November 30, 2014 – Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37
Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37
Torn Curtain
First Sunday of Advent – November 30, 2014
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
O that you would tear open the heavens and come down! exclaims Isaiah.
He speaks to a frustrated people wondering where God was.
See, the idea was that once upon a time God walked the earth, spoke directly to people,
and stage-managed everything on earth.
Then, when the Babylonians overran Jerusalem and
destroyed the Temple that was God’s dwelling place on earth, the idea was that
God left the city and went up to dwell behind the curtain of the heavens.
Well, the people have returned to Jerusalem to rebuild it, but they have been met with
hardship, and disappointment, and frustration, and suffering.
Where was God in that? they wondered.
And so, Isaiah voices his plea:
O that you would tear open the curtain of the heavens and come down!
If we were honest, we would admit to voicing the same thing, right?
Tear open the heavens and come down to us! You seem so far away, God. Come down, already!
And what would God coming down look like, I wonder?
Isaiah seems to think it would be flashy and noisy and that
when God comes God would maybe even hurt some people.
And when we read Mark’s Gospel today, it seems as if he basically says the same thing.
There will be suffering, and darkness and falling stars when God comes.
But that is not the whole of Mark’s story.
And that is certainly not the end of Mark’s story of how God
finally and forever comes among us.
We begin this new year by starting with a new Gospel to read through for most of the year,
the Gospel of Mark, the first, shortest, and earliest Gospel written.
Mark’s Gospel begins not with the birth of Jesus, but with his baptism as a young man.
It begins with a curtain being torn open:
“At his baptism, Jesus sees the curtain of the heavens torn open.”
And Mark’s Gospel ends with a curtain torn open:
“As Jesus dies, the curtain of the [new] temple’s throne room rips open.”
Mark is trying, yearning, straining to tell us that Isaiah’s plea for God to tear open the curtain and
come down plea has been answered in Jesus,but in a very surprising way.
(Frederick Niedner in Sundays and Seasons Preaching: Year B 2015, 3)
In Jesus – in his life, death, and resurrection – God has torn the curtain of the heavens and
come among us.
But not just long ago. Not just 2000 years ago.
The temptation for us at Advent is to think that Yes, God came in Jesus 2000 years ago,
but has gone away again. Now we wait for him to come again.
And it is true: we are waiting for the time when Jesus will fully return and set all things right in
mercy and grace and communion and love and
we yearn and long for that day with all our might.
But Mark is telling us even more, if we read him very carefully, which we should always do.
Mark is amazing.
Jesus invites us to keep alert, to keep watch today.
In his closing story this morning he says this:
Keep awake – for you do not know when the master of the house will come,
in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn.
Mark has given us the clues we need to discover how Jesus has slipped through the torn curtain
and comes among us – if we read the Gospel he has given us alertly.
The Professor of Preaching David Lose notes
how Mark divides up his account of Jesus’ last day.
In the evening: in Mark’s Gospel, what happens at evening?
The Last supper happens when it is evening.
At midnight: what happens at midnight? Jesus’ prayer and betrayal.
At cockcrow: what happens at cockcrow?
Peter denies Jesus just as the cock crows for the second time.
At dawn: what happens as soon as it is morning? Jesus is delivered to Pilate for trial.
And when Jesus is nailed to the cross, what happens in Mark?
the sun is darkened and the heavens shake.(at http://www.davidlose.net/2014/11/advent-1-b/)
Jesus has already returned in these events, according to Mark! And is already present!
Mark is inviting us to consider whether Jesus has not already returned and
slipped through the torn curtain – and we didn’t even notice. And often we still don’t.
At this time of year, we look for God, for ultimate meaning and purpose, for fulfillment,
in the acquisition of things,
as the flash and glitter of Black Friday has so recently reminded us.
But there was a black Friday long ago that we do not call black, but Good.
Good because on that day, Jesus slipped quietly back into our lives, and we barely noticed.
Mark is telling us that Jesus has already returned, perhaps not finally and ultimately,
but that Jesus has already returned and has quietly slipped through the curtain and
we often do not notice.
In places of vulnerability and in those who are vulnerable, Jesus has returned.
In places of suffering and in those who suffer, Jesus has returned.
In places of need, and in our own need, Jesus has returned.
I spent part of Black Friday thinking about Good Friday, and how different they are.
I spent part of Black Friday thinking about our Food Bank,
and our Community Meals for our neighbours.
And then I thought about Jesus’ parable: when it was evening, he took bread, blessed it,
and broke it.
I thought about how Jesus returns to us dependably over and over again
in bread broken and shared, at this communion table and then how that return is
multiplied and leaves this place when that table is
extended into the community by Food Bank and Community Meals.
That is how Jesus returns to a world in need.
And then I thought about my own need on Black Friday.
My need not for the gewgaws and the glitter and the glory.
But my own deep need for solace, and mercy, and comfort, and hope.
When people asked Luther how Jesus could be present in bread and wine,
he simply said, “Because Jesus is present in my cabbage soup.”
There is nowhere Jesus now cannot be present, nowhere Jesus cannot come.
And as I thought about my own need, I thought on Black Friday about how Jesus has
come to me in the home-made soup that has been made for me in my need,
and that I ate on Friday,
a gift of love made in the Spirit of Christ that has given me solace,
and mercy, and comfort and hope.
In my own vulnerability and need, Christ returned, and quietly, almost unnoticed,
slipped through the torn curtain of reality on a day that was more
meaningfully experienced as a Good Friday than a Black Friday.
In Jesus God slips quietly into our world and turns our black Fridays good.
Yes: there will be suffering, Mark says. Mark is not stupid –
but he never explains why there will be suffering.
He just gives us the assurance: that is where Jesus slips in – and returns,
and turns our black Fridays good.
In the need and vulnerability of a young man, sharing a last meal with friends
who are not perfect but whom he loves anyway, God comes.
In the betrayal of this man by one of those friends – and whose betrayal will not define him –
God comes and will ultimately offer forgiveness and a new start.
In the injustice of a crooked trial and a cruel crucifixion, God comes and
joins God’s self once and for all to all the vulnerable and
unjustly treated of this world and promises comforting presence and
ultimate resurrection.
In the need and vulnerability of the world, Jesus quietly slips in and returns –
and turns black Fridays good: that is the promise of Advent.
So in the need and vulnerability of our neighbours, and how we meet those needs,
let us look for the return of Jesus.
In our own need and vulnerability, and in our reception of the care of others,
let us look for the return of Jesus.
Let us keep awake, and watch, ever hopeful,
that Jesus quietly slips through the torn curtains of our lives and
through the torn curtains of the lives of those around us, and comes.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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