Mark 13:24-37
24 ‘But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened,
 and the moon will not give its light, 
25and the stars will be falling from heaven,
 and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. 
26Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in clouds” with great power and glory. 27Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
28 ‘From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. 29So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he* is near, at the very gates. 30Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. 31Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
32 ‘But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33Beware, keep alert;* for you do not know when the time will come. 34It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35Therefore, 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, 36or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 37And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.’

“Meeting Expectations”


I am here today to warn you of a conspiracy, specifically an advent conspiracy. In fact there is an entire group that is part of this conspiracy and they are called, you guessed it, “Advent Conspiracy.” The group is made up of a number of Christians and churches who are trying to bring a renewed awareness and meaning to the advent season. They highlight four things that we can focus on amongst the shopping and spending. The conspiracy says we should worship fully, spend less, give more, and love all. The conspiracy encourages us to spend less on gifts and more on time with our friends and family, more on giving our time and money to causes we believe in, and more time focusing on loving God and neighbor.

In our scripture for today Jesus also warns of his own conspiracy to come back into the world.

Hearing this scripture from Mark usually invokes phrases such as the end of days, Armageddon, the end times, the apocalypse, the second coming of Christ. This is one of many scripture passages in the bible, which speak of the return of Christ to finish what he started.
A lot of people use this and other texts from the book of Daniel, Revelation, and other Gospels, as proof texts for the end times. They believe biblical texts like these, which are also called apocalyptic literature, are literal prophecies that give us clues to when Jesus is coming back and are literal descriptions of what he will do when he gets here. Many Christians today and throughout history, however, have read and interpreted these apocalyptic passages more symbolically and metaphorically. The original readers of this text, however, probably did believe the return of Jesus was imminent.

Scholars agree that Mark’s Gospel was written around the year 70, during the Jewish revolt against Rome. After initial early success, the Jewish rebels in Jerusalem ended up surrounded by the Romans, and the standoff ended when the Romans invaded the city and burned it all to the ground, including the temple. Undoubtedly the massive fires blackened the sky with smoke, blocking out the sun during the day and the moon at night.

It is understandable then that our words from scripture would have an intense meaning for its original audience. Imagine being an early Christian living in Jerusalem at this time, what looked like a final overthrow of an oppressive occupier has turned into a nightmare and the only hope that remains is the return of your Lord and Savior. For these readers they surely must have believed this was the end of the world and the return of Christ was right around the corner. But it wasn’t the end of the world and as time went on Christians have had to re-think the meaning of these passages.


Today, entire theological movements still focus on the end times though. The book of Revelation has fueled fanaticism over trying to predict when Jesus will come back and save the righteous and condemn the rest.

But others, including myself, believe this literature is not to be taken literally, instead it is meant to be a message of perseverance and hope. These verses tell us that, no matter how bad it gets Christ will still prevail in the end. Our scripture from Mark then is less about a literal return of Christ and more of an encouraging word to persevere, even through the greatest times of persecution and hopelessness.

These verses do, however, also send us a warning and provide us a challenge that we often ignore. In Mark’s passage Jesus says, “keep awake” and “keep watch.” Here he is challenging us to be the watch keepers of the Kingdom, charging us with continuing his mission to make God’s Reign fully present in the world.

This is a frustrating mission though because making the world a just, peaceful and loving place isn’t easy and it is an open-ended mission. It’s a great vision of hope, but hope can be difficult to have in the face of so much negativity in our lives and in the world.

In his book, A Community of Character, Stanley Hauerwas, a well known Christian ethicist ties hope with the virtue of patience. He writes, “Hope without patience results in the illusion of optimism or, more terrifying, the desperation of fanaticism. The hope necessary to initiate us into the adventure must be schooled by patience if the adventure is to be sustained. Through patience, we learn to continue hope, even though our hope seems to offer little chance of fulfillment.” But Hauerwas notes that patience also requires hope, “… for without hope, patience too easily accepts the world and the self for what it is, rather than what it can or should be.”

These words remind us that the things we hope for are often not achieved in a single act or a moment and that we can become complacent when we have the attitude that someone else will do it for us or that action on our part is not required or that our dreams and goals are unachievable because change takes too long and is just too difficult. Throughout scripture Jesus continually reminds us that in God there is hope, but in order to achieve the Kingdom much will be required on our part.

And so today we begin the Advent season. Advent, is about expectation. It’s a reminder about the coming of Christ into the world, but it is also a time for us to see if we are meeting Christ’s expectations.

Our scripture from today still often makes us ask, well when is Christ coming back and what will he do when he gets here? We ask these questions and often don’t realize that Christ and God’s Kingdom are already among us. I think if Jesus were to appear again we might ask him “what took you so long?” but in turn he may ask us “what took you so long? I have been here all along calling you to live God’s Reign of love and justice, what have you been waiting for?”


We shouldn’t expect Christ to show up only in the future, because he is everywhere at all times. He is right in front of us inviting us on a journey. In Mark’s passage Jesus turns the tables on us. Instead of telling us the expectations we should have for him, he has his own expectations for us.

Poet, Kathleen Norris writes, “The word apocalypse simply means to reveal, to uncover, and if facing reality brings us despair, we need to ask why. Above all, we must reject the literalist notion that apocalyptic literature is about a future pie in the sky. It is a command to come to full attention in the here and now.” (http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3281)

I’m biased, I love working with college students and I love working with youth and I believe one of the areas we have to come to full attention is with our ministry to youth and young adults. I suppose a part of that is because I am still relatively young and I can maintain a good cultural connection with these groups. But I also believe this because as I watch our youth and young adults grow and mature in their lives and in their relationship with God right before my eyes they have taught me a lot about myself and about God. They have also taught me a lot about expectations.

This last summer I had an amazing time coaching the North Scottsdale UMC youth volleyball team along with my now brother-in-law, Rob Pierce. Now when you agree to coach in the East District volleyball league you have to coach against the other UM youth groups in our district. This is not an easy task not because I didn’t really know anything about coaching volleyball and despite being a church league it is extremely competitive. Year after year, all the teams are after one thing: the tournament championship trophy, and despite being a church league most will do almost anything to get it. Our players were focused on the trophy and I have to admit that part of me really wanted it too.

When we began practicing and playing matches I noticed though that we didn’t have a team but a bunch of individuals trying win on their own. When our team lost a point everyone was quick to point fingers and assess blame, players ran across the court to other players’ positions to try to make plays. When we got down by more than a few points everyone hung their heads and gave up.

In the middle of the summer volleyball season I also had the opportunity to chaperone this same group of youth on their mission trip. We went to a small Native American reservation on the Northern California Coast to work with Sierra Service Project. When we left for the trip some of our youth were literally in tears as we collected their cell phones and iPods that would not be returned to them for ten days. When we arrived to the site our youth were split into work teams with youth from three other churches and each team was given an assignment to repair or improve a person’s home. We built wheelchair ramps, painted houses, dry walled, replaced floors, and completed many other projects. Soon I was watching these youth who had been so upset just a couple days earlier about losing their cell phones begin to grow beyond themselves.

Between learning to work with others, evening devotionals, and giving of their time and effort for a complete stranger I witnessed a transformation right before my eyes. Their focus was no longer on cell phones and ipods but on serving other human beings, serving each other, and taking new steps in their faith journey with Jesus Christ.

While playing volleyball may not be as noble as a mission trip, it was perhaps during the volleyball tournament where the fruits of the mission trip started to show through. When a player hit a ball into the net, instead of another team member yelling at them or giving them a nasty look they gave words of encouragement and high fives and hugs. Our team showed a newfound spirit of teamwork and sportsmanship and I am convinced if they had not experienced God’s transforming grace on the mission trip this would not have happened.

We didn’t win the tournament but we went further than anyone expected and when we were eliminated no heads were hung low and no one was angry or sad. Instead, everyone had realized we had played as hard as we could and we worked as a team, and despite losing, everyone still loved each other and no one was trying to spread the blame around. What I ended up discovering is that focusing on teamwork and supporting one another we started to care less about winning and more about playing hard and building stronger relationships. We only found meaning when we shifted our expectations from winning and individualism to teamwork and relationship building.

This advent, how can we re-focus our expectations and keep awake to what is important in our lives and in the world? How can we put our own differences and the world’s differences aside and come together as a team, as the body of Christ to continue the work of the Kingdom that is among us? How can we remember to stay attentive to God’s reign in the world? How can we, with God’s help, maintain hope and persevere through the tough times?

Can we take this season to examine not only if Christ’s church is meeting expectations of making disciples and serving the least, lost, and the last, but to examine ourselves as well? Where are we on our faith journey? Do we like where we are, are we being challenged enough, is our relationship with God broken? Do we like the way the world is? Do we like the way we work with God to change the world?

This advent may be different from previous years in so many ways with so much uncertainty and hopelessness in the world. We may be entering this season with fear instead of hope and expectation. But this will only hold true if we make it so by falling asleep while on watch.

A few years ago the rock band “The Goo Goo Dolls” released a song called Better Days. Now, this is one of my favorite songs, but I always forget the name of it and I have just grown accustomed to calling it “The Advent Song” because I think the words just completely describe what Advent is all about. The words go like this:

And you ask me what I want this year

And I try to make this kind and clear

Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings

And desire and love and empty things

Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days



So take these words

And sing out loud

Cuz everyone is forgiven now

Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again



And it's someplace simple where we could live

And something only you can give

And thats faith and trust and peace while we're alive

And the one poor child that saved this world

And there's 10 million more who probably could

If we all just stopped and said a prayer for them



I wish everyone was loved tonight

And somehow stop this endless fight

Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days



So take these words

And sing out loud

Cuz everyone is forgiven now

Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again

Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again

The song and our scripture passage remind us that advent is not about the best and most expensive things we can buy, but about the job we are doing keeping watch over God’s Kingdom, about living our lives not as individuals but as part of a team created to live for others and all of God’s creation.

So my challenge for you today is to take this advent to join the conspiracy and to spend more time with your family and friends, give gifts that have more meaning, give to those in need, volunteer more, heal broken relationships, and re-connect with Jesus. Don’t ignore the hope that Christ Jesus has begun in God’s Kingdom that is in this room right now and right outside the doors, because God’s hope is eternal and everlasting. So may we begin this journey of advent filled with hope and focused not on the expectations we have for Christ, but on the expectations he has for us. In his name may it be so. Amen.