: "I have come that ye might have life, and have it more abundantly."

Peter's little summary here may be paraphrased that we are to live thoughtfully, prayerfully and lovingly. This will cover a multitude of sins. Sin is that destructive agent at work in our life and in our world. It is trapped in the 'in between' time with us.

But Christ has dealt with sin, and if we will live by the Spirit, then sin will not have dominion over us.

So Peter calls for 'fervent charity'. This is Paul's song as well - without charity, Christian love, all is a waste of time. If we are thoughtful, and spiritual, then we should judge our words and actions by love. To neglect this divine injunction is to live in a way that leads to destruction - both personal and social.

A policeman stops a man driving the wrong way up a one way street. "Didn't you see the arrows?" he asks. The driver replies "I didn't even see the Indians!"

What is important about living in between time, is seeing the arrows. It is knowing where we have come from and where we are heading. Of course we don't always get it right, which is why we need the constant reminders of which way the arrows are pointing.
The whole of this mass is a restatement of the saving acts of God which punctuate our history and motivate our day by day living 'in between'. And the mass points us to the future - Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.

It is the future, whose power is present now, that draws us on, to the time when there will be no more 'in between'; to the eternity of God.

Meanwhile, we are the 'becoming' ones, always growing and moving on. I'm reminded of that now rather quaint desription of this process as it is described in the 1920s children's story The Velveteen Rabbit by Marjory Williams:

"The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
Margery Williams
The Velveteen Rabbit, Heinemann 1989 (1922)

In the 'in between' we are becoming - drawing closer to Christ personally, and trying to shape our society on the coming kingdom principles of justice and mercy.

Christian hope is the ability to hear the music of the future.
Faith is the courage to dance to it in the present.

In the power of the risen Lord Jesus, may we live wisely in these 'in between' times.