A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 23,

2018

St. Dunstan’s Anglican Church, Largo, FL

The Very Reverend J. Michael Strachan

Luke 1:39-55

You may have noticed that something

is missing in the story of Advent and Christmas as it’s told by the lectionary that the Church gives to us. We began a

new church year with Advent, and with the new year starts a new year in the

lectionary. This is year C, that’s the year we

focus on the Gospel of Luke, and so far we’ve heard in the Gospel readings

Jesus’ warning to be ready when the Son of Man comes, Luke’s announcement that

John the Baptist is the prophet who would prepare the way of the Lord, and Zechariah’s

song to the same effect.  We’ve

heard John’s warning to his contemporaries about the wrath to come, and today,

we’ve heard Mary’s song about the great reversal that is coming upon the world,

and how John lept for joy in Elizabeth’s womb because of who he sensed was

growing in Mary’s body. On Christmas Eve we will hear of angels and shepherds,

and on Christmas morning we will hear of John’s great theological explanation

of the word made flesh. But there is still something missing in this story.

You see, there’s something crucial

to the story of Advent and crucial to the story of Christmas that doesn’t

happen in either of these seasons. And if we don’t keep this in mind as we

approach Christmas, we will be in danger of thinking and speaking about Christmas

in a way that’s theologically contrary to some of our other well held Christian

beliefs.  What’s missing from our

readings about Advent and Christmas is an event that we won’t celebrate for

another three months. Or to be more

precise, we should have celebrated it nine months ago, although I cannot

remember if we did. My guess is probably not, or Fr. Chuck might have

celebrated it on a Wednesday morning. If we didn’t, that’s my fault and my

failure, and it’s something we are going to correct this year for sure.

The day that’s missing in our story

of Advent and Christmas is the Annunciation of Our Lord to Blessed Virgin Mary,

which the church celebrates on March 25th, exactly nine months

before our celebration of Christmas. And this principal feast day of the

Christian church matters not because it’s the date on which this biblical event

happened, but because of what it says about life beginning not at birth, but

nine months before.  You see, if we get

too caught up on the correlation between the Incarnation and Christmas, we

undercut our own beliefs about life. And that’s made clear in our reading this

morning because John leaps in Elizabeth’s womb because, as Elizabeth says to

Mary, “blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

So points number one and two are

(1) remember this Christmas that the life of the Incarnation doesn’t begin on

Christmas morning but it begins nine months earlier when the Holy Spirit

overshadowed the Blessed Virgin Mary, and she conceived a son. And (2) this is

why we need the church calendar in its

fullness to tell us the full story theological story of our redemption. So, I’m

committing to you that not only will we celebrate every single one of the

Principal Feasts of the Church whether they fall on a Sunday or not, which we

should already be doing, but we’re going to work on celebrating more of the

Festivals as well. And just as a reminder, the Annunciation is a principal

feast just like Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. It’s one of the highest days

on the church calendar, and we need that calendar to help properly orient

ourselves theologically in the story of our redemption.

The other thing that we can help

orient ourselves theologically in the regular cycle of the ecclesial calendar

is daily prayer. As I mentioned, the church year has just begun a new, and in

about a week the secular calendar will reset as well. This start to a new year is a wonderful time to refocus yourself on

prayer. I was reminded this week in a call on a conference call with our Bishop

that daily pra

A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 23,

2018

St. Dunstan’s Anglican Church, Largo, FL

The Very Reverend J. Michael Strachan

Luke 1:39-55

You may have noticed that something

is missing in the story of Advent and Christmas as it’s told by the lectionary that the Church gives to us. We began a

new church year with Advent, and with the new year starts a new year in the

lectionary. This is year C, that’s the year we

focus on the Gospel of Luke, and so far we’ve heard in the Gospel readings

Jesus’ warning to be ready when the Son of Man comes, Luke’s announcement that

John the Baptist is the prophet who would prepare the way of the Lord, and Zechariah’s

song to the same effect.  We’ve

heard John’s warning to his contemporaries about the wrath to come, and today,

we’ve heard Mary’s song about the great reversal that is coming upon the world,

and how John lept for joy in Elizabeth’s womb because of who he sensed was

growing in Mary’s body. On Christmas Eve we will hear of angels and shepherds,

and on Christmas morning we will hear of John’s great theological explanation

of the word made flesh. But there is still something missing in this story.

You see, there’s something crucial

to the story of Advent and crucial to the story of Christmas that doesn’t

happen in either of these seasons. And if we don’t keep this in mind as we

approach Christmas, we will be in danger of thinking and speaking about Christmas

in a way that’s theologically contrary to some of our other well held Christian

beliefs.  What’s missing from our

readings about Advent and Christmas is an event that we won’t celebrate for

another three months. Or to be more

precise, we should have celebrated it nine months ago, although I cannot

remember if we did. My guess is probably not, or Fr. Chuck might have

celebrated it on a Wednesday morning. If we didn’t, that’s my fault and my

failure, and it’s something we are going to correct this year for sure.

The day that’s missing in our story

of Advent and Christmas is the Annunciation of Our Lord to Blessed Virgin Mary,

which the church celebrates on March 25th, exactly nine months

before our celebration of Christmas. And this principal feast day of the

Christian church matters not because it’s the date on which this biblical event

happened, but because of what it says about life beginning not at birth, but

nine months before.  You see, if we get

too caught up on the correlation between the Incarnation and Christmas, we

undercut our own beliefs about life. And that’s made clear in our reading this

morning because John leaps in Elizabeth’s womb because, as Elizabeth says to

Mary, “blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

So points number one and two are

(1) remember this Christmas that the life of the Incarnation doesn’t begin on

Christmas morning but it begins nine months earlier when the Holy Spirit

overshadowed the Blessed Virgin Mary, and she conceived a son. And (2) this is

why we need the church calendar in its

fullness to tell us the full story theological story of our redemption. So, I’m

committing to you that not only will we celebrate every single one of the

Principal Feasts of the Church whether they fall on a Sunday or not, which we

should already be doing, but we’re going to work on celebrating more of the

Festivals as well. And just as a reminder, the Annunciation is a principal

feast just like Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. It’s one of the highest days

on the church calendar, and we need that calendar to help properly orient

ourselves theologically in the story of our redemption.

The other thing that we can help

orient ourselves theologically in the regular cycle of the ecclesial calendar

is daily prayer. As I mentioned, the church year has just begun a new, and in

about a week the secular calendar will reset as well. This start to a new year is a wonderful time to refocus yourself on

prayer. I was reminded this week in a call on a conference call with our Bishop

that daily pra

A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent, December 9, 2018

St. Dunstan’s Anglican Church, Largo, FL

The Very Reverend J. Michael Strachan

Malachi 3:1-4; the Benedictus (Luke 1:68-79); Luke 3:1-6

I want to talk this morning about

the way New Testament Christology functions because I think this is important

for us to understand and because this topic directly relates to Advent. But,

first, let me clarify what I mean by New Testament Christology. What I have in

mind for this morning is the question of how the New Testament authors conceive

of the divine identity of Jesus of Nazareth. To put it another way, I want us

to consider why the New Testament authors thought that Jesus was divine and how

they show that in their writing.

The

way many people in the West have conceived of an answer to this question goes

something like this. We know that God has specific attributes, let’s say

attributes X, Y, and Z, and for Jesus to be divine, for Jesus to meet the

definition that we have given to the word ‘God,’ then attributes X, Y, and Z

must be true of Jesus as well. In this case,

we start with God as the known, i.e., we know what God is like, and with Jesus as the

unknown. So, for us to say that Jesus is God he must meet our definition of who

God is. God is the known; Jesus is the unknown.

The problem with this way of

thinking becomes pretty obvious once you stop and reflect on it. Christmas is

approaching, and while it’s in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke that we find the

stories about Jesus’ birth, it’s the introduction to the Gospel of John that

gives us the theology of what we celebrate at Christmas. And this is how John

concludes his introduction. He says in

vs. 18 that no one has ever seen God, but Jesus, the Word made flesh, has made

him known. In that case, Jesus is the known, and God is the unknown.

And this is important. This is not just semantics, and this is not

just an intellectual conversation. This

is a paradigm shift in how we think about Jesus and how we think about his divinity. We don’t ask, “What

is God like and does that apply to Jesus?” because frankly, that’s not going to get you anywhere. God is omniscient,

omnipresent, and eternal, Jesus says there’s at least one thing he doesn’t

know, he’s located in a physical place

because of his body, and he dies, something God can’t do almost by definition.

On the contrary, instead of looking to God and asking how what we know of God

applies to Jesus, what we should be doing is looking to Jesus and let him

reveal to us, make known to us, what God is truly

like.

This

is why you can never read the Gospels too much. This

is why when we read the Gospels in church

we treat those books differently than we do the other parts of Scripture, even

though all of Scripture is the Word of God. We recognize in these four books God himself is revealed to us in the person of Jesus of

Nazareth, and the more we can reflect on who he was, what he did, what he said, and the life that he led, the more the

heart and character of God himself are

revealed to us.

So, what does this have to do with

our readings, and how does this connect to Advent? The thought process of the

New Testament authors was quite different

from our own, which is based heavily in Greek ways of thinking. Instead of

thinking about the attributes of God and how they applied to Jesus, they were confronted with a different question. They

had a narrative in mind. They had a role that God was supposed to play in their

history, and the starting claim of all four authors of the Gospels is simply this: Jesus

of Nazareth has played the role that God was supposed to play in the history of

Israel. Let me show you how this work.

Let’s look at our first reading.

These verses in Malachi are the divine response

to two complaints by the people: why is the world not ordered the way that God

said it would be and where is the God of justice who will set it right? The divine answer comes in vs. 1 as a promise: th

A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent, December 9, 2018

St. Dunstan’s Anglican Church, Largo, FL

The Very Reverend J. Michael Strachan

Malachi 3:1-4; the Benedictus (Luke 1:68-79); Luke 3:1-6

I want to talk this morning about

the way New Testament Christology functions because I think this is important

for us to understand and because this topic directly relates to Advent. But,

first, let me clarify what I mean by New Testament Christology. What I have in

mind for this morning is the question of how the New Testament authors conceive

of the divine identity of Jesus of Nazareth. To put it another way, I want us

to consider why the New Testament authors thought that Jesus was divine and how

they show that in their writing.

The

way many people in the West have conceived of an answer to this question goes

something like this. We know that God has specific attributes, let’s say

attributes X, Y, and Z, and for Jesus to be divine, for Jesus to meet the

definition that we have given to the word ‘God,’ then attributes X, Y, and Z

must be true of Jesus as well. In this case,

we start with God as the known, i.e., we know what God is like, and with Jesus as the

unknown. So, for us to say that Jesus is God he must meet our definition of who

God is. God is the known; Jesus is the unknown.

The problem with this way of

thinking becomes pretty obvious once you stop and reflect on it. Christmas is

approaching, and while it’s in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke that we find the

stories about Jesus’ birth, it’s the introduction to the Gospel of John that

gives us the theology of what we celebrate at Christmas. And this is how John

concludes his introduction. He says in

vs. 18 that no one has ever seen God, but Jesus, the Word made flesh, has made

him known. In that case, Jesus is the known, and God is the unknown.

And this is important. This is not just semantics, and this is not

just an intellectual conversation. This

is a paradigm shift in how we think about Jesus and how we think about his divinity. We don’t ask, “What

is God like and does that apply to Jesus?” because frankly, that’s not going to get you anywhere. God is omniscient,

omnipresent, and eternal, Jesus says there’s at least one thing he doesn’t

know, he’s located in a physical place

because of his body, and he dies, something God can’t do almost by definition.

On the contrary, instead of looking to God and asking how what we know of God

applies to Jesus, what we should be doing is looking to Jesus and let him

reveal to us, make known to us, what God is truly

like.

This

is why you can never read the Gospels too much. This

is why when we read the Gospels in church

we treat those books differently than we do the other parts of Scripture, even

though all of Scripture is the Word of God. We recognize in these four books God himself is revealed to us in the person of Jesus of

Nazareth, and the more we can reflect on who he was, what he did, what he said, and the life that he led, the more the

heart and character of God himself are

revealed to us.

So, what does this have to do with

our readings, and how does this connect to Advent? The thought process of the

New Testament authors was quite different

from our own, which is based heavily in Greek ways of thinking. Instead of

thinking about the attributes of God and how they applied to Jesus, they were confronted with a different question. They

had a narrative in mind. They had a role that God was supposed to play in their

history, and the starting claim of all four authors of the Gospels is simply this: Jesus

of Nazareth has played the role that God was supposed to play in the history of

Israel. Let me show you how this work.

Let’s look at our first reading.

These verses in Malachi are the divine response

to two complaints by the people: why is the world not ordered the way that God

said it would be and where is the God of justice who will set it right? The divine answer comes in vs. 1 as a promise: th

A Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent, December 2, 2018

St. Dunstan’s Anglican Church, Largo, FL 33770

The Very Reverend. J. Michael Strachan

Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-26

 

What is Advent? That’s what I’d like us to consider this morning. On the most basic, descriptive level, Advent is the first season on the Church calendar, and it is marked primarily by the first four Sundays of the year. No special feast or festival introduces the season, like the way Easter Sunday beings the season of Easter or Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent, and the season ends just before the celebration of the incarnation on Christmas Eve.

The color of the season is traditionally purple, which is also the color of Lent, but this had led to a certain amount of confusion with some describing Advent as a “mini-Lent,” that is a lesser penitential season. As you can see, we wear blue to distinguish this season from Lent. Advent is not a mini-Lent. It may be a more penitential season than some of the other seasons, but its themes are very different from the themes of Lent. Whereas Lent is a season of penitence, Advent is a season of waiting and preparation. And this is where things get a little tricky.

Liturgically, Advent is one of the more difficult seasons of the church to define because it is trying to do two things simultaneously. First, it’s trying to prepare us for Christmas. Advent is intended to prepare us to celebrate the coming of Christ in his incarnation, but Advent also looks forward to Christ’s second and final advent as judge at the end of time. And there’s something worth considering here. Except for a few years when God himself took on our flesh and dwelt among us, the people of God are almost by definition people who wait. To be the people of God means to be people who are waiting for God to act and people who are preparing themselves and the world around them for that moment when he does.

The church I came from in Wheaton was sometimes jokingly referred to by those inside and outside the church as “the church of perpetual Lent.” But I always heard that and thought, “I don’t want to be the church of perpetual Lent, I want to be the church of perpetual Advent because that’s what it means to be the people of God. Let me repeat what I said a moment ago. To be the people of God means to be people who are waiting for God to act and people who are preparing themselves and the world around them for that moment when he does. That’s what the Patriarchs like Abraham and David did, that’s what the Prophets did, that’s what John the Baptist did, and that’s what Mary did. And that brings us to the Advent Wreath.

There are four Sundays in Advent, so we have four candles on our Advent wreath, one for each Sunday, with the Christ candle in the middle. The four outer candles, while there are several traditions about then, generally tell the story of the Old Covenant focusing primarily upon those who prepared for the coming of Christ. So there is one candle for the Patriarchs, particularly Abraham and David, one candle for the Prophets, another for John the Baptist, who is the Advent prophet, and one for Mary through whom the Messiah is born. These four, considered together, create the light from which the Light of Christ is taken, so while we light one candle each Sunday, at Christmas, with all four candles lit, we will light the center candle in celebration of the incarnation of our Lord.

Now, you may have noticed that one of the four outer candles is not like the others. One candle is pink. It’s often assumed that the pink candle, because it’s pink, must be the candle for Mary. It’s not. This custom is not a tradition that we practice anymore in any formal sense, but the pink candle is for the third Sunday of Advent which was observed in medieval times as Rose Sunday, and pink vestments were sometimes worn to give a splash of color in the otherwise subdued atmosphere of Lent. So, the pink candle’s not f

A Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent, December 2, 2018

St. Dunstan’s Anglican Church, Largo, FL 33770

The Very Reverend. J. Michael Strachan

Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-26

 

What is Advent? That’s what I’d like us to consider this morning. On the most basic, descriptive level, Advent is the first season on the Church calendar, and it is marked primarily by the first four Sundays of the year. No special feast or festival introduces the season, like the way Easter Sunday beings the season of Easter or Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent, and the season ends just before the celebration of the incarnation on Christmas Eve.

The color of the season is traditionally purple, which is also the color of Lent, but this had led to a certain amount of confusion with some describing Advent as a “mini-Lent,” that is a lesser penitential season. As you can see, we wear blue to distinguish this season from Lent. Advent is not a mini-Lent. It may be a more penitential season than some of the other seasons, but its themes are very different from the themes of Lent. Whereas Lent is a season of penitence, Advent is a season of waiting and preparation. And this is where things get a little tricky.

Liturgically, Advent is one of the more difficult seasons of the church to define because it is trying to do two things simultaneously. First, it’s trying to prepare us for Christmas. Advent is intended to prepare us to celebrate the coming of Christ in his incarnation, but Advent also looks forward to Christ’s second and final advent as judge at the end of time. And there’s something worth considering here. Except for a few years when God himself took on our flesh and dwelt among us, the people of God are almost by definition people who wait. To be the people of God means to be people who are waiting for God to act and people who are preparing themselves and the world around them for that moment when he does.

The church I came from in Wheaton was sometimes jokingly referred to by those inside and outside the church as “the church of perpetual Lent.” But I always heard that and thought, “I don’t want to be the church of perpetual Lent, I want to be the church of perpetual Advent because that’s what it means to be the people of God. Let me repeat what I said a moment ago. To be the people of God means to be people who are waiting for God to act and people who are preparing themselves and the world around them for that moment when he does. That’s what the Patriarchs like Abraham and David did, that’s what the Prophets did, that’s what John the Baptist did, and that’s what Mary did. And that brings us to the Advent Wreath.

There are four Sundays in Advent, so we have four candles on our Advent wreath, one for each Sunday, with the Christ candle in the middle. The four outer candles, while there are several traditions about then, generally tell the story of the Old Covenant focusing primarily upon those who prepared for the coming of Christ. So there is one candle for the Patriarchs, particularly Abraham and David, one candle for the Prophets, another for John the Baptist, who is the Advent prophet, and one for Mary through whom the Messiah is born. These four, considered together, create the light from which the Light of Christ is taken, so while we light one candle each Sunday, at Christmas, with all four candles lit, we will light the center candle in celebration of the incarnation of our Lord.

Now, you may have noticed that one of the four outer candles is not like the others. One candle is pink. It’s often assumed that the pink candle, because it’s pink, must be the candle for Mary. It’s not. This custom is not a tradition that we practice anymore in any formal sense, but the pink candle is for the third Sunday of Advent which was observed in medieval times as Rose Sunday, and pink vestments were sometimes worn to give a splash of color in the otherwise subdued atmosphere of Lent. So, the pink candle’s not f

A Sermon for Christ the King Sunday, November 25, 2018

St. Dunstan’s Anglican Church, Largo, FL

The Very Reverend J. Michael Strachan

John 18:33-37

 

Today we celebrate that Jesus Christ is King. If you only had four words to summarize the entire message of the Bible, those would be the four words. This day is the last day on the church calendar. In some ways, this is the day to which all other days on the church calendar have been pointing. The cross and resurrection, Good Friday and Easter, are undoubtedly the event on which all of human history turns and the events from which all of human history finds its meaning. But this day isn’t like those days. This day isn’t the remembrance of a specific day in human history. This day is the celebration of the goal of human history because God the Father created humanity to rule over his creation, and when Jesus Christ sat down at the right hand of God as Lord and King, humanity fulfilled its vocation. To help us better understand this, let me make a few points about Christ the King Sunday.

First, this day is not a celebration of the future or the past but the present. This day is not a celebration of the day that Jesus was enthroned, that’s Ascension Day, nor is this a celebration of some future event still to come in God’s plan when Jesus will be made king. I get the impression that this type of theology was not a prevalent in the Episcopal church as it was in the tradition within which I grew up, but there is a system of thought in some forms of American Christianity that Jesus isn’t king now, but he will be one day in the future. He’ll return, set up a physical kingdom on earth, and only then can we say that Jesus is King. Contrary to this position, today we celebrate the fact that Jesus is already King, right now, in the present, because he is sitting at the right hand of God as the world’s true Lord and King.

Second, this day is not a celebration that Jesus rules in Heaven but not on earth. It may take the church a generation to break the Church our of our Platonic mindset and reading of Scripture, but when it happens, we will finally be able to read the Bible freshly and (W)rightly. We tend to think that the goal of the Christian life is to go to Heaven when you die. This language is used everywhere in Christianity. But this is kind of like confusing your layover destination with your final destination. For example, I’m going with the Bishop to California next month, and I’m going to lay over in Dallas and catch a flight to Los Angeles. I’d better get to Dallas, right? No one’s saying that arriving safely in Dallas on this trip isn’t essential, but it’s not my final destination. That’s Los Angeles. In the Bible, Heaven is our layover. The New Heavens and New Earth are our final destination.

And because we’re so stuck in this mindset that this place is bad, that place is good, and I can’t wait to get out of this place and go to that place, we forget that heaven is supposed to come to earth, and not the other way around. And then, as a result, we interpret Jesus to mean things that no Jew in the first century could have said. Take our reading this morning.

“So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is” and here the ESV says “not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” When you translate these words like this, it’s because you are convinced that Jesus can’t possibly mean what he’s actually saying. What it sounds like Jesus is saying is “My kingdom isn’t on earth, my kingdom is in heaven. I have nothing to do with this place, and I’m no threat to you

A Sermon for Christ the King Sunday, November 25, 2018

St. Dunstan’s Anglican Church, Largo, FL

The Very Reverend J. Michael Strachan

John 18:33-37

 

Today we celebrate that Jesus Christ is King. If you only had four words to summarize the entire message of the Bible, those would be the four words. This day is the last day on the church calendar. In some ways, this is the day to which all other days on the church calendar have been pointing. The cross and resurrection, Good Friday and Easter, are undoubtedly the event on which all of human history turns and the events from which all of human history finds its meaning. But this day isn’t like those days. This day isn’t the remembrance of a specific day in human history. This day is the celebration of the goal of human history because God the Father created humanity to rule over his creation, and when Jesus Christ sat down at the right hand of God as Lord and King, humanity fulfilled its vocation. To help us better understand this, let me make a few points about Christ the King Sunday.

First, this day is not a celebration of the future or the past but the present. This day is not a celebration of the day that Jesus was enthroned, that’s Ascension Day, nor is this a celebration of some future event still to come in God’s plan when Jesus will be made king. I get the impression that this type of theology was not a prevalent in the Episcopal church as it was in the tradition within which I grew up, but there is a system of thought in some forms of American Christianity that Jesus isn’t king now, but he will be one day in the future. He’ll return, set up a physical kingdom on earth, and only then can we say that Jesus is King. Contrary to this position, today we celebrate the fact that Jesus is already King, right now, in the present, because he is sitting at the right hand of God as the world’s true Lord and King.

Second, this day is not a celebration that Jesus rules in Heaven but not on earth. It may take the church a generation to break the Church our of our Platonic mindset and reading of Scripture, but when it happens, we will finally be able to read the Bible freshly and (W)rightly. We tend to think that the goal of the Christian life is to go to Heaven when you die. This language is used everywhere in Christianity. But this is kind of like confusing your layover destination with your final destination. For example, I’m going with the Bishop to California next month, and I’m going to lay over in Dallas and catch a flight to Los Angeles. I’d better get to Dallas, right? No one’s saying that arriving safely in Dallas on this trip isn’t essential, but it’s not my final destination. That’s Los Angeles. In the Bible, Heaven is our layover. The New Heavens and New Earth are our final destination.

And because we’re so stuck in this mindset that this place is bad, that place is good, and I can’t wait to get out of this place and go to that place, we forget that heaven is supposed to come to earth, and not the other way around. And then, as a result, we interpret Jesus to mean things that no Jew in the first century could have said. Take our reading this morning.

“So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is” and here the ESV says “not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” When you translate these words like this, it’s because you are convinced that Jesus can’t possibly mean what he’s actually saying. What it sounds like Jesus is saying is “My kingdom isn’t on earth, my kingdom is in heaven. I have nothing to do with this place, and I’m no threat to you

A Sermon for the 2nd Sunday Before Advent

St. Dunstan’s Anglican Church, Largo, FL

The Very Reverend J. Michael Strachan

Hebrews 10:11-25; Mark 13:1-8

 

The work of Jesus is finished. That’s the essential message we get from our readings this morning. In the Gospel of Mark, we hear Jesus predicting the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. In a typical fashion, the disciples put their foot in their mouths. Think about what Jesus has been doing up to this point. Jesus has finally made it to Jerusalem, he’s walked into the Temple and judged it, he’s gone back and been challenged by the religious authorities of the city, and now, on his way back out, Mark says, “as he came out of the Temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!’ (Mark 13:1)

Jesus says, “The Temple is finished, and God’s judgment is going to fall upon,” and on the way out the door his disciples are saying, “But look how pretty it is!” These guys just don’t get it. Again. So Jesus says it to them plainly. If they had been able to understand the symbolism of the fig tree earlier, they would have already understood, but since they don’t, he has to tell them plainly. He said to them, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Mark 13:2).

This statement by Jesus is no insignificant thing. That this moment doesn’t play a more substantial role in our thought when we think about Jesus suggests that we still have a lot more to learn about him. In Jesus’ mind, based on the way that he acts and the way that he speaks, there are at least four historical events that for him theologically a singular event.

I want to be clear. It’s not that Jesus can’t distinguish between these events. He certainly can. Rather it’s as though the tendrils of the events are so theologically interconnected and related that it’s difficult to separate them, it’s difficult to speak about any one of them without at least keeping in mind the other three. Three of them you will immediately recognize and say, “yes, I see how those events are integrally related” and one you’ll probably shake your head to and say, “No, I don’t exactly see that.”

Those four events are his death, his resurrection, his ascension, and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD. And here’s how this works. Jesus, and his disciples after he was gone, made claims about what had happened, and those claims were both historical and theological. Jesus didn’t just die; he died for the sins of the world. Jesus didn’t just rise from the dead; he rose from the dead in fulfillment of the Scriptures. Jesus didn’t just ascend; he ascended to the right hand of God. The disciples could say that they were eyewitnesses of the historical events, but how does one go about proving the theological side of those events? You point to something in the future, something big and dramatic that no one can miss, and you say, “When you see that happen, you’ll know that I was right.” For Jesus, that event was the destruction of the Temple.

And this connection is not random. Because of what Jesus accomplished when he died, rose, and ascended to the right hand of the Father, the Temple no longer had the function it used to have. Its historical destruction is simply history catching up with theology. And we can see this in our reading from the Letter to the Hebrews this morning, and note that the author says this while the Temple is still standing.

He says, “Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when the Messiah had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb 10:11-14).

The point the author is making is that when Jesus was done,

A Sermon for the 2nd Sunday Before Advent

St. Dunstan’s Anglican Church, Largo, FL

The Very Reverend J. Michael Strachan

Hebrews 10:11-25; Mark 13:1-8

 

The work of Jesus is finished. That’s the essential message we get from our readings this morning. In the Gospel of Mark, we hear Jesus predicting the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. In a typical fashion, the disciples put their foot in their mouths. Think about what Jesus has been doing up to this point. Jesus has finally made it to Jerusalem, he’s walked into the Temple and judged it, he’s gone back and been challenged by the religious authorities of the city, and now, on his way back out, Mark says, “as he came out of the Temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!’ (Mark 13:1)

Jesus says, “The Temple is finished, and God’s judgment is going to fall upon,” and on the way out the door his disciples are saying, “But look how pretty it is!” These guys just don’t get it. Again. So Jesus says it to them plainly. If they had been able to understand the symbolism of the fig tree earlier, they would have already understood, but since they don’t, he has to tell them plainly. He said to them, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Mark 13:2).

This statement by Jesus is no insignificant thing. That this moment doesn’t play a more substantial role in our thought when we think about Jesus suggests that we still have a lot more to learn about him. In Jesus’ mind, based on the way that he acts and the way that he speaks, there are at least four historical events that for him theologically a singular event.

I want to be clear. It’s not that Jesus can’t distinguish between these events. He certainly can. Rather it’s as though the tendrils of the events are so theologically interconnected and related that it’s difficult to separate them, it’s difficult to speak about any one of them without at least keeping in mind the other three. Three of them you will immediately recognize and say, “yes, I see how those events are integrally related” and one you’ll probably shake your head to and say, “No, I don’t exactly see that.”

Those four events are his death, his resurrection, his ascension, and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD. And here’s how this works. Jesus, and his disciples after he was gone, made claims about what had happened, and those claims were both historical and theological. Jesus didn’t just die; he died for the sins of the world. Jesus didn’t just rise from the dead; he rose from the dead in fulfillment of the Scriptures. Jesus didn’t just ascend; he ascended to the right hand of God. The disciples could say that they were eyewitnesses of the historical events, but how does one go about proving the theological side of those events? You point to something in the future, something big and dramatic that no one can miss, and you say, “When you see that happen, you’ll know that I was right.” For Jesus, that event was the destruction of the Temple.

And this connection is not random. Because of what Jesus accomplished when he died, rose, and ascended to the right hand of the Father, the Temple no longer had the function it used to have. Its historical destruction is simply history catching up with theology. And we can see this in our reading from the Letter to the Hebrews this morning, and note that the author says this while the Temple is still standing.

He says, “Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when the Messiah had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb 10:11-14).

The point the author is making is that when Jesus was done,