“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.”
For some weeks now, as is appropriate for the season leading up to the Feast of the Incarnation, we have been hearing in the scriptures about the coming judgment of God. In the second letter of Peter this morning we hear about the day of the Lord, and it sounds terrible. The heavens will pass away with a loud noise and the elements will be dissolved with fire. The earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. This terrible moment of disclosure implies judgment; what we keep hidden will be revealed. We will be seen, in all our compromise and shortcoming.
The church tells us about the coming judgment of God at this time of year because we are preparing to meet Jesus. And, as John the Baptist can tell us, meeting Jesus is something to get ready for. “Repent!” he cries, and the people repent, turning to him for baptism and the confession of their sins. “He’s coming,” John tells the people, “and if you think I’m a shocking figure, in my prophet clothes with my prophetic eating habits, just wait until you meet him! He is more powerful than I am. I am not fit to untie the thong of his sandals.”
So the expectation is clear this morning. We will meet a figure who exposes us, judges us, changes our world: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.”
How is it, then, that we hear from Isaiah on this same morning, and in his telling there is comfort in the Lord’s arrival?
Of course our readings are talking about distinct arrivals here: Isaiah’s moment in the history of Israel, the beginning of the earthly ministry of Jesus, and the second coming. But the whole point of our lectionary today is to draw connections between these moments of God’s breaking in, to teach us to see the coming of Jesus now, as we observe this season of Advent, through the lenses of Isaiah and of apocalypse and of the ministry of John the Baptist.
And so, putting all of that together, we are asked to combine comfort and judgment this morning. They are strange bedfellows. Most of us spend our lives trying to avoid being judged. But here comes the Lord, bringing comfort as he judges. If we are going to prepare to meet him we might need to meditate on judgment. Most of us need a little help with that.
So let’s try a thought experiment. Let’s make a list--something like a litany--of comforts we may experience when the day of the Lord draws near, when we accept the judgment of God.
Maybe we will be free on that day. Maybe we will drop the pretense of perfection. Jesus might steal it from us like a thief. Maybe the burden of false superiority will be lifted. We might find ourselves speaking nothing but the truth. It might seem pointless to us to attempt to make a good impression.
It’s possible that, having begun to speak the truth, we will find ourselves acknowledging persecution. We go to great lengths to cover up the injustice of the way we live. On the day of the Lord, though, it looks like we will be able to face what is true. It might be possible to contemplate forms of change that are unthinkable to us right now.
Everything we’ve stolen, materially, emotionally, intellectually, will be returned to its rightful owner. We won’t need it anyway.
We might surrender the lesser comforts of this life, knowing that God alone can give us peace and joy. Our addictions and our almost-addictions will cease to compel us. No more struggle. Whatever that substance is, or that relationship, or that feeling we crave, it will return to its rightful place as one of God’s gifts. It will stop torturing us in the name of short-term gratification.
No more dishonest comfort.
No more false hope.
We won't have to pretend that we, all by ourselves, can be the solution to another person’s pain.
We won’t have to pretend that we have a plan or know what God’s plan is.
Speaking the truth will be enough.
We will be honest about our need for comfort.
We will drop the pride that keeps us from asking God and others for the help they can give.
It won’t feel like a worthwhile bargain anymore to trade our emotional depth for stoic endurance. We’ll have nothing to gain from “holding it all together” in ways that are untrue.
We won’t try to be God anymore, to make ourselves a false God in the place of the one we need.
That fear underneath us--that God isn’t with us--will fall away.
We will name our own experiences with confidence. Suffering will be suffering. We won’t hide from our losses anymore. We’ll simply mourn them. We’ll meet Jesus in our mourning instead of holding him at arm’s length.
It will no longer surprise us that our worlds can be turned upside down by a virus. It won’t surprise us that we are like grass that withers and fades. We’ll be able to acknowledge our vulnerability and get down to caring for one another in earnest. All that work we do to pretend this isn’t happening? We’ll be free to do something else.
We’ll be free to have compassion for the sad state of our public life and our institutions. Our need to blame someone for what we have become will slip away. Enormous amounts of mental and emotional energy--not to mention media coverage--will be freed up for positive action. Think of the time we’ll find in the day when we are not anxiously searching online for the roots of our present crisis. The roots of our crisis are obvious. On the day of the Lord we can admit that.
We won’t even need to judge ourselves. “The earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.” That work of evaluation will fall away from us. We can stop mentally separating the sheep from the goats everywhere we go. We can stop worrying about which we are.
If we can admit that we are not invincible, we will no longer need the possessions and prestige that hold us prisoner. That whole debt will be cancelled, and we will learn what else we can do with the great creation in which God has placed us. Our world of human owning may dissolve but in exchange we will receive the earth and the sky and the seas. Nothing will come between us and the desire to honor what God has made. No lie about who we have to be.
Judgment scares us. Of course. All our lives judgment has been waiting for us in ways large and small. It has almost inevitably been wielded by people whose motives were less than godlike. It has usually meant separation from the people we love. If we fail, we lose them. That’s the way we think. The unskillful use of judgment has harmed us, every one of us.
But the judgement of God is the sign that God is with us.
And so on the day of the Lord--I pray it may be today--with fear and hope, we ask:
Come, Lord, and be our judge.
Preached by Mother Nora Johnson.
6 December 2020
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia