Hidden Kingdom

Propers: The First Sunday of Advent, A.D. 2017 B

Homily:

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

“O that You would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at Your presence!”

Such is the yearning of the human heart, the yearning for God—which we try to staunch with so many distractions and possessions—but which still hungers deep within for the end of time, the fulfilment of the world. Oh, that He would tear open the heavens and come down! And of course, someday He will. One day God will descend from Heaven for all the world to see. Then the heavens and the earth shall pass away, and together become a new heaven and a new earth, where the dead shall rise and we shall all burn like the stars in the Light of God’s own presence, as once we did in days of old!

Yet until that day, at the End of the Age, our commission as Christians is to “Keep awake!” lest He come suddenly to find us asleep. But keep awake for what, do you suppose? It’s all well and good to be cautious, to keep a weather eye, but surely we ought to know what it is we’re looking for.

As a child, my imagination was forever colored by the Cold War. At any moment, we were told, the Soviets might launch a nuclear strike. Keep awake! But we lived within the blast radius of the industrial powerhouse of Bethlehem Steel, which meant that if the Cold War ever did burn hot, we wouldn’t have to worry about a thing. It would all be over before we knew it. So all those atomic bomb drills at school, all that duck-and-cover nonsense, it all took on the feeling of farce. Why “be prepared!”—why “keep awake!”—for something you knew you couldn’t miss, nor do anything about? After all, no-one’s going to be late for the end of the world.

You don’t have to keep awake for something obvious. You have to keep awake for something hidden.

Now, in the context of this morning’s Gospel, I think it’s pretty clear what Christ is saying. He is warning His Apostles as to what is about to occur. This passage falls right before our Lord’s Passion and Crucifixion, and presages the entire event. “But in those days,” Jesus says, “after that suffering”—literally that passion—“the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light … and the powers in the heavens will be shaken”—which is precisely what happens at the Cross. The sky grows dark. The curtain in the Temple, representing the veil of the heavens, is torn in two.

“And He will send out His angels,” Jesus continues—angels meaning messengers—“to gather His elect from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven”—just as occurs at Pentecost, “the Lord’s great and glorious day,” when the Holy Spirit descends in fire upon the Apostles, who then proclaim the Gospel to every tribe and tongue. And all this will happen soon, Jesus says: “This generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place … Therefore 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.”

And that’s the real kicker. That’s what gives the game away. For all of the times invoked by Jesus—evening, midnight, cockcrow, dawn—are parts of His Passion. He shares the Eucharist, the Last Supper, on the evening of the Passover; He is betrayed and arrested at midnight; Peter denies Him three times at cockcrow; and He is taken to Pilate to be crucified at dawn. And for what does He rebuke His Apostles in the midst of all this? That they cannot stay awake in Gethsemane, not even for an hour.

Jesus counsels His disciples to “Keep awake!” for the Kingdom of God is at hand. Indeed, it is inaugurated from the very Cross! They cannot see it, they miss it, because they do not understand. They do not see the Scriptures being fulfilled before their eyes. They do not see God come down to earth, down to die upon a Cross, down into hell so as to rise again with all the liberated dead resplendent in His train! All they can see is blood and horror and death.

Only the faithful women make it through that long night of doubt and sorrow. Only they keep awake to attend the Tomb before first light on that glorious Easter Morn. And so at first, only they know “He is Risen!” while the men in hiding sleep.

So what does this tell us today? What does Christ’s command to “Keep awake!” mean for modern Christians in light of the Resurrection? It is an admonition and a reminder, I think, that until Christ comes again in glory—until that Last Day when God will be all in all—the Kingdom remains present yet hidden in our world. Christ is here, but here in secret. Only with ears made to hear may we discern Him. Only with the eyes of faith may we perceive Him.

To the world at large the Church remains a curiosity, a vestigial atavism of the Iron Age. They see superstitious sinners, gathered awkwardly in pews, miming rites left over from an obscure Jewish sect still somehow dragging itself along out of the desert some 2000 years after the fact. They do not know, they laugh at the notion, that the Creator of heaven and earth, who creates and sustains us in every moment, every heartbeat, every breath, is truly present in Body and Blood, hidden beneath the appearance of bread and wine.

They cannot imagine that the Holy Spirit, the transcendent Source of Life and Light and Being, would deign to dance upon candlesticks at our Altar, or to kindle His own fire within our hearts out from a shallow pan of water muttered over by a priest. The world looks at the poor with derision masquerading as sympathy, scoffing at the notion of every man a secret king, every woman the child of God. They do not see that He walks among us even now, in the presence of our neighbor, in the guise of those in need. They do not see the angels all about us, ministering and mothering, defending us with a terrible holiness from all the assaults of the assembled satanic hordes.

They cannot see the world as it is—its height and depth and heart of living flame. Who could, were it not for the fire of the Holy Spirit cleansing and healing our eyes? It is for us to help them see, to “Keep awake!” for the mysterious movements of God just beneath the skin of our reality. Angels may be heard amongst the quiet voice of prayer. The King of Kings Himself may appear at any moment, in the hollow eyes of the hungry, or the weary voice of the working poor—and ask of us a piece of bread, a cup of water, a tank of gas. Keep awake or we may miss Him! Keep awake lest He pass us by!

For grace is always drawing near and always passing by—such being the nature of both time and opportunity, forever drawing near, forever passing by. Jesus is working all about and around us! Catch Him as He comes! Listen for His quiet call as the hidden Kingdom moves beneath us. What may seem small may yet be greatness in disguise. What may seem cruel may yet be mercy still unfolding. God is in the smallest morsel, bit of bread and sip of wine. God is in the humblest houses, Word and water, man and wife. Do not be fooled by the appearance of things. The Kingdom of Truth is within and underneath.

Someday all will be revealed in glory, the engine of the world laid bare for all to see. Until that day, keep awake! Or else the Master may find you sleeping when suddenly He passes by.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.