Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Let us start our conversation this evening with a picture of the end of the world. We are entering the church-year season of Advent, a season of repentance, expectation, and preparation, a season that actually starts the new church year, so what better way to begin!

Now I suppose one might say that there is good news in the bad news, or in what seems to be bad news. Jesus returns in splendor, the promised redemption is given, and God’s words and promises do not pass away although everything else does. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Signs in the sun, the moon and the stars, all spoken of in the prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel and Joel, which point to darkened sun and stars, no light from the moon, or an even more frightening image from the prophet Joel; the moon looking like blood. Distress among nations, not just countries and their leaders, but people frightened beyond the ability to cope, and confusion rampant among them. If you have ever been in a natural disaster, a flood, tornado, an earthquake, a storm at sea with towering waves, if you have ever felt the immensity and power of nature, then you know your own helplessness in the face of such a thing. That is only an idea as to what is coming. Imagine the whole earth, all of humanity, including national governments, feeling helpless, knowing full well that things are beyond any human institution’s ability to cope.

Jesus tells us that when these things begin to take place, we know that the Kingdom of God is near. Now the question is one of timing. When is the end? The truth of the matter is, contrary to anything you might have been told or read elsewhere, no one knows except the Father. Jesus himself tells us so. Now I believe we are in the end times, and have been since Jesus ascended, that wars, famines, epidemics, and natural disasters mean that Jesus is coming soon. I will tell you that wars, famines, epidemics, and natural disasters are akin to birth pangs, but that is all I, or anyone else, can tell you. But what Jesus is speaking of in our Gospel this evening is more than the events that have been taking place through all of human history.

Okay. Are you thoroughly depressed as you wait for Christmas? Have you already received enough of a downer for this holiday season? Oh, but there is more. Remember I told you there is good news in the bad news, and the good news is that Jesus’ disciples do not have to wait until he comes again to lift up their heads because our redemption is at hand. The good news is that Jesus has been here and he has reopened the way to God. The good news is that we will see Jesus again, and when we lift up our heads we will see with great joy, the Son of Man whom we worship, who offers us daily forgiveness of our sins.

So what do we do? But we are to be alert, not weighed down with, crushed, by the cares of this world. Not caught up in the problems we face, whatever these problems might be: loss of health, income, loved ones. Jesus tells us to pray, to make time for him, time for prayer and conversation with him, even in this holiday time that many think started the day after Thanksgiving. Jesus tells us to pray for strength to escape all that comes, and to stand before the Son of Man. Now is the time to realize that we are not self-sufficient, that busy as we might think we are with hustle and bustle and all that stuff, we are too busy not to pray.

AMEN.