Jeremiah 33: 14,15,16; Luke 21: 29-33

What about that fiscal cliff, huh? Everybody is talking about it. Breaking news: “no news on the fiscal cliff.”  It is as if we are about to fall of the face of the earth at the end of the year.   But then again maybe we are.  One thing is for sure, wherever we turn, there is the fiscal cliff these days.  Some people even call it Thelma and Louise, a movie about two women with a devil may care attitude who purposefully drove off a cliff.  Most people seem to have hope that something will be agreed to, but there is this nervous anticipation.  Something good should happen, but we’re not really sure.  It’s a nail biter.  There was a contest a few weeks ago about what better to call this cliff and there were some suggestions such as “taxmageddon,” taxocalypse” and names like that.

Friends, we human beings are pretty good about creating nail biters. There is always someone predicting the end of the world.  A journalist named Lawrence Joseph has written a book called Apocalypse 2012, A Scientific Investigation into Civilization’s End which predicts widespread catastrophe beginning this month.  Supposedly he remarks that on December 21 of this year, the sun will line up with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in roughly 26,000 years. Joseph claims that  ”whatever  energy typically streams to Earth from the center of the Milky Way will be… disrupted on 12/21/12 at 11.11 p.m.   This is not the only prediction.  A spiritual healer named Andrew Smith predicts a restoration of a true balance between Divine Feminine and Masculine.  Then there is the Mayan long count calendar that ends on December 21, 2012 after it has been running for 5,126 years. The Maya flourished for centuries in Central America, particularly between the years 300 and 900. The reset of their long count calendar will come soon and the whole thing will go to 000,000.  No one knows if the Maya even predicted the position of the sun on December 21, 2012. Also there is no evidence that the world would come to an end at that time.  But for many people, there is some nervous anticipation: will it happen or will it not. Dan Rowinski writes that NASA debunked the 2012 apocalypse by saying that the Maya would just start another calendar in the same way we do every year.  A cartoon shows one Mayan revealing the handmade stone calendar to another. The first Mayan said:” I only had enough room to go up to 2012.  The second Mayan responds:” That will freak somebody out someday.” (Homiletics). Talking about nervous anticipation, nervous anticipation not one year but year after year.  Try the Dustbowl.  People in and around the Oklahoma panhandle thought that they could keep plowing the land.  As long as the rains came that was fine. The soil would recover.  But the ploughs had damaged the soil that had been protected by prairie grass which had evolved in a trial and error process over the millennia.  When the rains refused to come for years and years, through much of the Great Depression, nervous anticipation turned to despair.  They were “next year people,” these pioneers of the pains, but in the end most ran out of years they could wait..Talking about the end of the world feeling!

Friends, is Advent a nail biter?  Is the coming of the Christ child a nail biter?  Not really, is it?  It has been very dependable.  The Church doesn’t skip Advent just like it doesn’t skip Christmas.  Christmas is the time that the fair-weather fans of Jesus come out and show their face.  There are a lot more Christians at Christmas than at any other time of the year.  Yet sometimes our faith feels like a nail biter, for we have trouble with faith sometimes.  Yet our texts speak with confidence of the future.  The language is about plants growing.  Jeremiah quotes God as saying:” In those days I will cause a righteous branch of David to spring forth.”  Jeremiah means a branch of the family tree of David and it is Jesus the Messiah Whom he refers to.   In our verses of the week Jeremiah sketches a hopeful vision of the future of Israel.  In Luke we see something similar.  Again talk is about the future.  This time it is about Kingdom of God.  Again it’s about growth, the growth from the fig tree as it senses the coming of summer.   We are reminded it is a sure thing, and we are also reminded that it will come at its own time, when it’s ready.  No need for nervous anticipation. It will happen when it’s ready.

Friends, Advent and its promise are reliable, more reliable than the new growth in spring, than the Camellia in January, the dogwood in April, the Fig tree in summer the persimmons in late Fall.  Our texts are confident and matter of fact.  A new Israel will be born, the kingdom of heaven will spring forth.  Our spiritual future is as reliable as the season of Advent and Christmas.  So be calm and carry on.  Jeremiah and Jesus comfort us.  The message of Advent is here and will always here. No need for nervous anticipation. Thanks be to God.

COACH’S CORNER DECEMBER

Fertile metaphor,

Dear friends,

We are coming to the end of a year of gratitude and celebration, a year where seven new members are joining (two of whom are requesting Baptism during our Christmas service). Indeed a year of great blessings!

Last month I floated a little ways down a river in Southern Vietnam which is part of the Mekong Delta.  Somewhere in that province Carolyn’s grandfather had owned an orchard full of tropical fruit.  We were in the Delta on a daytrip away from the city she had grown up in and which I had never seen.   The Mekong River begins it long journey on the Tibetan plateau and winds its way through a number of Asian countries on its way to the sea.  As it crosses the Cambodia-Vietnam border, it splits off into first two, then nine wide rivers known as the “Nine Dragons.”  Since we were there at the end of the wet monsoon, the rivers were full of brown water with fish farms along its banks.  The image of so much water in such a green flat land stays with me.  I find in this fertile land a rich metaphor with a number of layers for the Church.

First we could think of the world Church as the great river that begins way up where it is always cold and winds its way down to a place where it is always warm.  It starts small and then gains volume as it holds together as a single widening stream until it cannot maintain its unity and splits off into separate waterways we call denominations which flow in different landscapes and meander along with the rules they have set. Nevertheless they all wind up in the endless sea of God’s love where they all disappear.

Second we could think of the river as our own Parkview this year, a much more modest image.  We started the year with routine activities, but then determined ways in which to celebrate the journey’s milestone of our hundredth anniversary.  We worked on environment, on church beautification, on music, on food, on service to the community.  They were Parkview’s  “dragons” that gave shape to the celebrations of this precious year.  Now that the work of the year is almost done they join the sea of God’s purposeful activity where all of our missions belong in the end.

Third and finally, we can think of our Christian life that floats along a great river. It springs up way up high, but up high it cannot stay.  It must make its way down to where the people are, to where life is lived.  There we must learn and there we must give. There also we must choose, for there will be rivers to choose as we approach the delta.  We don’t all take the same route, but in the end we are headed for the sea, for the expanse of God’s love and God’s being.

May the rivers flow gentle in your life as your approach Christmas and a New Year. And may we look back over the stern and remember a year in which God’s grace blessed our church greatly.  Thank you for all your help. Aart