Advent thoughts – Monday of Advent 3

There is so much to ponder in the Daily Office readings that I barely have time to glance through them and pick out what catches my attention. Even then, I try to focus. Y'all know how I CAN carry on. There is so much that can be said and so little I have to offer each day. That said, here are three items for today.

“Then if anyone says to you, “Look! Here is the Messiah!”* or “There he is!”—do not believe it. For false messiahs* and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Take note, I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, “Look! He is in the wilderness”, do not go out. If they say, “Look! He is in the inner rooms”, do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24:23-27)

When one looks at a passage that straightforward, one wonders how Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, can declare that he is "humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent" (see footnote 1 at Wikipedia) and yet church folk will attend conferences of his Universal Peace Federation and he has even convinced some pastors and congregations to take down their crosses. It makes me wonder if they have ever read Matthew 24.

[If you are a new visitor here--and we have had many in the last day--you may well have similar questions about me. I can assure you there is not a verse of the Bible I have not read several times, I have no desire to found new churches, I know myself to be a frail and sinful human (and God's beloved child at the same time), and there is nobody I choose to call Lord besides the Holy Trinity. Just so you know. That won't convince anyone I am Orthodox, nor should it, but does set some clear boundaries about false messiahs. All I publish here are my own thoughts on a wide variety of topics. It's a place I alternately spout and play.]

Only one more thing to say on the passage above: if it's the Second Coming, we won't have to wonder whether it is. We'll know.

Switching to the Apocalypse, we encounter a theme in the letter to the Christians in Philadelphia (the original one in Asia Minor, not the one in Pennsylvania) that recurs toward the end of the book.

‘And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:


These are the words of the holy one, the true one,


who has the key of David,


who opens and no one will shut,


who shuts and no one opens:

‘I know your works. Look, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. (Apocalypse 3:7-8)



And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. (Apocalypse 21:23-25)

It is the theme of the open door. Jesus is the one with the key. Jesus decides what is shut and what is open. We are treated to the image of a door that is never shut. Elsewhere he speaks of a closed door, but here of an open one.

In a world where we find defenses necessary for survival, where we keep our doors bolted and windows shuttered for protections, where we maintain our masks when interacting, keep persons and forces at bay, and generally avoid vulnerability, how very powerful it is to come toward the end of the Apocalypse (and the Bible) and find an image of unflinching openness!

God does not avoid blatant hints. Behold, I set before you this day life and death; therefore choose life! Hello! There is a door in front of you; it's open. [Hint, hint: try entering.] God offers an invitation and I hear echoing in my mind the chorus we sang in summer camp and Sunday school: "Jesus said that whosoever will (repeat two more times), whosoever will may come."

The New Jerusalem does not shut the gates and bar the doors at night. In fact, there is no night there. The radiance of Uncreated Light permeates everywhere. The final vision is not one of fear and defensiveness; it is one of openness and light. The kings who wailed over the fate of the wordly city, the city of earthly dominion and oppression and wickedness, the whore of Babylon--yes, those kings are now bringing their treasures into the heavenly city, the city of God, the bride of Christ, the new Jerusalem. I have often said that I don't know how God gets from chapter 18 to chapter 21, because there is one heckuva turnaround and transformation, but God can do what mortals cannot. So I trust God for the miracle and for the details. All I need to know is the hope found in the imagery that even Babyolon's buddies wind up entering those never-closed gates. Amazing. Unexpected. Pure grace. God at work.

Finally, there is this incredibly striking expression in the psalms of the day.

I said, "LORD, be merciful to me; heal me, for I have sinned against you." (Psalm 41:4)

Now, one would expect the logic to run like this:

I said, "LORD, be merciful to me; heal me, for I have kept myself without reproach." That is the reasonable appeal, the one that makes sense, the one we would normally anticipate. After all, that is how we try to bargain with God all the time. I know: futile and pointless and based on false premises, but we do it nonetheless.

The psalmist, however, understands fully the folly, blindness, and arrogance that would make that kind of appeal to God. Instead, with devastating self-awareness, honesty, and an audacity that knowns something of God's heart, the psalmist says, "Heal me, for I have sinned against you."

What other plea can we make? We need healing precisely because we cannot know true life without God's grace and our attempts fail repeatedly. It is because we overstep, miss the mark, walk about in illusion, and are just plain willful that we need healing and so the psalmist teaches us, with gobsmacking honesty, how to ask. Here it is, God. Help.

As Peter said to Jesus, "Where else will we go?" And under what other circumstances could we possibly ask?

It is all mercy. It is all the goodness of God.

--the BB
UPDATE: Maddie gives us this news from the Daily Nation (Kenya):

He is branded a blasphemer and a worshipper of evil, and has even been ostracised by his community. And his controversial sect, in which he claims to be “God the Father of Jesus”, has not won him many followers. Instead, it stirs feelings of anger and hatred wherever he goes.

At one point, Mr Jehovah Wanyonyi’s house was set ablaze at night as he and his family slept. This and other incidents have forced the spiritual leader of the Lost Israelites of Kenya sect of Kitale to shift several times over the past few years looking for a safer haven.

But despite all this seeming setback, Mr Wanyonyi soldiers on, saying that his message is the biblical truth, and that he is being sought for persecution just as Jesus was. But he is not just another mortal capable of sinning and dying, he says. And, because many people do not recognise him as the creator, he promises to punish the human race.

His commentary on Matthew 24 should be enlightening.