Meditation: KEEP AWAKE! by John de Gruchy

KEEP AWAKE!

Matthew 24:36-44

Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming!

Last Friday, a large trailer truck carrying two million Rands worth of Creation wines down the Hemel en Aarde Valley road, crashed through the trees on the bend above our house, and turned over.  It was a total wreck.  Most of the splendid bottles of wine were ruined.  There is a rumour going round that I had ordered the wine but gave the driver the wrong instructions . So he took  a short cut in order to bring the stuff to our front door, which he nearly did.  But that is patently untrue.  Nor did I go up to the truck in the middle of Friday night to try and steal some undamaged crates.  What is true is that even during the Christmas season unexpected and often dangerous or unwelcome things happen.  Boomslangs arrive unannounced, and fanatics take innocent people hostage.  Who knows what surprises, pleasant or otherwise, are around the corner.  It's important to keep awake, as Jesus says, even if some of us can't even watch the TV for more than five minutes without dozing off.

But more serious things are at stake in this parable of Jesus at the end of Matthew's gospel, for it is part of a sequence on the last judgment. "Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.  Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.  Keep awake therefore for you do not know on what day our Lord is coming."  These words are a warning that the day of judgment will arrive at an unexpected, inconvenient time.  So you had better be prepared.  Taken very literally, that is the message of a series of thirteen novels by  Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins entitled  Left Behind,  some of which were rated   #1 best sellers in the New York Times a few years ago. The novels  are fictional accounts of the end times, when Jesus returns and, in what is called the Rapture, takes all true born again believers up into the clouds to be safely ensconced with him  in heaven.  The rest are left behind.  No some might mischievously think that they would prefer to be left behind with all the other sinners rather than travel with all born-again believers.  But not if you know about what comes next.  For now the world falls into total moral collapse until it erupts in the final battle between the few good people left behind and the Anti-Christ who turns out to be the General Secretary of the United Nations aided and abetted by the Pope.  The point of the novels is obviously to evangelise people through fear so they too can escape with Jesus from being left behind, and at the same time to send out a clear right-wing militaristic political message.  Such interpretations of Jesus' Second Coming or Advent are nothing new, but they are dangerous.

But, having said that, the Second Coming is part of Christian belief and central in the NT.  As the Creed puts it: "He will come again to judge the living and the dead."  It is also one of the mysteries of faith we affirm at the Eucharist: "Christ will come again," and as we break the bread, we do so, as we say, "until he comes." The early Christians certainly believed that Jesus would return soon, that is why they cried out "Maranatha! Come quickly Lord Jesus!"  But what does this  mean today after two thousand years of keeping awake and waiting, only to be disappointed again and again?  Even Paul had to deal with this problem, and did so by reminding believers that God's time-table is not ours.

There are various ways in which the Second Coming has been interpreted.  For me the place to start is with Jesus' prayer: "your will be done on earth as in heaven."  "Heaven," as we know,  does not refer to a place to which we are taken up on "clouds", it refers to the reign or kingdom of God.  Heaven is wherever God's justice, righteousness, love, forgiveness and compassion are evident.  Heaven is where God's will is done whether in this life or the next.  So when we pray with Jesus "your will be done on earth" we are praying with him for the coming of God's reign in all its fullness, we are praying with the prophets for the birth of a new creation; we are expressing our faith in Jesus as the one in whom God's reign, already revealed in the first coming, will be brought to completion at the appropriate time in the second. In short, we do not believe that Jesus gave his life for the world in vain.

Sometimes, maybe often, it is difficult to hold on to this belief for the world does not seem to be getting better, but rather worse.  The events of our day in Syria, Pakistan, Iraq and even Australia, don't encourage us to believe that "all shall be well" in the end.  But that is the Christian hope. To  believe in the Second Coming is to live expectantly in the hope that God's promise in Jesus will ultimately triumph.  It means living and working for the coming of God's kingdom even though we do not know when  that might be or how it will come about.  That is why we have to  "keep awake," watching and praying, witnessing and serving, because all of this points towards the coming of God's reign.  In other words, faith in the Second Advent is a way of living in hope, of erecting small sign-posts of the kingdom that point ahead to its eventual coming.  In fact, everything we do now that embodies the love of Christ, everything that expresses God's justice, mercy and compassion, is an anticipation of the Second Advent.  Even though we do not know when the Lord will come, we keep awake by doing his will.

And, now, if this brief meditation has induced slumber instead of waking you up,  let me remind you that there is exactly only one week to go before Christmas!  So keep awake, not just to get everything ready, but by sharing the good news of Christ's gift of love and peace on earth.  That is how we live expectantly.  For the rest, you can safely leave the Second Advent in God's hands.  It is one of God's surprises, a genuine mystery of faith, something that will happen unexpectedly.  But you need not fear being left behind if you keep awake and share in Jesus' ministry of healing  and love, justice  and peace today This is the message of Christmas; it is also the message of God's coming kingdom.  

John de Gruchy

Volmoed 18 December 2014

Meditation: THE LION AND LAMB by John de Gruchy

THE LION AND LAMB

Revelation 5:1-5; 11-14

John 1:29-31

See, the Lion has conquered.

Worthy is the Lamb to receive power

In the final verses of the Book of Revelation we are warned that we should not take away or tamper with the words of the book for if we do we will forfeit our share in the tree of life in the holy city, the New Jerusalem!  The problem is many people find it difficult if not impossible to understand what Revelation it is all about, it all seems bizarre and grotesque.  So we generally disregard it.  This was a problem from the beginning, for there was much debate in the early church about whether or not the Revelation should be included in the New Testament.  But there it is, bringing the Bible to its conclusion with the resounding, the Advent cry, "Maranatha!" "Come, Lord Jesus!"

The Book of Revelation was not written to be read literally.  Like Tolkien's  The Lord of the Rings or C.S. Lewis' the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when you read Revelation you enter a world of symbol and metaphor. And necessarily so.  It is written in code language precisely because its message is subversive.  It was written to provide encouragement to Christians in their struggle to be faithful witnesses to God's kingdom at a time of intense persecution by the Roman Empire.  Revelation remains a subversive book in the ongoing struggle between people of faith who witness to God's reign of justice and peace, and those powerful empires and corporations that are corrupt and oppress the weak and the poor.   As such the Book of Revelation speaks to Christians in all times and places, for it is a call to remain faithful in bearing witness to the good news of Jesus despite opposition and persecution.   

Jesus takes centre stage in the unfolding drama described in Revelation.  But his significance is described by the use of two subversive metaphors: the Lamb and the Lion, both of which occur in the passage we read this morning.  If you think that Jesus is literally a lamb and a lion, and even more, both at the same time,  then you won't get off first base as they say in baseball, let alone understand what is going on.  You would certainly miss their subversive significance, indeed, the meaning of the Advent cry "Maranatha!"  "Come, Lord Jesus!"  Come to reign, to judge corruption and put evil to flight.

Louis de Blois, the abbot of a monastery in France in the sixteenth century, once wrote that Jesus comes to us in three ways.  He first comes at Christmas as a Lamb, he then comes at the end of the ages as a Lion, and he comes everyday as a Friend.  In his first coming he is the sacrificial Lamb who offers his life for the salvation of the world.  In the words of John the Baptist:  "Here is the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world."   In his second coming Jesus is the King of kings who comes to judge the earth with righteousness and justice.  This signals the final victory of good over evil.   And between these two advents, Jesus  comes everyday as our Friend to stand in solidarity with those who stand for truth and justice or are oppressed. 

Each week as we celebrate the Eucharist together we recall the words of John the Baptist in proclaiming the significance of the first Advent: "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us."  That is, we acknowledge Jesus as the one who gives his life fully and totally for us in order to redeem and make us whole.  Of course, we know that Jesus is also referred to as the Good Shepherd,  a wonderful example of a mixed metaphor, for how can one person literally be both shepherd and sheep?  But we need to keep in mind that Shepherds in the Old Testament often refer to the rulers of Israel, and not all of them were good shepherds, some were decidedly bad,  The Good Shepherd by contrast is the one as gives his life for the sheep.  Suddenly the mixed metaphor makes sense.  The Good Shepherd identified so fully with his sheep, especially the lost, that he becomes the Lamb "that was slaughtered" on their behalf.   Shepherd becomes the sacrificial lamb, the Lord of the manor becomes the servant, God becomes a vulnerable baby, the Messiah dies a terrible death on a cross because he proclaims God's righteousness and justice against the pretensions and corruptions of the Empire.  And in doing so he "is worthy to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might, and honour and glory and blessing."

So we turn to the metaphor of the Lion, the animal that tops the list of the Big Five and who in all mythology and poetry, as in the Bible, is the King not only of the Beasts in the Jungle, but the King of who comes to judge the earth with righteousness and justice.  Lions were common in ancient Israel, and the lion image is often used as the symbol of royalty, the one before whom we fall down in homage.  So when the three wise men or kings from the East arrived in Bethlehem to pay homage to the new born King, they first went to the court of king Herod, the representative of the Empire.  But they soon realised their mistake.  He was a bad, evil shepherd!  The Lion of Judah was not in Jerusalem the seat of imperial power, but in Bethlehem.  The Lion was, in fact, the Lamb!  And so it is at the Second Advent,  as the Book of Revelation describes, it is the Lamb who is on the throne, the the Lamb is the Lion King who comes again to reign and judge with righteousness and justice.

This is bad news for  those who rule unjustly, those who strut about the forest of the world like lions, and are feared by all.  But the good news is that this Lion who comes to judge the earth is at heart a Lamb, the judge who is truly a Good Shepherd who gives his life for the sheep and restores justice.  People fear the Second Coming of Christ who comes to judge the world because they think it means a change in Jesus' character.  The Lamb who was once our friend, has become a roaring Lion who is our adversary!   But no, the text says that it is the Lamb who sits on the throne who will judge us.  Jesus does not change character.  The One who comes in humility as the babe in Bethlehem is the One who will come to judge the world.  He will certainly judge the evil empire with justice just as he condemned those who oppressed the poor during his life. But his justice is restorative.  This is the good news, our judge is on our side, against evil but not against us.  The Lion is the Lamb who "takes away the sins of the world," not the judge who eternally condemns the lost sheep. "Maranatha!" "Come, Lord Jesus!"

John de Gruchy

Volmoed  Advent II. 

13 November 2014.

Meditation: TIME AND ETERNITY by John de Gruchy

TIME AND ETERNITY

Galatians 4:4-7

John 17:1-5

When the fullness of time had come

This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God.

When he was in prison in Nazi Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted some words that a previous prisoner had written above his cell door: "In one hundred years everything will be over."  This was his attempt to cope with the frustratingly slow passing of time.  Yes, time can drag on and on, but time also passes; time is also relative as we now know.  But it boggles the mind to be told, as we were in Sutherland two weeks ago, that in five billion years our planet earth will disintegrate.  Or is it five-hundred billion years?  Or is it light years?  It does not matter, really,  as neither we nor our great-great grand children will be around to witness the event.  Our concepts and measurements of time and history are totally inadequate to help us grasp the immensity of this cosmic dimension which the Bible calls eternity. 

Time has to do with human history, the time we used to track by watching the sun and stars, but now record in seconds, minutes, hours, days and years.  And there will certainly come a time when history end whether in a bang of whimper we don't knows.  By then even Volmoed will have closed its gates and Bernhard will have retired.  But eternity is quite different.  Eternity cannot be measured according to our calendars and clocks, and is not confined by our time and space.  Time passes, but eternity always is.   Before all things came into being, before time, eternity already was and ever shall be.  When the New Testament speaks of eternal life, it is not speaking about endless life as we know it according to our time scale; but to life lived in a totally different dimension.  Eternal life is always here and now, always in time but not subject to time and therefore it cannot be destroyed by the passing of time.  Love endures forever because while it is experienced and expressed in time, it is eternal.  Everything else will pass away, St. Paul tells us, but love endures forever.

In thinking about the passing of time Bonhoeffer took great comfort from the words of the Psalmist: "my times are in your hand, O God." (Psalm 31:15)  This does not mean that everything is cast in concrete, foreordained by God before our birth.  To believe that is to believe in fate, or trusting what the stars tell us according to the signs of the zodiac.  Sometime soon I will meet a dark stranger who will fall in love with me, or find a job that I really like, because the stars tells me this will be so!  This is not much different from what a coach of a Middle Eastern football club said on TV the other night: "God willing, we will win the game!"  Really?  We can play lousy football, but if God wills we will win! Many people think like that, they believe in fate even though they call fate God.  God has it all worked out for us ahead of time irrespective of what we do -- "whatever will be will be;"  " when your number is up, you will get the bullet;"  "he was in the wrong place at the wrong time" others might add. 

But why would God decree before a child is born, indeed, before the foundation of the earth, that he or she should die in the prime of life, or marry someone from Bredasdorp, Addis Ababa, or Melbourne, or end up a tramp, movie star, president, or all four at the same time?   We pray that God's will may be done, but we know that not everything that happens does so according to God's will.  The prophets of the OT who declared God's will, were not listened to, so God's will was presumably thwarted.  Israel was taken off into captivity and exile.  If everything happened according to God's will, Israel would not have disobeyed God but instead would have lived happily ever after in Jerusalem and everything would have been just fine.  The fact that nations go to war and millions get killed is not part of a divine plan; it is the plan of politicians, arms manufacturers and generals.  

To say with the Psalmist that our time is in God's hand neither means that we should resign ourselves to fate or that there is an immutable divine plan for our lives which may include dying in a tragic accident at ther hands of a drunken driver, or getting cancer.  Nor does it mean that God decides when our time is up --  John, today you will be shot dead by a robber,; Mary, tomorrow you will fall off a ladder and break your neck.  God gives us the freedom to choose, to act, to take this fork in the road rather than that one.  Others may take away our freedom,  circumstances and accidents might curtail us,  old age will creep up on us, but we are not puppets on a divine string.  So what does it mean to say that our time is in God's hands?  It means that we are enfolded in eternity.  That underneath us, supporting us, are the "everlasting arms," a love that is eternal, to which we commit our lives. 

One of the themes of Advent which began last Sunday is  "discerning the times."  This does not mean  predicting the "times and seasons" for the second coming of Jesus based on our calendar, as if God keeps a diary like ours with everything already in it for 2015 and beyond; no,  it is about learning to recognise and identify with what God is redemptively doing in the world.  Eternity became incarnate or embodied in time in the coming of Christ.  "When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem" us.  Eternity continually breaks into our time when God's Spirit makes all things new, establishes justice and peace, brings healing and wholeness to broken people, and restores relationship.   "Today" Jesus tells the penitent thief, "you will be in paradise."  "Today," Jesus says to Zacchaeus, "salvation has come to this house."   To discern God's time, God's kairos as the NT calls it, the breaking of eternity into today, means to live our lives in alignment with what God revealed in Jesus is already doing to redeem the world. It means to live now in in response to God's eternal love which we have come to know in Jesus.  "This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God."

We can't change the past; we can't predict the future, but we can redeem the time, we can place the limited time given to us, in God's hands, we can accept eternal life. Consider a gang leader who, because of his life of selling drugs and violence is in prison.  Was it God's will that he should sell drugs, or even that he should spend years in prison?  Surely not.  It was a misuse and  abuse of a life that should have been lived differently.  But let us say that in prison the gang-leader's life is turned around by the love and grace of God, and let us say that he decides that once he has been released from prison, he will spend the rest of his life helping youngsters who are trapped in lives of violence and drugs, he will, redeem the time.  The years that were lost will not be wasted forever.  He has begun to live in another dimension, the dimension of redemptive love.  Placing our time in God's hands is not living in the past or in the future, but living eternal life now.  Today we can choose eternal life by being open to God's eternal love in Jesus.  That is what it means to know God.

John de Gruchy

Volmoed, 6 December, 2014