December 3, 2023

Mark 13: 24-37

We have the time to wait. Waiting is one of the ways the Church Universal remains faithful to Christ.

The work of the Church is to show and tell that Jesus Christ indeed has come and will come again.

We shout that God is not done with us. The Church – yesterday, today, and tomorrow – has been commissioned to bear the light of the Light of the world. So then, the life of the Church is a life of waiting between two Advents. We proclaim that Christ was born of Mary and laid in a manger. We proclaim that John baptized him in the River Jordan. We proclaim that Jesus performed miracles and signs pointing to God's glory and grace. We proclaim that Jesus was killed on the cross but that death did not defeat the grace of God. We proclaim that on the third day, Jesus rose from the grave. We proclaim that Jesus ascended to the Father's right hand, and promises to come again, in the Second Advent, and judge the living and dead.

As the Church waits, we watch for signs of Christ’s presence in the most unlikely people and places. But (and it’s a big but you know it does not lie) as we wait, there is a place where Jesus will always meet us. The parable about the man going on a journey is not a parable about an absentee master. Jesus sustains those who wait in bread and wine in what Rev. Fleming Rutledge describes as “refreshment for the next watch.”[v]

We are an Advent people, saved by grace, sustained by sacrament, and sent out to declare Emmanuel has come and Emmanuel shall come again.

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