A cartoon shows a man carrying a placard with the familiar warning "the end is nigh." The man says, "The horrible thing is that people don't laugh at me any more." We don't laugh at the idea of the end of the world. Our text tells us that we are to be awake during the four watches of the night. Look for the coming of the Christ in the darkest watch of history, but not as a victim of the world's insanity but as the Lord of History and the Prince of Peace. We are not given a blueprint of that coming, but we know the Lord of history will be the same one who came to us in the human Jesus.

The God who comes to us at the End is again hidden from our charts, graphs, and timetables. Three times in this passage Jesus says that no one will know the hour of culmination. The title "Son" (of God) as used here connotes obedience and faithfulness. Jesus acts out the way we are to respond to the final consummation: faith and obedience, not a secret understanding of when and how it will arrive.

Perhaps we can now begin to understand why the command to Stay Awake is so important. For if God can break into history at any unguarded moment at Bethlehem, if God can intervene in human history bringing it to an end at any moment, then no moment is unimportant. Every moment is potentially the moment of the Lord. But the power to live this moment, to give ourselves to the needs of others is possible because our moment is framed by the first and second advent. Thanks be to God. (Gary Stratman)

Second Sunday of Advent (B)

December 8, 2002

Your Warfare Has Ended

Isaiah 40:1-11

Veteran CBS newsman Howard K. Smith, in his book "Last Train From Berlin", tells on the opening page of a remark attributed to Winston Churchill on the day Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Bear in mind that from the fall of France in the Spring of 1940 until December 7, 1941 -- the "day that will live in infamy" -- Britain stood alone against Hitler and the Nazi onslaught.

President Roosevelt tried to do all he could to assist Britain, but his hands were tied constitutionally, and the sentiment of most Americans was to stay out of "another of Europe's wars." When the embattled Churchill heard of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, he knew this meant the USA would be entering the war as Britain's ally. He is said to have uttered, "So, we have won."

Years of fighting still lay before the Allies, fighting which would cost the lives of millions of people. But the day America entered the war, Churchill knew it was just a matter of time before the enemy was defeated.

In the 8th century B.C., God gave the prophet Isaiah wonderful messages and insights into the coming of the Messiah and the salvation which He would bring. Here in the 61st chapter, God is recorded as saying, "Speak kindly to my people. Tell Jerusalem that her warfare has ended."

It would be hundreds of years before the Savior arrived. When He finally appeared, it would be to die on a Roman cross and receive burial in a borrowed tomb. Yet, from the eternal perspective of God in Heaven, it was all a done deal. The Almighty looked down the centuries and said, "The war is over. We have won."