Here is the Good News…

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Watch Pastor Kelsey’s Sermon “We are far too Human for this”, preached on Nov. 27, 2022 (Advent 1).

Manuscript of Sermon:

About that day and hour, no one knows. 

No one knows. 

One of my favorite parts about preparing for a sermon is reading the different translations of the readings and diving deep into the Greek translations. 

This week’s text offered some layers to the different translations. 

If you have your Bible near I invite you to open it to Matthew 24:36. 

Our bulletin has it printed: “About that day and hour, no one knows…” 

In the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) it reads, “But about that day and hour no one knows,”

However, the Common English Bible (CEB) has the most profound wording, “But nobody knows when that day or hour will come…”

Nobody knows. 

This passage this morning is an invitation to recognize we have no idea when that day or hour will come. 

Now in the context of this text, this is sort of a famous passage to talk about the rapture or about people being chosen and others left behind. 

Oftentimes when the topic of the end of the world comes up or the coming of Jesus, this Matthew text is there. Two women will be grinding meal and one will be taken up. Two will be out in the field working and one will be taken. It sounds like one is being chosen to go to heaven while the other is judged and left behind to continue life. 

But what if we were to understand this passage not as one about a judgment day or the hour we will be reaped. What if we were to imagine these verses as saying one will continue on their daily lives unchanged when the other will be taken up in the Holy Spirit? 

Afterall, Jesus talks about how the people went about their daily lives during Noah’s time but when the flood came, they went into the ark, unknowing  that the hour was near.  Noah was taken up by the Holy Spirit even though he didn’t know when the waters would come. 

And if we look at the Greek word for not “knowing” in these verses, Jesus uses the Greek verb oidein which means to perceive or understand. This word is more intimate in its use because it’s a deeper type of knowledge that it’s referring to that we don’t know. Instead of the fact based knowledge that we don’t know, this is talking about the knowledge that surrounds our own faith in God. So within this knowledge about God, we can’t and won’t know when our hour is or when the day comes. 

Hence, nobody knows the day or hour. 

This passage this morning is about learning to live in light of what we don't know. 

Think about all the times in your life where it just didn’t make sense to you. Maybe an unexpected delay in a promotion, maybe the death of a loved one, maybe an unexpected diagnosis, or maybe the many mass shootings taking place in our country.

We don’t know the hour our lives will be changed. We don’t know the day everything will happen. We just don’t know. 

These along with the many other moments we just don’t understand why things happen the way they do is the exact knowledge Jesus is saying we don’t know. 

I know, it’s hard to have this moment of realizing we don’t know it all, we don’t understand and perceive everything because only God can do that. 

To be honest, sometimes realizing what we don’t know is the most beautiful thing in the world.

I know this past week I have been saying I am too human to understand the hate and violence done to the LGBTQIA2S+ community right down the street from us. I’m too human because I am angry, I am scared, and I just don’t understand how the loss of life because of the way someone loves another, how the Bible is interpreted, is the way to manage discomfort of differences. 

I’m too human because I don’t understand this violence. 

And I hope I am not alone in this lack of understanding. 

We don’t understand when death happens to infants. We don’t understand how the rich get richer while the poor barely survive. We don’t understand  when seasonal depression hits extra hard some months and not others. 

In the whole realm of the world, we don’t know much. 

And yet, sometimes realizing we don’t know is the most beautiful thing in the world because we can leave that part of understanding and knowledge to God. 

We can cry out in need, curse in anger, tremble with fear to God and God will hold all of it because God doesn’t ask us to understand or to have all the knowledge because I want to believe God knows we are far too human for the knowledge God has. 

And to be too human, to hold too many emotions or desires, is exactly where God loves us. 

This passage is not only a reminder of God’s love for all our humanness, but also about learning to live in light of what we don’t know. 

To live in light of what we don’t know. 

I wish this is where we could turn to scripture and say we go on in this new light by splitting the sea in two, turning a stick into a snake or waking to Mana outside. 

That’s not what this text says nor is that what I believe God asks of us with not knowing the hour or day. Rather, we turn to scripture to help us understand what it means to live in light of what we don’t know. 

Scripture tells us we are to continue living. Like Noah and his people, like the workers in the field and the two women making meal, we continue on with our lives knowing we don’t know it all and that the Holy Spirit is there to take us up in our daily lives. 

And when we continue to live, when we search for the answer about how to live in light of what we do not, we find hope, real hope. 

The hope that we were reminded of today as we lit the advent wreath. 
Hope of a baby swaddled in a manger come to forgive all our sin. Hope of a beautiful Advent gathering this year. Hope for change with hatred.. 

Hope for our lives to make a difference in our community.  We don’t know everything, but we do know how to have hope in the midst of darkness. As we begin this Advent season today, as we continue to live our lives in light of not knowing it all, how will you find hope in the midst of all of this? May we find hope on this day and all the days to come and be invited to be taken up by the Holy Spirit in answering the question of how to live in light of what we do not know? 

Amen.