“ADVENT TWO 2024”
Saint Luke 21: 25-36
2nd Sunday of Advent: December 8 Anno Domini 2024
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
The Evangelists talk about the miracles of Christ. Saint John calls them signs. Here, the blessed physician also says there will be signs. Well, actually it is not Saint Luke that says it, but The Christ. If God says there SHALL be signs, then there shall be!
Though Adam had not yet been created when on the fourth day God made the sun and moon it was nonetheless a sign of His power and love.
One of the greatest signs in the Old Testament, albeit a symbol and “type” of what was to come to Joseph, was the dream of the sun and moon bowing down to him showing honor and reverence. And indeed, in the court of Pharaoh, his brothers (the stars) and his parents (the sun and moon) did just that. And who can forget the sign that The Lord gave to Joshusa in “holding” both sun and moon stationary in the sky for the hours the Israelites needed to win the battle against the Amorites [Josh. 10. 12-13]. Again, the sun reversing its movement so as to alter the path of a shadow on Hezekiah’s sundial, witnessed by the King and Esaias [2 Ki. 20.10]. While the heathen blasphemously prayed to the moon and sun as false and pagan gods (i.e., the Egyptian ‘Ra’ and the Greek ‘Selene’), God’s people would offer sacrifices at the new moon [1 Chron. 23.31]. More than half-a-dozen times David mentions the moon in the Psalter: “when I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained” [Ps. 8.7], and even declares their praise of He Who Himself is light of light: “praise ye Him, sun and moon: praise Him, all ye stars of light” [Ps. 148. 3]. By His signs God shows that He is great and the creator of all: “which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south” [Job. 9. 9].
But what of our text, what of The Christ? Do you not hear Jesus: “search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me” [Jn. 5. 39].
Both sun and moon are signs of The Christ, as was the Star of Bethlehem.
But what of Christ’s future prediction of “upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.”
The final Advent? The return of Christ in glory at the end of time? Perhaps, yes, but if so, where is salvation and where is atoning mercy?
It is all Jesus. It is all, as Paul proclaims: “we preach Christ crucified” [1 Cor. 1. 23]. It is all The Body and Blood of Messiah—for you!
Saint Matthew records the truth of The Truth enfleshed: “but He answered and said unto them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the Prophet Jonas” [Mt. 12. 39].
The crucifix is your sign for it is the New Testament tree of Life with The Fruit of the mystic rose enthroned for you salvation and life. Yes Jesus stilled the “waves roaring” on the Sea of Galilee when “men’s hearts (the “12”) (were) “failing them for fear.” But the celestial signs were present at Calvary in a way that even at Mt. Sinai they were not. Moses and the Hebrews witnessed fire, smoke, thunder, and lightning. Elias the baal worshipers witnessed “fire” from heaven. Even Pharaoh witnessed darkness so dark it could be felt [Ex. 10. 21]. But, those at the Tree on Good Friday had the sun blotted out: “and it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour” [Lk. 23. 44]. Those who rejected then, and those who reject now, have only oppressive darkness in their present and future. As covenantal Zion, the priests, scribes, the Temple, and the oracles, were indeed The Lord’s “powers of heaven,” located on earth in Jerusalem and Judea; when Jesus fulfilled all God’s Work on Calvary, when the curtain was torn in two, when He hung His head in deathly triumph, the old powers were forever defeated—Satan, death, damnation, false religion. The earthquake and the opening of the tombs signifying the coming resurrection of all flesh. All was a harbinger of things to come in 70 A.D.
Cool history, pastor. No. Truth. Reality. Now.
There are signs this morning at Augsburg. Some are only representational signs to be sure. But some are signs of “real” and of “is!” The violet signs of repentance and royalty; of Christ’s royal kingship. The bright white fair linen on the altar for the purity of the Son of Man. And were we to use incense, as in Scripture, you would “see” the that Son of Man coming in a cloud, as well.
In the Apocalypse, Saint John both hearkens back to what he saw at Golgotha, and to what is coming and to what is: “and I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood” [Rev. 6. 12].
The Gospel for you is that here, the wine in the Chalice does not become “as blood” but becomes THE REAL BLOOD of The Lamb of God. The beloved Disciple’s vision is your reality: “and there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars” [Rev. 12. 1]. Yes, that woman was the Blessed Virgin who gave birth to God and whom John had cared for as his own mother. But that woman is you—the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Here, now, at this altar—you like her are highly favored, you are clothed with your Baptismal + robes of The Son. The crown of twelve stars is the reconstituted and gathered (by The Holy Spirit) 12 sons of Israel (Jacob) and the 12 sons of The very Son of God.
Now, the sign on the altar is no mere sign. Now that which is in the pastor’s hands and upon your tongues is no sign. Now the signifier becomes the reality; the sign the truth. IS.
Oh, is “The Kingdom of God nigh,” as close as you to the kneelers, and even now as your ears receive Him in your chairs.
Jesus has the final word, through Saint John once again: “and the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” [Rev. 21. 23].
In The Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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