READING: Isaiah 64:1-9

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!

As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!

For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.

Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved?

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins.

Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.

Do not be angry beyond measure, LORD; do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people

GOSPEL READING from Mark Ch 13 v 24-37

“But in those days, following that distress “‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

“Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch. “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’

SERMON: “While the Teacher Is Away”

I imagine that each of us can remember if we cast our minds back to what happened when we were at school and when the teacher announced that he/she was just going to step out of the class for a minute.

I am sure you can remember words that went something like “Now class, I’m going down the hall to the office. While I am gone I am going to trust each one of you to get on with your work. I shan’t be long and I’ll be right back.”

And I am sure you can remember what happened after your teacher left the room.

When the teacher is away, there is a test, a test that many people flunk.

In my school days I remember vividly that all heck broke loose. Some kids worked, or tried to, while other kids made paper air-planes, and other missiles; others wandered around between the desks, talking to one, poking another, and so forth.

Sometimes the whole affair got organized. One or two kids would stand near the door, listening for the teacher’s return, while their buddies ransacked the room, wrote notes on the board, or did something to one of the teachers books.

For your information I was a good student… I bet you was I can hear you saying.

But right now the teacher is away. We are living between times, in the times between Christ’s first coming as a babe in the manger and his second coming when he will return as Lord and Judge.

We live between beginnings. And the question that the gospel poses for us today, while we are in this state is quite simply:

Are we going to pass the test set for us by our teacher’s absence? Or are we going to flunk that test – just as so many of us did back when we were in school?

The way I figure it most of the New Testament is concerned with the problem of God’s absence.

When Jesus was here with us in the flesh that was one thing. But in his absence, in the time between his first Advent and the next, what of our discipleship?

Things between us and God tend to be fine, when we are in here, at worship, eating the bread, drinking the wine, touching and tasting the goodness, the near presence of God. But what about later, when we walk out the church door and are back in the world? What then?

Isn’t a little bit like it was back in our school days? Some do their work – some can be trusted, and some cannot?

But the continually amazing thing about our faith is the faith that God puts in us.

Especially when you consider how so many of us behave.

Yet, even so, God has put us in charge of the classroom, each with our own work to do, and all he says to us as He does this is “do a good job – behave well – and be alert for my return.”

Christ is coming again, and we need him to come again for too many of his class have become unruly.

But, while we long for his return, as Israel longed for his coming as mentioned in today’s Old Testament reading, while we long for the time when the classroom will be a place of harmony and peace for the time when all things will be finally straightened out, the time when the wicked will perish and the faithful at last receive their reward, while we long for this time, we need not be overly concerned about just when it will come we need not worry because we have our work to do in the meantime and because we can trust God to honour that work, and to keep his promise to be merciful and kind to those who have lived by faith in him.

The teacher will come, and the faithful and the unfaithful alike will see him coming, they will see him coming with his angels in the clouds with great power and glory and the angels will be sent out to gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven, and there will be justice, and there will be peace, a peace greater than that which came when our earthly school teachers returned to their classes, a justice more just than that which was meted out when the teacher opened her classroom door to behold what her students had done.

This is our hope, this is our Christian faith, and this is the time in which we show our Lord that we can be trusted. Amen

PRAYERS

Father God, we praise you once more for this season of Advent,
For its mood of expectation, Its message of hope, Its call to prepare ourselves,
Its spirit of confidence and trust.
God made flesh Hear our prayer

We praise you for the way you have spoken,
In the fulfilment of ancient prophecies,
In promises yet to be realised,
And in the living presence of Christ made known through his Holy Spirit.

God made flesh Hear our prayer

Touch our lives again at this time,
As we remember the coming of Jesus,
As we anticipate his coming again,
And as we strive to serve him better here and now.
God made flesh Hear our prayer

Grant that through this season we shall be renewed in hope and strengthened in faith, trusting more completely in the future you hold.

May our confidence be deepened in your eternal love and purpose, despite all that seems to work against it.

And may we be ready to welcome Christ, in the assurance that as he came so he shall come again.

God made flesh Hear our prayer for we ask it in the name of Christ.

Amen

And so we seal our prayers in the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples …

Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, For ever and ever.
Amen

Revd Kevin. Priest at St.Wilfrid and St.Thomas