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Advent 1, 2023Isaiah 64:19; 1 Cor. 13:9; Mark 13:24-37Advent-       Season of Advent preparation for two comings of Christ: birth and second coming and final judgment. Therefore a penitential season: hence purple.-       Our Gospel reading clearly about the end of history, what it will be like.-       But it gives us great insight into how to live the Christian life today.“Be on guard, keep awake.”-       Story at end of reading:“(The final hour) is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning— lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.” Mark 13:32-36-       Makes sense by itself: Christ is coming back at a time you do not know therefore keep awake and be on your guard.-       But wider context of Mark 13 crucial. Our Sunday lectionary reading gives us only half of it.-       This section is not just a generic exhortation to wait for Christ but a call for spiritual discernment. Critical to the Christian life.-       Much Christianity doesn’t show signs of this: easy to simply accept anything that presents itself as good. But Christ shows us that the world is full of deception and that Satan desires to deceive even committed Christians.Mark 13 – Wider Context-       Before speaking about this passage, an exhortation not to switch off. These are the words of Christ and so as important as anything else he said. He tells us this specifically so that we will be prepared: “But be on guard: I have told you all things beforehand” (Mark 13:23). Pay attention!-       In Mark 13, Jesus speaks to his disciples about the course of world history. And he divides history up into two parts: the world as it is now, and the world as it will be at the very end.-       The point of this discourse is that Jesus is warning his disciples (including us) not to misread the signs of the times, to misunderstand the stage we are in.The Present-       What does Jesus say about the present?o   Wars and rumours of wars. Mark 13:7o   Earthquakes and famines. Mark 13:8o   Persecution of Christians. Mark 13:9-10o   The proclamation of the Gospel to all nations. Mark 13:10-       These things happen now and they are emphatically not signs of the end of history.o   E.G. “And you will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but do not be alarmed. The end is not yet.” Mark 13:7. “There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains.” Mark 13:8The End-       What does Jesus say about the end?o   The beginning of the end will be marked by “the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to be” (Mark 13:14). More on that in a moment.o   (Seemingly linked to this) Unprecedent tribulation (seemingly for all the earth). “For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, and never will be” (Mark 13:19).o   “After that tribulation”, cosmic signs: “The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling down from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken” (Mark 13:24-25).o   Only then, will Jesus Christ return: “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven” (Mark 13:26-27).§  This will be completely clear to all of humanity. No ambiguity.o   Excepting the Father, nobody knows when we will move from the present to the end, not even Jesus Christ (in his humanity). “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mark 13:32).§  We will know when we are