Pervasive theme in the Bible. Ultimately it evolved into the longing for divine intervention, an action that would be extra-historical, even altering creation and human history.

What is at the heart of this theme is "hope." Paul defined hope waiting for patience for that we cannot see. And so, logically to have our "hope" fulfilled, we would depend on an advent, or coming of that which is hoped for.

Advent is about hope. At first "hope" likely was focused outward, for example, it would have been hoped that God would punish those who oppress the innocent. Also, however, hope was just as likely to have been focused inward, for example, that God would forgive us for what we have done to heart innocent people, as well.

During Jesus’ lifetime there was an intense longing for the people’s deliverance from Roman oppression. This longing took many forms, but a major one was called apocalypticism. It was the hope that God would come in a fiery display to burn up all that was evil, like the Romans of course, but also the people who were not faithful in their worship or moral lives. There was a sharp division between the guilty and the innocent, or the good and the bad. John the Baptist represented this type of anticipation.

Jesus took a different perspective. Even though he warned people to change and stay awake for the imminent coming of the Lord, he did not stress God’s anger and intention to punish, so much as God’s compassion and mercy to forgive. He, himself, asked that his followers pray for those who persecuted them, and not to return evil for evil.

Hans Kung argues that the most disappointed person on the occasion of Jesus’ death was not his family or closest friends, but that person was Jesus, himself. He was disappointed that the "Son of Man" had not come to fully establish the kingdom of God. The image a "Son of Man" was used by the prophet Daniel to describe figuratively the coming of God.

The closest followers of Jesus experienced Jesus alive after his death. God gave this to them. It is reasonable that they might have taken this to have been the coming of the "Son of Man," and that Jesus was the one who fulfilled that role. After all, only God could reveal someone alive after his death. There were problems with this likely impression, though. First, it became clear that the experience of the apostles and women were not wide spread. Only they were given these revelations. Secondly, history did not change substantially, if at all. Rome still brutalized Israel and the world. People still committed sins.

What the closest followers, then, concluded was that Jesus was the prophesied "Son of Man." He had spoken plainly that the kingdom of God was "at hand," and "very near." Their God-given experience of Jesus alive among them was for them assurance that what Jesus had taught was true. The kingdom was about to break in. Therefore, they were bold to tell others who, of course, wanted to have such an experience that they would be given this experience very soon, that Jesus Christ was the "Son of Man," and because he had been revealed alive to them, he would very soon be revealed to the others, too.

Time would prove the expectation of the first followers to be incorrect. The Son of Man, in the person of Jesus did not come, while many first and then second-generation followers of Christ died. The literature of the New Testament describes how the early church dealt with this disappointment. Paul reassured his readers in Thessalonica that Jesus would come as the Son of Man on clouds, and the dead followers would meet Christ in the air before the living followers. Those alive would join them in the air, after all the dead met with Christ.

John, writing much later, encouraged followers to believe that Christ was alive and present by the Holy Spirit, and that because he lived, they too would live. The intense expectation of an end to history was modulated by stating the belief that a life with the risen Lord could be lived here and now, as well as at the last day.

Jesus believed with his people of ancient Israel in a last day. His followers, who were given a revelation of Jesus Christ alive after his death, believed that the last day would be ushered in when all those other than themselves, were given the same experience of the risen Christ that they were privileged to have been given.

Having viewed the historical progression, or at least development, of the Bible’s dealing with the theme of a last day, we are left to ask what we may take from this to help us as Christians today. The answers are these:

1. God created all that is.

2. History has a purpose. God desires to bless all the families of the earth.

3. God is sovereign, and will accomplish which God has purposed.

4. God’s people have always been a people of hope. Believing that God will bring history to a just conclusion.

5. We believe that the risen Jesus Christ is the reason for us to hope in such a conclusion. God is stronger than the worst that human history can do.

6. God intends us to follow Christ in doing what he did, when he hoped for the coming of the kingdom of God, and that is to live lives that are congruent with its coming. That is what Jesus must have meant in his story of the servants left in charge of their master’s house, when he said "Keep Awake."

Hope, then, as the theme of Advent is not about magic. It is not that God will act and we will not have to do anything. To the contrary, it is about our preparation for the coming of Christ and the kingdom of God at the last day.

Paul in his letter to the Romans casts a vision about this work we have to do in preparing for Christ to appear as the Son of Man at the end of history. In Romans 8 he asserts astoundingly that all of creation is waiting for deliverance, not just human history. Christ is the first fruit that points to the coming harvest. What will make the harvest come in its fulness, however, is what Paul calls the "revealing of the children of God." Those who state that they are children of God must reveal to the world that we live, like Christ, willing to suffer so that all may be blessed here and now. When the people of God do this, Paul asserts boldly our hope for the coming of God, the arrival of the kingdom will become a reality. Paul would hasten to add that we cannot do this without God’s Spirit, the living Spirit of Christ. Nevertheless, his assertion is that the preparation for the Advent of God in Christ, which we are called to perform is to suffer with Christ for the sake of God’s blessing to all people. That is what it means to "keep awake."

Our hope is given credibility, when we respect one another, especially those who oppose us for whatever reasons. Certainly, we have a God-given gift to exist, but not to use that gift to do anything that would disavow God’s blessings on all others.

To live life non-violently is the way, the truth, and the life, which is Jesus Christ. It is to value the life God has given us so much, that we would do nothing to discount the lives of others. If the coming kingdom of God will be one of peace, where there is no violence, must we not prepare for such a reality by striving to live with each other non-violently, even at costs to ourselves? And the last part of that sentence carries the freight. Earlier in chapter 8 of Romans, Paul stated that we will inherit the kingdom of God, "provided that we suffer with Christ." It is not a call to masochism, but one to promote life, the life God has created and toward which God is moving us through the living Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Nation states are not able to exist without reverting to either the threat, or the use of violence. Our own nation is no exception. What is more, there are many good values in our democracy, values worth our having stood up for in the world. Historically, we have fought wars, which at least addressed injustices, such as our war for independence from England, the American Civil War over slavery, and World War II to stop the madness of Hitler and Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. All the same, we must not presume to place the name of the one, whom we confess to be the very revelation of God onto our wars, or any other use of violence. Let us make our arguments to justify our choice to use violence as a modern state. Good arguments can be summoned. But, for God’s sake, let us not place Christ’s name onto our choices for violence, no matter how justified we presume we are to take up armaments. We simply cannot do so under the cross of Jesus Christ, who refused to return evil for evil and commanded those who follow him to love their enemies and to pray to God for them. Our hope is based in Jesus Christ, even our eternal hope, a hope for that day, when God will judge all by the grace and justice of this one.

In part, what it means to prepare for the coming of God in Christ is to struggle with Christ’s commands and the example of his cross, as we must agonizingly make choices about how live non-violently in the world here and now. To do so will require struggle and suffering. Finally, any use of violence must be taken only from a posture of our being on our knees asking God to forgive us, no matter how justified our choices might be otherwise.

To God alone the glory, now and forever. Amen