To interrupt, Webster explained, is to
stop or hinder by breaking in on the course or progress of any thing.
To interrupt is to break the current motion of something.
So these four weeks before Christmas,
while you are in the throes of holiday shopping and preparation I plan to
interrupt your Christmas cheer by telling you how Jesus plans to
interrupt our lives. I plan to underscore the fact that the Church,
as embassy of the kingdom, operates on its own calendar at its own
pace. It is unmoved by the culture around it and has been for nearly
2,000 years, and that it won’t be Christmas until the evening of December 24. And I intend to rant about the commercial Christmas
season.
Advent, the first season of the
liturgical year, makes that point. It is deliberately non-Christmas
and this year gives us stories how God moves in ways that interrupt
our plans and our lives. Unforeseen life-changing events, prophetic
words that adjust our thinking and our direction, disappointments
when things don’t turn out right, hopes and dreams of a bright
future redirected by scandal. These are the stories of Advent
interruptions.
Jesus was good at interrupting. At Nain
he interrupted a perfectly good funeral and raised the corpse from
untimely death because he felt sorry for the young man’s widowed
mother who otherwise would now be helpless and hopeless without her only son.
Jesus interrupted the planned reception
at Jericho when he saw Zacchaeus in the tree, and then interrupted
Zacchaeus’ day be inviting himself to lunch, and finally
interrupted his life by radically changing it.
Jesus interrupted the high priest’s Passover profit-center in the temple when he angrily overturned money-changers’ tables and at the crack of a whip sent terrified animal traders running for their lives. He interrupted
their business because it had no place in the Father’s house.
In today’s Advent text Jesus told his
disciples to expect interrupted lives on a large scale some 40 years
later. The temple they so admired would be destroyed, and with it a
way of life they had always known. The temple ministry of sacrifice would be
interrupted, having been replaced by a new once-for-all sacrifice, to be offered a few days hence.
As with any interruption it is
unplanned and unanticipated. In an instant chance happening, a spoken word, or a simple mistake can irrevocably change everything.
What Jesus described was to be so instantaneous that not even angels
in heaven had a clue. Life would be happening as usual, and then it
would occur.
Like the days of Noah, for example,
when people ignored Noah’s boat construction project and went on
about life, having a good time and anticipating a future. Then one
day the thunder of judgment came, and the flood swept them away. It’s
like that when Jesus interrupts.
When it happens at Jerusalem, Jesus
warned, people will be working as usual when their lives are interrupted. Two will be grinding at the mill, one will be captured
and carried away into slavery while the other escapes. Two will be
working in the field, one will be taken to his death and the other
gets away. The interruption catches them all off guard, but at least
two of them are ready.
The point Jesus makes, to the disciples
and to us, is that we should expect the unexpected. Thieves don’t
schedule attempted burglaries with their intended victims, and Jesus
doesn’t necessarily clue us in on when he is about to do something
big. He just does it. He interrupts.
Another point needs to be made. When
Jesus hinted that “the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not
expect,” he was not referring to a “rapture” we have somehow
imagined for the distant future. Hebrew thought referred to every
life-changing, history-changing event as the “day of the Lord” or
the “coming of the Lord.” The Old Testament prophets speak of
several comings of the Lord, all associated with invasions and
conquests in middle eastern power struggles. The foretold Roman
invasion of Jerusalem would be history-changing enough to be
considered on the order of the sun not shining, moon turning red, and
stars falling from the sky. The order of life would be monumentally
and irrevocably changed, Jesus prophesied.
Jesus comes into our lives at
unanticipated intervals to interrupt our orderly world and send sun,
moon, and stars of our universe into chaotic frenzy. It happens to
families, it happens to individuals, it happens to groups. When it
happens look for Jesus to come and reorder things for the advancement
of the kingdom.
There is good news in all this. God
created us in his image and likeness, gifted with the ability to
choose. We chose badly, and distorted God’s image and the order of
things on earth. Sun, moon, and stars fell. Jesus interrupted with views of God’s kingdom as
he intends it, and then interrupted death with the resurrection. Sun,
moon, and stars fell again. Now the Holy Spirit interrupts with grace to
live in God’s order to empower us to interrupt the world with
kingdom ministry which points others to eternal life.
Had your life interrupted lately? Good.
You are not far from the kingdom.
1 Advent A (2013)
1 Advent A (2013)
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