Just a Minute!

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
December 2, 2007
First Sunday in Advent

Just A Minute!
Isaiah 2:1-5
Matthew 24:36-44

A young couple are relaxing in their living room
on a beautiful Saturday morning.
They sip steaming coffee from large mugs
as they read the newspaper.
The couch, the floor, the tables:
everything seems to be covered
with sections of the paper.
The soothing sound of Handel’s Water Music
plays in the background.
The music and the paper block out all thoughts
of the dishes piled high in the kitchen
from last night’s dinner party.
Everyone had had such a good time and it was so late
when the last guest left;
They decided to leave cleanup to Sunday,
but now neither of them is in any hurry to
tackle the mess.
Both are bundled up in flannel bathrobes,
which for each is about the only piece of clean clothing left.
The hamper in the bathroom is overflowing,
and the laundry basket in the middle of the bedroom
groans with the load.

There’s work to be done,
but for now, it is a lovely, lazy Saturday morning,
after a long, hard week at work,
This is a morning simply to relax.
Or at least so they think…
until the doorbell rings.
They look at each other,
wondering who might be calling.
The man goes to the door and opens it –
just far enough so he can see who’s ringing the bell,
but not so far that the caller can see the chaos within.
The woman bolts upright when she hears her husband’s words,
“Mom! Dad! What a nice surprise!”
She’s out of her chair in an instant,
picking up newspapers, fluffing couch pillows,
grabbing coffee mugs.
Her husband says, “Hang on just a minute
while we lock up the dog in the kitchen”.
He closes the door and races to help his wife.
They both hear mother’s words to father
as they stand outside the door:
“I didn’t know they had a dog.”

Most of us have had that kind of experience
that throws us into panic:
when an unexpected visitor stops by.
We’re relaxing, confident that we’ve got a few minutes
just to ourselves, when there it is:
the knock on the door, the ring of the bell.
It’s never someone we can turn away,
a salesperson, someone taking a poll, or campaigning.
No, it is inevitably someone whom we are happy to see;
The visitor is not unwelcome,
just unexpected.

One of the few advantages of cellphones is that
they’ve cut down on visits that are a complete surprise.
Not by much, though. Now it’s something like,
“Hi, I am just about to pull into your driveway
and I wanted to see if you were home!”
The call buys you two, perhaps three minutes.

We will have no such luxury with Jesus;
that’s what he’s teaching us in our gospel lesson.
There will be no cellphone call to give us a head’s up,
and look all you want, but there is no secret code
buried in the Bible to give us some warning,
to tell us the day and time when Jesus will return.
Jesus makes the lesson he wants us to learn
as clear as he can:
when he comes again,
he will show up just like the mother and father at the door:
A complete surprise,
no warning,
unexpected,
with no opportunity for us to ask for “just a minute.”
We will either be ready, or we won’t be.
It’s as simple as that.

He doesn’t expect the house to be immaculate,
but he does expect us to be ready to open the door to him,
and say, “O come in, come in Emmanuel”.

He expects us to be ready, not out of fear,
fear that we might be left behind.
The lesson we heard seems to say that,
but fear is not the point,
not the lesson Jesus wants us to learn;
readiness is.
Readiness grounded in hope.
Readiness built on a sense of
anticipation of what lies ahead,
built on a sense of expectation
of a wonderful, glorious future.

There’s just a hint of that future in the lesson
we heard through the prophet Isaiah:
a future marked by peace,
a future marked by reconciliation,
a future when
“the wolf shall live with the lamb
and the leopard lie down with the kid…
when there shall be endless peace.” (Isaiah 9 and 11)
Is it any wonder that we hear these lessons at Christmas time
each year as we await the coming of our Lord?

We began our service by affirming our faith
using a section of the Brief Statement of Faith,
our most recent confessional statement.
An earlier confessional statement in our Book of Confessions,
the Westminster Larger Catechism
asks the question,
what is the chief end of mankind?
The answer we read is,
“[humanity’s] chief and highest end is to glorify God,
and fully to enjoy him forever.”
(Larger Catechism, 7.111)
To glorify and enjoy,
not to live in fear, but to live in love.
We glorify God not because God’s ego is so fragile
that he needs us to praise him and tell of our love,
but rather our voices and lives are simply
an echo of God’s love for us.
(Moltmann)

When that knock comes, the bell rings,
our reaction should be nothing short of profound joy,
Easter joy,
our voices filled not with a panicky, “just a minute”,
but a resolute “alleluia!
and Glory to God in highest heaven!”

In our Great Prayer of Thanksgiving that I lead us in
each time we gather at the Lord’s Table,
we say together, “Christ has died;
Christ is Risen;
Christ Will Come again.”

How do you say that last line?
By rote?
With confusion?
With fear and uncertainty?

We should say that line with boldness:
boldness that comes with conviction and faith:
“Christ WILL come again.”
because we believe it and long for it,
even if we haven’t a clue as to when, where or how.
It was John Calvin who wisely observed 500 years ago,
“it is foolish and rash to inquire concerning unknown matters
more deeply than God permits us to know.”
(Institutes, 3.25.6)
Speculating about a day or time is pointless.
We should focus our energy and time instead
on simply making sure we are ready.

So what should we do to get ready?
Just what Jesus teaches us again and again:
it is feeding the hungry;
and more: working to eliminate the causes
of hunger in this community, in this nation,
and throughout the world.
It is visiting the sick, and more:
it is working to rid the world of diseases
especially those diseases we no longer fear in this country,
but which still kill and maim in other parts of the world.
it is clothing the naked and housing the homeless,
and more:
it is working to eliminate inequality and poverty.
Saying a rising tide lifts all boats
is meaningless to the man and woman in a boat
that is danger of sinking.

It is reminding ourselves the person who uses a blanket
for a roof, a source of warmth, and a bed
is our brother, our sister,
our responsibility, our neighbor.
It is remembering that Jesus defines neighbor
as everyone, including our enemies.

We are called to lives of “active expectation”:
active in the work of the Lord
as we await his coming.
Jesus teaches us we are to be
like the servants who are still going about the work
expected of them by their master,
even while the master is away
and even when the date and time
of his return is unknown.

We stand on a threshold,
the threshold of Advent,
the threshold of the room we call December,
and we peer in.
We see all that awaits us:
the parties, the packages, the plates piled high.
But there is much preparation to be done
before we’re ready for Christmas.

Advent is a time of preparation,
preparation,
getting ready,
not just for Christmas,
but for the one who will come again in glory.
For Christ has died,
Christ is Risen,
And Christ WILL come again.
Glory to God in Highest Heaven!
AMEN