The Signs of Summer
Sermon
Reading The Signs
SERMONS FOR ADVENT, CHRISTMAS AND EPIPHANY (SUNDAYS IN ORDINARY TIME)
The season of Advent is upon us, and with it a spirit of heaviness. It is not the heaviness of Lent, when we are called to sacrifice and repentance, but there is a quality of darkness, nevertheless.
The music of the season shows it; much of it is cast in a minor key. It is the music of longing, hoping, and waiting: "Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here." The music and the mood are of an exile, far from a home never really known, but long and instinctively anticipated.
You and I may have some trouble with this mood - we already know the end of the story. We know that the "long-expected Jesus" has, indeed, come; and that we will soon be singing "Joy to the World!" Furthermore, we live in a culture where celebration is the mood of the season and everyone seems to be occupied with shopping and party-going. It's difficult to take on the mood of mournful waiting - acting as if Jesus had not yet come when, of course, we know that he has come - when we are living on the right side of Calvary and Easter.
If that be so, we can take particular pleasure in our Scripture lesson of the morning. It does not begin that way. To the contrary, the first impact of the passage is one that calls for mourning; it is a warning of coming judgment. A day is coming, Jesus said, when people will be "fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world" - a time of "distress of nations" as they struggle "in perplexity" with what is happening.
The normal reaction to such a scene is somewhere between despair and panic. We expect the populace to hide in terror, or at least to put in a frantic call to the psychiatrist. But Jesus has a better, happier word. "When these things begin to take place," our Lord said, "look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." The unbelieving and the unknowing may cringe with fear, but the people of God should be prepared to shout. The events of such a time are the sound of judgment to secular society; but for believers they are the sound of deliverance.
Then Jesus spoke a one-sentence parable. Look at the fig tree, or any other tree, he said. "As soon as they come out in leaf," you know that "the summer is already near."
So it is that the people of God read the signs of the times. We are not blind to what is happening in our world, and surely we dare not be insensitive to it. But neither do we see the storm clouds as a reason for terror. William Cowper, the eighteenth-century poet who was well-acquainted with inner anxiety, could, nevertheless, exult:
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.
We are not looking for the winter of civilization. Through knowledge which is informed by faith, we see the signs of summer.
Mind you, there will be judgment. Judgment is necessary. A great preacher from earlier in this century, the late Henry Sloane Coffin, once said there is no more comforting text in the entire Bible than this, "Our God is a consuming fire." That's our best promise that we will have a clean earth. It is also good evidence - even if painful - that God cares about our world. If God did not, at times, burn up the rubbish of our willful universe, we would become like a deserted neighborhood where no one bothers to clear away the debris. God loves our world, so he cleanses it. He loves it, and his love shows itself, at times and by necessity, in the consuming fires of judgment.
Judgment is not the end of the story. If our universe were run by blind fate, its judgments would be happenstance and without purpose. Faith tells us that God's judgment is to a worthy end. In 1755, a series of natural and political disasters swept over Europe. The Seven Years' War broke out in June of that year, then poor, harvests and the Lisbon earthquake. A severe cattle plague devastated western Europe. Even the very thoughtful felt that perhaps the end of the world was at hand.
England called a National Fast Day for February 6, 1756, and Charles Wesley - co-founder with his brother John, of the Methodist movement, and the most prolific hymn writer of Christian history - wrote seventeen hymns for the occasion. These hymns are vigorous in their description of the disasters which were then occurring. They portrayed these events as the acts of a "righteous God" who was baring his arm in judgment. But Wesley could write, and the people could sing,
Whatever ills the world befall
A pledge of endless good we call,
A sign of Jesus near.
There might indeed be disaster all around, but the Christian held to God's "pledge of endless good." Though plagues and war threatened, they were nothing more than "a sign of Jesus near."
This is no irrational whistling in the dark. It is not that Christians are naive about life, or that we proceed in a kind of Pollyanna happiness, oblivious to the hard facts of a cruel world. It is just that we possess some other facts, most of which have not occurred to the secular world.
We start with the primary fact of God, and what we believe his character to be. The secular world generally believes in God, but in a remote way. And what is worse, it is inclined to see God as indifferent, at best, and vengeful, at worst.
Christians see God, through the eyes of Jesus, as a benevolent Father, who wills good for his children. Like any truly loving father, God must work within the bounds of discipline and sometimes must reprove us. But his purpose for us and for this world is always good. So we can say, as Charles Wesley did in 1756,
The famine all thy fullness brings,
The plague presents thy healing wings.
We believe, too, that God works purposefully in all that happens in our world. I don't think everything which happens is the will of God; this is a rebellious planet which has given itself over to sin. I do believe that God is able to redeem even the worst of our rebellions and stupidities and to bring good out of them. Perhaps God's grandest and most demanding enterprise is to shape our confusions and errors into patterns of symmetry and beauty. The secular mind looks at all the facts it can see and says, "Life is just one fool thing after another." The believer looks at the same facts, and adds one more: our belief in the character of God and his purposes. With that strategic additional fact in place, we say, "Life is sometimes a confusing combination of circumstances, but God is working with us for good, to bring order out of it all." God has a purpose for our world, and he works through creation and judgment to bring it to pass.
So Jesus looked at the signs of the times and promised that summer was on the way - signs in the heavens, distress of nations, people fainting with fear and foreboding. He said, "Look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." All these signs, Jesus said, are like leaves bursting forth on a fig tree; when you see them, you know that "summer is already near."
This is a good word for our times. It's clear enough that the hearts of many are failing them because of fear, and as we read and hear the daily news, their reaction seems logical. As some clever person recast Kipling's lines long ago, "If you can keep your head while others all around you are losing theirs/Brother, you just don't understand the circumstances." The times are, indeed, frightening. But, at such a time, we offer some additional facts: God, his character, his purposes. God, at work in history. And with it all we say, "Summer is near. Our Lord is at hand."
It is not a complacent word, calculated to make us settle back smugly while others fret and struggle. It is an empowering word, to encourage us to act. Free of paralyzing doubts and shapeless fears, we can stand firm even as we reach out to help others. We are able to contribute to the solution, rather than simply adding to the problem. After all, if anyone should be able to rise above the perils of the times and to help work on a solution, it ought to be the people of faith.
This is also a significant word for us as individuals. Most of our struggle is not with profound cosmic dread, but with the problems of our personal lives. These problems may be as wrenching as bereavement or major surgery; or as upsetting as a divorce or the loss of a job. More often they are those nameless, faceless feelings which seem to come upon us from the blind side, making us feel undone without our knowing why. An insensitive person might suggest that some of our upsets aren't big enough to matter; but, the fact is, when you hurt you hurt and no one from the outside is qualified to say it isn't so.
When we are in the midst of such personal turmoil, we need to remind ourselves that we are a summer people. We do not live with the clenched fists and gritted teeth of despair; we look for summer. We live in a world where God has chosen to manifest himself through his Son, Jesus Christ. It is a world great with promise. We believe that God's purpose for our lives is good; and, though surrounding circumstances may be negative, we expect the good to win. Even in those instances when we are ourselves responsible for our troubles, we still dare to ask God's help in finding our way out.
Usually God's deliverance comes in fairly predictable ways through the help and counsel of friends and a right use of our own ability. But sometimes we enjoy additional marks of God's gracious favor. John Donne, the great seventeenth-century poet-preacher, explained - in one of his poems - that God's heavenly seasons are not limited the way our earthly seasons are. "He can bring thy summer out of winter," Donne exclaimed, "though thou have no spring." We may limit God's grace by assuming he can work only through predictable progressions and developments. Donne insists there are no such boundaries on God: "All occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His seasons."
It is because "all times are His seasons" that Jesus could point to signs which seemed to speak of winter and insist that summer was drawing near. Our Lord is not controlled by the seasons of life; he is Lord of the seasons. He is not victim of our winter of pain and discontent, for all times are his season. When the snow lies heavy on our lives, he can announce that summer is very near. And we, trusting him, can rise up to meet the challenge of the day.
"Look up and raise your heads," Jesus said, "because your redemption is drawing near." Perhaps the music of Advent should have more of that quality - the raised head and the upward look. The child who is on tiptoe in anticipation of Christmas may not be stirred by the highest motives. Yet, that child may be closer to the mood of the season than the person who mourns about the hopelessness of our world. Our redemption is near! How dare we sing sad songs at such a time?
A generation ago a great Scottish preacher, Dr. George Morrison, often walked to a little village in a valley not far from Glasgow. Running into that village were the remains of a wall which the Romans built in the first century. Dr. Morrison said that he liked going there on a Saturday, to ponder that the wall was a strong, new thing when John was writing the Revelation; and, at that time, the church was a little, hunted thing, apparently on its way to extinction.
Who would have guessed, Dr. Morrison said, that centuries later the wall could be only a heap of dust - a kind of historical curiosity - while the church bells would be ringing out, clear and strong, in that tiny village?
Such is the faith to which we are committed, and such is the mood of this season. It is time to lift our heads and sing, for we are preparing again to celebrate the coming of our Lord. We have read the signs of the times and they tell us that summer is near. Whatever we may pass through enroute, and whatever we may be called upon to do in order to save our world, we know the end of the story. We are believers in Jesus Christ, so we know that summer is near.
The music of the season shows it; much of it is cast in a minor key. It is the music of longing, hoping, and waiting: "Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here." The music and the mood are of an exile, far from a home never really known, but long and instinctively anticipated.
You and I may have some trouble with this mood - we already know the end of the story. We know that the "long-expected Jesus" has, indeed, come; and that we will soon be singing "Joy to the World!" Furthermore, we live in a culture where celebration is the mood of the season and everyone seems to be occupied with shopping and party-going. It's difficult to take on the mood of mournful waiting - acting as if Jesus had not yet come when, of course, we know that he has come - when we are living on the right side of Calvary and Easter.
If that be so, we can take particular pleasure in our Scripture lesson of the morning. It does not begin that way. To the contrary, the first impact of the passage is one that calls for mourning; it is a warning of coming judgment. A day is coming, Jesus said, when people will be "fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world" - a time of "distress of nations" as they struggle "in perplexity" with what is happening.
The normal reaction to such a scene is somewhere between despair and panic. We expect the populace to hide in terror, or at least to put in a frantic call to the psychiatrist. But Jesus has a better, happier word. "When these things begin to take place," our Lord said, "look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." The unbelieving and the unknowing may cringe with fear, but the people of God should be prepared to shout. The events of such a time are the sound of judgment to secular society; but for believers they are the sound of deliverance.
Then Jesus spoke a one-sentence parable. Look at the fig tree, or any other tree, he said. "As soon as they come out in leaf," you know that "the summer is already near."
So it is that the people of God read the signs of the times. We are not blind to what is happening in our world, and surely we dare not be insensitive to it. But neither do we see the storm clouds as a reason for terror. William Cowper, the eighteenth-century poet who was well-acquainted with inner anxiety, could, nevertheless, exult:
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.
We are not looking for the winter of civilization. Through knowledge which is informed by faith, we see the signs of summer.
Mind you, there will be judgment. Judgment is necessary. A great preacher from earlier in this century, the late Henry Sloane Coffin, once said there is no more comforting text in the entire Bible than this, "Our God is a consuming fire." That's our best promise that we will have a clean earth. It is also good evidence - even if painful - that God cares about our world. If God did not, at times, burn up the rubbish of our willful universe, we would become like a deserted neighborhood where no one bothers to clear away the debris. God loves our world, so he cleanses it. He loves it, and his love shows itself, at times and by necessity, in the consuming fires of judgment.
Judgment is not the end of the story. If our universe were run by blind fate, its judgments would be happenstance and without purpose. Faith tells us that God's judgment is to a worthy end. In 1755, a series of natural and political disasters swept over Europe. The Seven Years' War broke out in June of that year, then poor, harvests and the Lisbon earthquake. A severe cattle plague devastated western Europe. Even the very thoughtful felt that perhaps the end of the world was at hand.
England called a National Fast Day for February 6, 1756, and Charles Wesley - co-founder with his brother John, of the Methodist movement, and the most prolific hymn writer of Christian history - wrote seventeen hymns for the occasion. These hymns are vigorous in their description of the disasters which were then occurring. They portrayed these events as the acts of a "righteous God" who was baring his arm in judgment. But Wesley could write, and the people could sing,
Whatever ills the world befall
A pledge of endless good we call,
A sign of Jesus near.
There might indeed be disaster all around, but the Christian held to God's "pledge of endless good." Though plagues and war threatened, they were nothing more than "a sign of Jesus near."
This is no irrational whistling in the dark. It is not that Christians are naive about life, or that we proceed in a kind of Pollyanna happiness, oblivious to the hard facts of a cruel world. It is just that we possess some other facts, most of which have not occurred to the secular world.
We start with the primary fact of God, and what we believe his character to be. The secular world generally believes in God, but in a remote way. And what is worse, it is inclined to see God as indifferent, at best, and vengeful, at worst.
Christians see God, through the eyes of Jesus, as a benevolent Father, who wills good for his children. Like any truly loving father, God must work within the bounds of discipline and sometimes must reprove us. But his purpose for us and for this world is always good. So we can say, as Charles Wesley did in 1756,
The famine all thy fullness brings,
The plague presents thy healing wings.
We believe, too, that God works purposefully in all that happens in our world. I don't think everything which happens is the will of God; this is a rebellious planet which has given itself over to sin. I do believe that God is able to redeem even the worst of our rebellions and stupidities and to bring good out of them. Perhaps God's grandest and most demanding enterprise is to shape our confusions and errors into patterns of symmetry and beauty. The secular mind looks at all the facts it can see and says, "Life is just one fool thing after another." The believer looks at the same facts, and adds one more: our belief in the character of God and his purposes. With that strategic additional fact in place, we say, "Life is sometimes a confusing combination of circumstances, but God is working with us for good, to bring order out of it all." God has a purpose for our world, and he works through creation and judgment to bring it to pass.
So Jesus looked at the signs of the times and promised that summer was on the way - signs in the heavens, distress of nations, people fainting with fear and foreboding. He said, "Look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." All these signs, Jesus said, are like leaves bursting forth on a fig tree; when you see them, you know that "summer is already near."
This is a good word for our times. It's clear enough that the hearts of many are failing them because of fear, and as we read and hear the daily news, their reaction seems logical. As some clever person recast Kipling's lines long ago, "If you can keep your head while others all around you are losing theirs/Brother, you just don't understand the circumstances." The times are, indeed, frightening. But, at such a time, we offer some additional facts: God, his character, his purposes. God, at work in history. And with it all we say, "Summer is near. Our Lord is at hand."
It is not a complacent word, calculated to make us settle back smugly while others fret and struggle. It is an empowering word, to encourage us to act. Free of paralyzing doubts and shapeless fears, we can stand firm even as we reach out to help others. We are able to contribute to the solution, rather than simply adding to the problem. After all, if anyone should be able to rise above the perils of the times and to help work on a solution, it ought to be the people of faith.
This is also a significant word for us as individuals. Most of our struggle is not with profound cosmic dread, but with the problems of our personal lives. These problems may be as wrenching as bereavement or major surgery; or as upsetting as a divorce or the loss of a job. More often they are those nameless, faceless feelings which seem to come upon us from the blind side, making us feel undone without our knowing why. An insensitive person might suggest that some of our upsets aren't big enough to matter; but, the fact is, when you hurt you hurt and no one from the outside is qualified to say it isn't so.
When we are in the midst of such personal turmoil, we need to remind ourselves that we are a summer people. We do not live with the clenched fists and gritted teeth of despair; we look for summer. We live in a world where God has chosen to manifest himself through his Son, Jesus Christ. It is a world great with promise. We believe that God's purpose for our lives is good; and, though surrounding circumstances may be negative, we expect the good to win. Even in those instances when we are ourselves responsible for our troubles, we still dare to ask God's help in finding our way out.
Usually God's deliverance comes in fairly predictable ways through the help and counsel of friends and a right use of our own ability. But sometimes we enjoy additional marks of God's gracious favor. John Donne, the great seventeenth-century poet-preacher, explained - in one of his poems - that God's heavenly seasons are not limited the way our earthly seasons are. "He can bring thy summer out of winter," Donne exclaimed, "though thou have no spring." We may limit God's grace by assuming he can work only through predictable progressions and developments. Donne insists there are no such boundaries on God: "All occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His seasons."
It is because "all times are His seasons" that Jesus could point to signs which seemed to speak of winter and insist that summer was drawing near. Our Lord is not controlled by the seasons of life; he is Lord of the seasons. He is not victim of our winter of pain and discontent, for all times are his season. When the snow lies heavy on our lives, he can announce that summer is very near. And we, trusting him, can rise up to meet the challenge of the day.
"Look up and raise your heads," Jesus said, "because your redemption is drawing near." Perhaps the music of Advent should have more of that quality - the raised head and the upward look. The child who is on tiptoe in anticipation of Christmas may not be stirred by the highest motives. Yet, that child may be closer to the mood of the season than the person who mourns about the hopelessness of our world. Our redemption is near! How dare we sing sad songs at such a time?
A generation ago a great Scottish preacher, Dr. George Morrison, often walked to a little village in a valley not far from Glasgow. Running into that village were the remains of a wall which the Romans built in the first century. Dr. Morrison said that he liked going there on a Saturday, to ponder that the wall was a strong, new thing when John was writing the Revelation; and, at that time, the church was a little, hunted thing, apparently on its way to extinction.
Who would have guessed, Dr. Morrison said, that centuries later the wall could be only a heap of dust - a kind of historical curiosity - while the church bells would be ringing out, clear and strong, in that tiny village?
Such is the faith to which we are committed, and such is the mood of this season. It is time to lift our heads and sing, for we are preparing again to celebrate the coming of our Lord. We have read the signs of the times and they tell us that summer is near. Whatever we may pass through enroute, and whatever we may be called upon to do in order to save our world, we know the end of the story. We are believers in Jesus Christ, so we know that summer is near.
