Sermon: Advent 1A, Dec. 1, 2013, The Parousia

Advent 1A, Dec. 1, 2013

The Parousia

“What is it to die?” Asks Metro’s Christopher Hooten.  “For some, death is our body’s expiration date, for others it is an absolute point where the soul leaves the body, he writes.

For a group of scientists in Scottsdale, Arizona, however, it is merely an arbitrary natural accident, an engineering problem we have yet to find a solution for.

The Alcor Life Extension Foundation is the world’s leading provider of cryonics, the practice of using ultra-cold temperatures to preserve humans until such a time when medicine is advanced enough to restore good health.

The widely-held belief that it involves freezing is actually something of a red herring. As soon as possible after legal death is pronounced, cryoprotectant solution – a sort of antifreeze – is administered to a patient through their circulatory system, entering almost every cell in the body.

Known as vitrification, this process avoids ice crystal formation and allows the body to be cooled with virtually no freezing damage, before being placed in liquid nitrogen in a Dewar container and moved to storage indefinitely.

As part of the $800 (£500) annual fee, Alcor members are allowed to store information and a few possessions in a box locked in a Kansas salt mine, to be returned to them in the event they come back in the future.

It is clear that reversing the aging process is still a long way off and dramatic advances in science are required to extend our lives, be it temporarily or in perpetuum, says Hooten, but for some the opportunity to see the future is just too tantalising: there’s always a chance to catch a fish, if only you have your fly in the water.

Mark Voelker, 56, a member of Alcor, told Metro: ‘I’ve chosen to be cryopreserved because I love life and would rather not die.” 

‘Medicine is progressing quite rapidly and I think there is a reasonable chance we will be able to live long and healthy lives within a few decades. It would be a shame to miss out on that.”

It seems that there is now a third, viable, option for those preparing for the end of life... “would you like to be buried, cremated or vitrified & immersed in liquid nitrogen?  Preserving the body in order to bring it back to life at a time when science catches up with the present “utopian” life we are living in now.

So, yes, there are folks out there who have chosen to spend as Karl Barth calls it, “The Time Between the Times” - that time between death and life, or life and life, frozen in time, awaiting a second chance...

If vitrification seems too unreasonable there are several other modern alternatives to cremation and burial, including: 

visiting outer space...your ashes could be on the next space expedition where they will be scattered in space during an Earth Rise Service for only $37,000.  

You could also choose to become a shining gem.  The company Lifegem promises to turn your “diamond in the rough self” into an actual diamond either by using your ashes or a simple strand of your hair.  Prices range form $2700- $27000 for diamonds of your choice.  

An artist in this life?  You yourself can BE the work of art you’ve always longed to create!  A number of companies now offer memorial art: paintings in which cremated ashes are mixed right in to either the paints or the finishing varnish.

Ever wanted to “Die like an Egyptian?”  Modern day mummification is available for a starting price of $67,000...but vaults and storage facilities will cost extra..unless you’d like to gift your child with some new lawn art? 

Perhaps these alternative experiences for the dead, for some, are about being green, about living honorably and sustainably in life and in death.  For others maybe there is just something too final about death, for them it is the final stop, the end of the game, it is home plate...per se, and the thought of letting go is too much, so they have “stored up” hope for when the evolution of humanity and it’s knowledge might bring back to life that which was lost.  For others, the thought of having only one last adventure by which they will be remembered, drives them to the moon, to the bottom of the sea, to crystalized versions of themselves, to the farthest places in the East and the West, the darkest, most cold, most exotic places in the world...for them HOPE is found in their last moments of life....

Beginning with Isaiah’s prophetic words of wisdom, heard again in Paul’s letter to the Romans as well as in the songs of the Psalter and finally echoed by the words of Jesus himself in Matthew we read, this morning, that HOPE, our hope is in our past, our present and our future, and that all three abide in the one very present Jesus Christ in his resurrection, his revelation and his return, the parousia.  

This is the First Sunday of Advent, a day symbolizing Hope and Anticipation, a day that marks the journey of Christ’s revelation to all people, a resounding promise prophesied by many and culminated in the Epiphany of Christ to the Gentiles.  

This season is traditionally thought to be a pathway giving light to the birth of Christ, and honorably, so, yet we often look too near and slight the revelation of Christ represented by the Magi to the Gentiles, to the church to those not traditionally part of God’s chosen people...the non-Jews of us here today included...  

As we prepare to remember, to claim peace in the present and Hope for a future it is imperative to find ourselves aligned/centered, with our feet firmly grounded upon the foundation of our theological selves.  This self which Kierkegaard defines as, a set of relations between a person and the world around him or her” is the self out of which we can choose to live freely-or not, to celebrate this season with or without reverence for its historicity, out of which we choose or choose not to be generous, this self which hosts the ingrained privilege that quantifies us as children of God, was grafted into the church through God’s grace, and this self for which the Christ child was born, crucified, and raised again CAN be ALIVE to HOPE this Advent season.

Rarely, in our lives, are we forced to examine our theological selves-  or even qualified as such, but without close determination of our relationship to or with the resurrected Jesus the opportunity to deduce or discern the inherent truths within this Advent promise of which we read today is compromised.  

As a pre-cursor to this New Testament revelation of the parousia, or second coming, of which we read that the "time" is a mystery to all, we encounter a prophet declaring a universal HOPE for the world; a reminder to us that ALL people will be gathered in that day-before God, those from the East and the West, the North and the South, the Black and the White, the Rich and the Poor, the Opressors and the oppressed, those inside and outside the church, those with prestige and honor, and those living under the shadows of shame and hypocrisy, and in that day- even those advocating and delivering bloodshed.  

  Isaiah’s proclamation is an oracle, referred to as the “floating oracle of peace” because it also appears in Micah 4:1-3.  Theologianl Bruce Birch writes that the oracle “is apparently part of a general prophetic tradition that was available to both of these propthets as a promise of the eschatological fulfillment of God’s kingdom.  Presumably this is especially important in times of difficulty when present circumstances seem unpromising; confidence that the future belongs to God gives hope in the present.  In Isaiah’s time the less than promising circumstances included the Syro-Ephraimitic war...and the people needed to be reassured that the ultimate power would be raised up, and hope that God’s reign would be elevated over all other claims to power... 

We hear stories of HOPE all the time, don’t we?  Because everybody loves  a good story, a hero, a happy ending.  It is always the case, that the most successful stories of hope end with the hoped for outcome...  Think about it, do you ever hear Dick Gordon interviewing someone on The Story whose hope failed them?  No, they highlight stories with positive results.  People wrongly imprisoned for 17, 32, 25 years finally set free, The show “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” recants stories of Hope and Life of rock-climbers who fall to their near death, and live on HOPE alone through frigid temperatures for days until their rescue, the most recent story of HOPE magnified by hollywood...12 years a slave...though a brutal depiction of despair, and pure evil by the hands of men, Solomon Northup never gave up hoping, and was, ultimately, reunited with his family after having been kidnapped and held in slavery for 12 years.

This kind of HOPE comes with a cost, doesn’t it?  One does not HOPE like the hope of a slave pleading for his freedom, One does not HOPE like a parent whose child is terminally ill, or whose own life has been compromised by disease, one does not HOPE like the one walking in the desert longing for freedom on the other side of the fence, one does not HOPE like the one whose father has been taken from their family for reasons over which they have no power, and one does not HOPE like the person living with a secret that he fears will isolate him from everyone he loves...

When we are asked to imagine and evaluate our theological selves, again, this self that is a set of relations between a person and the world around him or her” we find the space where this kind of unbridled hope is spawned, and then either live more honestly into the promise that has been realized in Jesus' coming or spend our lives wandering, waiting, wondering what there is to hope for, to hope in...clutching onto the many luxuries of our present day creating a false sense of assurance that our stuff is enough, that our financial stability is the true pathway to security and that status will be enough to deliver us from worldly troubles...  Some even go as far as to sure up a second chance of living for themselves...by virtually "freezing their bodies in time".  This kind of hope, the kind of hope is ushered into being by what Paul calls, “belief”- saying May the God of HOPE fill you with all joy and peace in beleiving...so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  This kind of HOPE demands an allegiance, demands an investigation, at least, into the inner core of our theological selves.  

The Apostle Paul believed the return of Christ was upon the church, and in his urgency he demanded they "wake-up" to their lives...challenged them to start living honorably as if their hope would soon be realized and they would stand before Jesus once again.  This kind of allegiance which leads to hope he said, would take work, "lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light."  This armor, of course was Jesus himself, the word became flesh...  So, put aside that which is outside the light...and take up the light for yourselves... It’s not that which is being brewed in a kettle by an evil pawn of Satan that is outside the light... it is not a message to those outside the church, to those perpetuating evil and destruction, calamity at all cost...It is the call to the church, to us, to set aside all that might steal our allegiance, deceive our conscious and take victim our own theological selves ignorant to the call upon our lives...to the call to put on the Armor of Light which is the very essence Light itself.  

In Advent, we prepare for the birth of Jesus and for the revelation of Jesus as the Light of the World whereby God would reconcile humanity to God's self.  It's true that this kind of HOPE did come with a cost, but for us this was not a cost we were asked to pay, Jesus himself was the payment.  And, unlike the stories we envisioned earlier of hopeful people and realized hopes...families reunited, extreme athletes living through impossible circumstances, miraculous recoveries from terminal illnesses...the kind of hope present in the Return of Christ to the world is the same hope realized and available in the tiny cries of the babe promised to be born of the Virgin Mary.  

In other words, We do not have to wait for the rescue-crew, for the fulfillment of Christ's return, the parousia, to begin living into the HOPE of that reality...Karl Barth describes this time of Jesus Christ as marked off from our own as not merely present but future, the time which has still to come, but is exptected and hoped for.  And our own time... becomes to us a time between the times.  For Barth it is in this time that the church, understandingly and openly, and the world, unknowingly and secretly, exist in hope of the third and final form of the parousia, the second coming of Christ."  This is the message of Advent.  

So the question for you and I is this? 

What difference does it make to us?  What difference does it make that our Advent Hope, the promise of the savior to be born, and the truth that Christ will come a second time and bring about new life for all...is available to us today?  How does this change the way we live our lives? The way we talk to our loved ones, the way we live inwardly and in fear of letting go.  How does this promise really breathe influence into our decisions, limit our indiscretions, challenge our indecencies?  In what ways could living more fully into this Advent promise allow us to breathe deeper at night as our heads rest on our pillows?  Whose lives could ultimately be changed?  Could a whole segment of the population gain the freedoms we take for granted each day, could our own children find the peace they need from our acceptance, our love?  What difference does it make to us that the anticipated birth of the Christ child will happen...did happen, and that this same baby...flesh of our flesh, will go on to live and die that we might be free?  What difference does it make in your life?  

Let us remember that Christ is "Already" the fulfillment of our promised future, the hoped for reality prophesied by Isaiah, sung by the ancient Psalter and preached by the great teacher, Paul

Karl Barth reminds us that,  "The eschatological perspective in which Christians see the crucified and resurrected  and the alteration of their own situation in Him is not the minus-sign of an anxious "not yet" which has to be removed, but the plus-sign of an :Already: in virtue of which the living Christ becomes greater to them and altogether great... so that believing in Him and loving Him they can also hope in him".  

May it be so... Amen.