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Advent I

Matthew 24
36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[a] but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.


Noah’s ark comics seem to write themselves, and you don’t even need to see them, really.

Couple of lions waiting to board the ark: "This is great! I had no idea it was a dinner cruise." (MG)
Picture of a large arch with animals entering, voice from above says "An ark you fool! I said build be an ark." (Jantoon)
Couple of dinosaurs look on as the ark leaves, saying "Oh, crap! Was that today?" (Regan)
Noah's son says to his dad: "How long are we going to be gone, dad? That's an awful lot of food." (Bizarro)
Unicorn reading the newspaper says "Big storm's a brewing” and the reply from the second unicorn: "Then I'm glad we didn't go on that cruise thing with your whack-job friend Noah." (Edecatn)
Picture of the ark, a stone and a handsaw, caption reads Little rock, ark and saw." (Curier Black)

Maybe you had to see them.

And the ark isn’t just a fun source of countless comics, it’s also an easy way to underline the gravity of the situation. So, Jesus says “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” Everyone was having a good time, right up to the day that Noah sealed the hatch and waited. The people had no idea what was coming, until it came.

Heavens, this isn’t the ‘here, let me help you get ready for Christmas’ Jesus. This is a rather gloomy Jesus, like clouds forming over an unsuspecting world as Noah and Mrs. Noah are hold-up in their ark. We’re getting ready to welcome the season of hope and all we got was this lousy t-shirt with a Noah’s Ark comic on it.

But look again, because there is more going on here than mass destruction amid the apple jelly-jam and Barb’s best chili. Jesus is doing a thing (he’s always doing a thing) that’s supposed to stop us and make us think. So here’s the thing:

How do you underline the gravity of any world-ending turn of events? Noah’s Ark!

How do you defeat the certainty of the very same argument? Noah’s Ark!

You see, we can read the latter half of Matthew 24 and the seeming world-ending ending that awaits us, until we remember some divine legislation that comes from the very same story. You remember, the ark landed and the dove returned and the rainbow shone and God said “never more will I destroy the earth.” That’s not just a tidy ending to the story of Noah and Co., it’s also divine legislation, defining a rule that even God must follow.

But wait, you are going to argue (maybe over Barb’s best chili), I thought God was omnipotent—all-powerful—and a mystery to us mere humans. And you make a good point, but the counter-point is that God imposes some very strict limits on God’s own power, and this undermines the very concept of omnipotence. I’m not saying God’s not, I’m just saying that if God is omnipotent as the creeds insist, it must be a mystery, because there are a few very important pieces of divine legislation found in the opening chapters of Genesis, and they cannot be overcome.

So working backward, we have God’s promise to never again destroy the earth. And if you wonder if it is truly binding legislation, recall Exodus 32 and the famous episode of the golden calf. Moses is up the mountain and suddenly someone gets the bright idea to gather the gold an make an idol, breaking the second commandment that they haven’t even received yet, and God says to Moses ‘look what YOUR people have done.’ And in an obvious reference to Noah says ‘I’m going to destroy the lot and make you a great nation instead.’

But Moses fights back, saying ‘no LORD, these are YOUR people,’ and besides you made a covenant with Abraham and Sarah that they would be parents of a great nation. Oh, and add to that you would look foolish in front of the Egyptians. So, it’s not clear what won the day: shaming God in front of Pharaoh, letting God sit with the comparison to Noah, or citing the Abrahamic covenant, a second piece of divine legislation.

But there’s more! The time spend in the garden wasn’t just fun and fig leaves, it was also the source of two more laws. The first might be in the category of ‘I guess I wish I’d never said that,’ the moment God said “you are free to eat any fruit of the garden except that one over there.” Well, that was a mistake, since free is free and as soon as you say free it generally means completely free as the story ultimately records. So free will, that thing we enjoy but wish our kids didn’t have, appears early and is completely binding, now and forever.

And then there is the final bit of legislation found in Genesis, this one the result of the free will we just received and have barely tried out. There is some sort of episode with an undisclosed type of fruit (apple-jelly jam?) and more law-making follows. “You are dust,” God says, “and to the dust you shall return.” God tried to dress up the bad news in a fancy metaphor, but it’s still bad news. Down to today, human mortality is still running at a perfect 100 percent.

To recap: never again will God destroy the earth, Abraham, Sarah and the rest will number more than the stars in the sky, you will always have free will and we’re all gonna die. Isn’t Advent fun? Don’t you wish we could have Advent I every week?

37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

So knowing that all this divine legislations still stands, and further knowing that “as it was in the days of Noah” doesn’t mean a sequel to the first flood, what can this possibly mean? I’m going to suggest ignorance. Not ignorance in the sense that I don’t understand (though this could be true) but ignorance in the sense that flood people “knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.” ‘As it was in the days of Noah’ means people will be ignorant, they won’t understand what’s happening until it’s too late.

But there’s no new flood. So what are people ignorant of, here in the run up to the holidays? I think the answer is Christmas. Somewhere between “Isn’t there anyone who know’s what Christmas is all about?” and “that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown” lies the answer, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger.

The world-ending, life-altering, ever-present meaning is that God entered and enters our world, not just one time in Bethlehem, but always.

Born of Mary, vulnerable as we are vulnerable.
In the world, healing the sick and making us whole.
Dying for us, ending sin and sorrow and death itself.
Risen and alive in this place, the head of the body.
Coming again, on the clouds, but in a manger too.
The Word made flesh, dwelling with us forevermore.

It falls to us to name ‘the reason for the season,’ but not with bitterness at the world’s seeming determination to misunderstand, but with generosity and an open heart. Our task is to be Christ to others, to underline his abiding presence and his willingness to return to us again and again—by being his hands and feet in the world. When we show Christ, the meaning of Christmas becomes clear. May it always be so, Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 11:51 AM