Have you ever gone into McDonald’s and had the person selling you hamburgers ask you about the Second Coming of Jesus? I did—not in the Winnetka McDonald’s, they wouldn’t dare! In fact, I well remember picking up the New York Times in the 80’s and reading an article about the famous Winnetka’s McDonald’s. Other than a college friend named Frank Fowle who grew up in Winnetka, that’s about all I knew of Winnetka: namely, it was a very un-McDonald’s kind of place. In any event, the young woman who was serving me at the McDonald’s in Meriden, Connecticut had no such constraints after taking my money for a Quarter Pounder with cheese and asking, “Do you believe in the Rapture?” Frankly, I didn’t have a clue what the Rapture was other than that it probably had something to do with the Second Coming of Jesus. I have since learned that it’s not a word used in the Bible but is a word used to describe the descent of Jesus and the ascent of faithful Christians prior to a 1,000-year reign of Christ that will precede the end of time. In any event, I mumbled something about thinking it would be obvious when Jesus returned and then took my Quarter Pounder and fled.
Now in Meriden, Connecticut in the 70’s—that’s when this happened—there were a number of young adults who had been swept off their feet by a short Jewish man from the Bronx named Brother Julius who claimed he was the Second Coming of Jesus, that he was Jesus. I suspect that my McDonald’s encounter was with one of his followers. In any event, the clergy support group that I met with decided that we wanted to meet Brother Julius. What if he really was Jesus? Shouldn’t we as clergy be on the lookout for Jesus? And so we did meet with him, and he brought two of his apostles. He had, appropriately, twelve of them, just like the first Jesus. And he had purportedly healed many young adults of their drug use. Brother Julius was very impressive in his ability to quote Scripture, as of course he should be as it was all written about him. After our meeting with him we concluded that Brother Julius was probably not Jesus and the only question was whether he really thought he was in which case he was delusional, or whether he was only pretending to be, in which case he was a charlatan.
On this first Sunday of Advent you and I are asked to keep an eye out for Jesus. We say that this is our church calendar’s new year but we focus on things we believe might happen at the end of time. It’s a hard concept to grasp. Perhaps that’s why Scripture says that we shouldn’t try to guess when that time is but just to be ready for it. [Lane Denson wrote]
The cosmologists tell us that if we look through the great Hubble telescope floating weightlessly out there around us, not only may we see all the way out to the edge of Space, but as well, to the edge of Time. The reason for this, we’ve learned is that Space and Time are two sides of the same coin and are actually created simultaneously and inseparably in such a way that one simply may not exist apart from the other.
Do you get that? Unless you aspire to astrophysics or cosmology it might be better to simply shake your head in wonder at the notion of a universe which is for all practical purposes infinite but which, we are told, curves back upon itself. Better, perhaps, to wonder how it is that God loved this tiny speck of dust we call the Earth so much that God’s self in the person of Jesus was born to save us, lived and died to save us, was raised from the dead to save us, and will come again to save us.
Of course the timing of this season of Advent at least for the northern hemisphere couldn’t be better. It’s dark at this time of year and getting darker. Depressing, really. Frankly I think that’s why we allow the mall madness to grip us because we’re so desperate for light and joy and merriment quite apart from wanting to participate in the kind of economy that will get the stock market back on track. I think we tend to ward off the demons of loneliness or fear, disease even, with a frantic push toward Christmas.
Advent, however, at least as it is envisioned in church, is a more sober, reflective time when we light one candle per Sunday and keep our eyes open for Jesus. Who knows how he’ll reveal himself? Two thousand years ago it was in the form of a tiny child and we celebrate that well enough at Christmas. But as we anticipate that celebration we have lots of opportunities to find him in unexpected places but places very nearby and ordinary: maybe in that one candle we’ve lit, maybe in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, maybe in the Christmas card you didn’t expect, maybe in a prayer you found yourself offering God at an unexpected time, maybe sitting right next to you, maybe even right now.
We don’t need to wait until the end of time to find Jesus. But we need to be in practice. Amen.
