Advent: Jesus is Coming! Look Busy!

Better advice than you might think

Us Anglicans, among other traditions, enter the season of Advent on Sunday. We once again set aside the time from about St. Andrews Day (or exactly St. Andrews Day this year, as it falls on Sunday) to Christmas Eve to reflect on Jesus coming to us on the first Christmas in the Incarnation, coming to us now by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Sacrament, and coming again in the future in glory to judge both the quick and the dead. We also reflect on what our response should be.

The response to the latter coming, namely the latter days and Christ’s return, has been, let’s say, tricky. All through church history, many Christians have played the fool in this area, by setting dates and putting them in print and even on billboards, by provoking wars — bizarre eschatology was one of the motivations behind the English Civil Wars and was a chief motivation behind the debacle at Munster in 1534 to 1535 — by basing too much of one’s faith on a date and thereby shipwrecking it, as with some Joachimsts in 1260 and Millerites in the Great Disappointment of 1844, and more.

Such church history demonstrates that Jesus was right (of course) when he told the curious disciples, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority.” (Acts 1:7 NASB) When Christians presume to know, bad or silly things happen.

A more subtle and lazy response is to be, yes, lazy. This was a problem in the church of Thessalonica. Paul’s two epistles to the church there indicate they had an unhealthy obsession with eschatological questions. Some were frightened that the Resurrection of the Dead had already occurred and they were left behind. (COUGH) Others were convinced that Jesus was coming soon. Therefore hard work was pointless. A mistaken conviction and a wrong application.

That reminds me of some classmates at Duke who disparaged the importance of studies by saying, “It’s all gonna burn.” I think my buddies were joking. The lazy among the Thessalonians were not. Indolence became such a problem that St. Paul put his foot down:

Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. (2 Thess. 3:6-12 ESV)

That may seem a bit harsh, but it is in line with the teachings of Jesus. The way to be prepared for his Second Advent is not to presume to know the date for that, but to prepare to do what Christ would have you do until he returns, and then do it. Back to the above quote from Acts, immediately after Jesus told the disciples it’s not for them to know “times or epochs,” he told them to get ready to do the work and then to do it:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. (Acts 1:8 NASB)

Now I was trying to be witty in the title to this post with its exhortation to look busy. But there is truth to my impious humor. Of course, we are not merely to look busy. Yet a chief teaching of Christ, perhaps the chief teaching of Christ on preparing for his return is that right preparation is not to obsess with dates or to presume to know the time. He taught that is not for us to know and that his return will be as unexpected as “a thief in the night.” So we should instead do what we should be doing anyway. He so taught in the Parable of the Stewards:

Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath. But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken; The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. (Luke 12:42-46 KJ)

The foolish steward presumed to know more about the timing of his Lord’s return than he did and used that as an excuse for his foolishness. The wise steward makes no such assumptions about the time of the return, but is faithful in serving the Lord in his absence however long that may be. So when the Lord does return, that steward is doing what he should be doing.

So what should one do to prepare for Christ’s return? One should be doing what one should be doing anyway instead of fruitless and even dangerous speculation about the time of his return.

Fr. Donald Haggerty’s The Hour of Testing reflects this teaching. Most of the book is insightful if a bit speculative at times. But the first two chapters, which focus on preparing for the return of Christ and for difficulties beforehand, are excellent and worth the price of the whole book. I might deal with the first chapter another day, but the second chapter, “Ruminations on a Last Era in the Church” points out that “the impulse to speculate whether a final period of history is already underway confronts God’s refusal to answer impetuous questions” and is therefore “foolhardy; it simply agitates the soul.”

Instead we should be doing what we should be doing anyway, particularly “seeking deeper relations with our God” and accompanying prayer. Amidst the current troubles and uncertainties in church and society, we should “avoid the propensity for premature conclusions” but exercise faithful “perseverance through uncertainty.”

So the Christian should persevere so that “his Lord when he cometh shall find him so doing” what he should be doing anyway: prayer, reading and living out the Scriptures, doing the Lord’s work in ministry and charity, providing for family both spiritually and physically, loving God, loving His Holy Church, and loving neighbors. These are the best preparations for Christ’s return.

Now do you know why Advent is a penitential season?