A Sermon Delivered by Keith A. Swatzel, II at Centenary United Methodist Church Metuchen, New Jersey November 30, 2009

(The First Sunday of Advent)
Text: Luke 21:25-36
“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Hea-ven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” —Luke 21:25-36, NRSV
As a child I was always fascinated with tall buildings. It was a little odd since our small town’s tallest building was a five-story parking garage. Yet every time we went into Houston my heart fell out of my mouth as we topped a hill and caught our first glimpse of the skyscrapers. From that point on I did nothing but look up, so much so that I often returned with a sore neck. As much as I enjoyed it, every time was always the same. There were no new buildings. They had not changed color and they certainly had not moved. Why look up so much if the scenery is the same and it makes your neck feel like meatloaf? I think I looked up to escape what was happening on the ground. People were honking, cutting lanes, bumping fenders, flipping fingers, screaming new vocabu-lary words that were never on the weekly list (sometimes including the people in my own car). It was all just too busy for me. Everyone was in a hurry, worried, stressed, annoyed, ticked-off, and inconvenienced. In the sky there was always something constant. The tops of those buildings were always there, rooted in the ground, ready to greet me in silence, full of light, pointing away from the madness. I just could not take my eyes off them.
We are always looking up for signs, aren’t we? We search for that thing or that somebody that can change our current reality. Are our present circumstances so bad? Maybe they are and maybe they aren’t, but either way we feel the need to float away on a cloud of hope; hope that there will be change, hope that life will get better, hope that pain and suffering will disappear, that every need and perhaps even every want will be met. We disconnect ourselves from the ground of our circumstance and fly away. In an instant we are brought back down to earth. We can feel the impact as we fall and splatter our-selves onto the ground. What could take us down from such a glorious high? What wor-ries could suck the air out of life so much that we suffocate? My relationship is over. I forgot to defrost the pot-roast. I’ve been laid off. My son is sick. The train is broken and I will never make the interview. Both of my parents are gone forever. Someone put red socks in the wash with my white clothes. I was hit twice in two weeks by careless drivers. Road construction! Traffic! Babies cry. Spouses whine. And the bills, they keep coming. Why can’t it all just go away? Fly me off to another place. It is too much. I cannot take it anymore. SO WE ALL LOOK UP!
There is really nothing wrong with looking up. After all, it is only logical to search for a change somewhere out of our own realm and reach. The real problem with looking up is the eerie silence. If I just broke down and got overwhelmed, the last thing I want is silence. I want to know that someone is listening. I want to hear words of comfort. I want to be reassured. I want to know that the burden has been lifted, the chains are bro-ken and I am free to worry no more. Yet I am greeted with silence? It is not a good idea to breakdown emotionally, physically, mentally and be alone. We all need comforting companionship, a helping hand, a healing heart. So we keep looking up, but what if the sign we are looking for is not there? What if our focus should be somewhere else?
“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars.” The beginning of today’s scripture from Luke is so familiar to us. It is familiar because the heavenly bodies are so important in scripture as signs. We need only turn to Bethlehem to see just how scripture and Christian tradition have married the heavens with a sense of foreboding, a gift for announcing a new arrival. The star of Bethlehem shines bright over the manger, an an-nouncement to the world that Jesus Christ is born! According to Matthew, the first people to congratulate Mary and Joseph and the first to worship Jesus were the three wise men, astrologers who read star charts looking up for a sign, waiting and hoping for a change. Yet Luke is not Matthew. Luke does not leave us looking up, he brings us back down to Earth as he continues, “And on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” The focus is no longer on the heavens. It has shifted to the chaos on Earth. It is a frightening thought that destruc-tive forces will overtake the very ground we stand upon. Why would God want this? Why do we still wait for a sign that has not come? We asked for a change, not for chaos.
As an 11 year old growing boy I was hyperactive, sometimes hyperventilating, and always hyper-destructive. I loved to break things and watch things break. Fire was always fun too. Just before my birthday in the summer of 1996 a movie came out that was made just for me, Independence Day. It combined tall buildings, destruction, fire, and aliens. I was in line for opening night at the cinema. I was blown away by scenes of annihilation in New York, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles. It was a quick high and I loved every second of it. However, the high dissipated quickly when they nuked Houston. The buildings that were once my refuge now stood as a pile of rubble. Houston didn’t even get a good action sequence; a dinky flash and then rubble. I walked out of the thea-ter before the movie ended. I did not realize it at the time, but those buildings were my sign of peace. They calmed me and soothed me. When I attended the University of Hous-ton as an undergraduate student I would often drive in a ring around the buildings to think. In my mind I still think of them as an escape.
We all have our Houston, that place where we go in our mind to avoid the un-pleasantness of life. It is helpful to have that momentary escape when we need it. How-ever, it is harmful if we depend on our Houston to get us through the ups and downs that we will inevitably face throughout our lives. Hollywood makes billions of dollars dis-tracting us from our downs, showing us how things could be worse than what they are. It is a cheap solution to a very real problem. If our place of refuge is not truly safe, where can we go? If we cannot expect to look up for a sign, how can we find peace?
Maybe Luke can help clear up our confusion. “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.” One word from this passage sticks in my mind, sprout. Sprout is to emerge, to develop rapidly. The hope, the change, the new life we are waiting for will all sprout forth from the ground. The promise of deliverance, an ongoing relationship with our God will come out into the open right under our noses.
Maybe instead of looking up for a sign, we should be looking down for the hope that is already there. The problem with looking for a sign is that we place our expecta-tions on what the sign will look like, smell like, feel like, and taste like. God’s sign for us will almost certainly be different than what we expect. This mess of a world that we have created for ourselves can still be used by God for greatness. Is it chaotic, sure! So many people, so little money, so many places, so little time. It’s like an ant hill of activity. Is it really a surprise that it is all too much for us to take? We should not be so shocked when we breakdown. It is not a matter of if but when. There is good news too. We need to break down. It is the only way we will tell our false places of refuge apart from the only refuge, the very heart of God in Jesus Christ.
We need not look up and wait for a sign any longer. Our sign has come from be-low. As we were made from dust, Jesus sprouted up human, as dust of the earth. The Son of God became dirt just to be with us, to suffer with us, to love us, to deliver us. He did not look for a refuge from the busyness and craziness of the world in which we live. He jumped into that craziness, every dark, dirty, nasty, decaying corner of it. He brought real change and hope. What can we say about a God that is willing to get the grime of our greed and the soot of our selfishness on His own face? He is that comforting companion, the helping hand, the healing heart. God is listening, giving words of comfort, reassuring us, letting us know that the burden has been lifted, the chains are broken and we are free to worry no more. We wait for the holy, the divine to come down to us where we are, but He has already crept up through the top soil and is pulling on our heels pleading with is to let Him into our lives. It’s as simple as dirt, the very ground underneath us. Let us bury our busyness and our anxiety. The chaos in life is a human creation. We want a simple fix. Here it is. God’s in the dirt. In that dirt there is change, life will get better, pain and suf-fering will disappear, and every need will be met. We must trust and know that we al-ready stand on solid ground, holy ground.