Mark 13:24-37

When Jesus spoke the words that are reported in the 13^th chapter of Mark’s Gospel, he did so in response to the disciples’ burning question…”When?”

When will right finally triumph over wrong? When will the things that are broken be made whole? When will peace and justice be finally established?

When will God’s kingdom come?

Jesus had taught these disciples to pray for the day when heaven will come to earth: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”

And now the disciples wanted to know…”When?”

When will our prayer be answered? When will heaven come?

And they had every reason to ask the question because the world of their day was a difficult place in which to live as people of faith, believers in God. There sometimes seemed to be much more wrong than right, much more brokenness than wholeness, much more violence and injustice than the promised shalom of the kingdom of God.

So they wanted to know…”When?”

When will God deliver on the promises?

On this first Sunday in Advent- about 2000 years after the disciples first posed that question –  many of us are asking the same one…”When?”

Perhaps you – like me – found yourself asking the question as you watched the news reports this week about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. How could anyone look at that terrible tragedy and not ask the question, “When will this violence end? When will this kind of evil be stopped? When will Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven?”

“Lord…WHEN?”

We can bring the same question to the greed that has brought the world to the brink of economic collapse, or to the despair being experienced by those who have lost their jobs or wonder when the layoff notice will come, or to the family relationship that has disintegrated around itself, or to the ongoing painful and frightening journey through a serious illness.

“When, Lord? When will heaven come down and make things good and right and whole?”

It’s a good question to ask.

But Jesus’ answer is not the one we want.

Jesus simply says – to those disciples back then, and to us today – “I don’t know when.”

“No one knows about that day or hour,

Not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,

But only the Father.”

And…people like my mother! Oh, how my mother loved figuring out the Second Coming! She loved all those books that pull a verse of scripture from here, and a verse from there, and string it all together, and add a little bit of international news, and mix in a presidential candidate or a United Nations secretary general as the antichrist,  put it in the oven and bake it at 350-degrees until it becomes a piping-hot completely out-of-context fortune cookie that says Jesus will return on November 30, 2008 at 8:45 AM (11:20 AM) which – by the way – is just a few minutes from now so if you need to get your life straight, now would be a good time!

Oh, my mom loved all those books that purport to know the year, the month, the day, and/or the hour of the coming of the kingdom of God!

Maybe Jesus should’ve gone out to the Christian Store and bought one of those books to find out when he’s going to return because, when the disciples asked the question, he didn’t have a clue.

“I don’t know,” Jesus said.

But then he added something important – something that the Season of Advent reminds us about every year..

“Keep watch. Keep working. Keep doing what God calls you to do and living as God wants you to live.”

And here’s the reason for watching, working, doing, and living according to God’s will even as you face these challenging and sometimes daunting times of life:

Even though Jesus says he doesn’t know WHEN the kingdom will come…Jesus says it WILL COME!

But not according to his schedule. Not according to my schedule. Not according to your schedule.

The kingdom WILL come…in God’s time.

This is what faith is – it is living faithfully in the “I don’t know when times of life” because you know “the time will come.” It is living faithfully in anticipation of God keeping the promises that have been made to us.

Sandy and I witnessed the power of this kind of living over the Thanksgiving holiday. Many years ago, in our extended family, there was a divorce – a very bitter divorce. As sometimes happens in divorces, the couple’s only child got caught in the middle. There was an estrangement between the father and his daughter. They had no contact for more than thirty years.. In the meantime, the father remarried and had a family of his own. Most of them did not even know there was another daughter – until just before Thanksgiving.

She called her dad.

He’s had some pretty serious health issues lately, and hearing about them is what prompted her to make the call. She didn’t know how he felt about her, or how he would respond, but she wanted him to know that she loved him while there was still time to tell him.

So she called.

He had been living all these years with the guilt of being alienated from his daughter, along with the added burden of keeping it all a secret. There had been times he wanted to reach out to her but didn’t, for fear that she would reject him.

But when she called that day, heaven came – wrongs were righted, hurts were healed, sins were forgiven, what was broken was made whole.

He asked her to come for Thanksgiving.

Do you know what heaven looks like?

Let me tell you what heaven looks like in real life terms.

When we came through the door on Thanksgiving Day, there they were by the fireplace – holding hands.

“Marty and Sandy,” he said – beaming with immense pride, “I want you to meet my daughter!”

“I don’t know when heaven will come,” Jesus says. “Maybe in the next minute or two, maybe next month, maybe thirty years from now, maybe in another millennium. Maybe in small ways, or big ways, or history-changing ways”

But heaven WILL come to you – in God’s time.

That’s God’s promise that was made real in the coming of Jesus. Christmas tells us that God keeps his promises.

So in the meantime, we have this season called “Advent.” Its message is very simple, but deeply profound: keep watch…keep working…keep loving…keep living …keep praying the prayer that Jesus taught us:

“…Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Perhaps there is something you need to do, someone you need to reach out to, some broken relationship you need to address, some person you need to love, some act of kindness you need to extend.

As Advent begins, go and live faithfully…

…because in some unexpected moment…

…heaven will come!