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A lot has happened in the past four days. Who had a great Thanksgiving? Amy, Hannah and I spent the day at Amys family in Ellsworth. We joined the rest of the world in counting our blessings. As we ate we went around the table and shared for what we were most thankful. It was a wonderful day where we were surrounded by blessings. How many of you have done some shopping in the last 48 hours. My nephews and brother-in-law and I have a tradition of going out early on Black Friday to hit some of the big boxes in the east Metro. In the past weve gotten up at 4:00 to do the early morning shopping run. This year we stayed up late on Thanksgiving and went out at midnight. It was the first time in my life I waited in line to get into the store. I wrote a blog about my experience. Yesterday was a big day too. Ask any of our Catholic friends about what happened at Mass. The Catholic church has changed their Mass for the first time in decades. That was a very big deal that our Catholic friends have prepared for for a long time. Amidst all of this Advent has started. Advent is the church season that makes up the four Sundays before the birth of Jesus. For four Sundays we get ready to celebrate Jesus birth. Celebrating Advent does not necessarily have anything to do with Christmas shopping, or going to parties, or sending Christmas cards, or other Christmas preparations. Advent gets us ready to celebrate a birth. My hope for all of us is we will be different people on December 26th because weve celebrated Christmas. Each Sunday Im going to mention this hope. My hope for all of us is we will be different people on December 26th because weve celebrated Christmas. I pray that celebrating Christmas wont be an exhausting event from which we want to take a vacation. Instead I pray that it could be a wonderfully spiritual time for us.

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And my hope is our world will look closer to the Kingdom God imagines because weve celebrated Advent. I hope the poverty rate has gone down, and marriages have been strengthened, and wars have ceased. I hope that the celebration of the Prince of people will lead us closer to being in a world of peace. On the first Sunday of Advent the church traditionally looks at the second coming of Jesus. The title of this sermon is Be Ready, Keep Awake. Id like to encourage you to get out this brochure that is in the bulletin. In this brochure is a devotion. This week in the devotion I shared some important readings in the Bible and gave us some tools for interpreting them. Also youll find a place for sermon notes. Im counting that God is going to say something to us in this sermon today that youll want to write down. Also you have a place for prayer requests. A little more about Advent. The word comes from the Latin word Adventus which means coming. It wouldnt be out of line to wish you a Happy New Year today. For Advent begins a new church year. The seasons of the church year are Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Ordinary Time, Lent, and Pentecost. The colors are represented in those wall hangings. I am not a strict Advent celebrant. Some churches dont allow Christmas carols to be sung during worship in Advent. Some churches dont decorate their sanctuaries with Christmas decorations until Christmas Eve. Some churches encourage people not to put up Christmas lights in their homes until Christmas. Like everything else in worship we at Chain of Lakes take a balanced approach. We arent singing Christmas carols today, but we will sing some Christmas carols in worship before Christmas day. Well decorate the Christmas tree before the Christmas season. We will celebrate a few Christmas traditions before the season of Christmas comes.

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One way we celebrate Advent is by looking at the 2nd coming on the first Sunday of Advent. How many of us grew up in churches that talked frequently about the 2nd coming of Christ? I didnt. In the Presbyterian church in Worthington I rarely heard a sermon about Jesus second coming. I know that there are churches who talk regularly about Jesus return. I think its fair to say that some of our conservative friends take a fear base approach to the 2nd coming. These leaders are convinced that Jesus is going to return soon. And we better be ready for Jesus return. Our salvation depends on this. No one would want to be caught not be a disciple when Jesus comes back. This obsession with Jesus return has led to an industry of people who have predicted when Jesus will come back. We saw this in 2011. Remember Harold Camping. Harold Camping is a 90 year old man who is the president of Family Radio. Its a radio station that broadcasts to more than 150 markets. He predicted that Jesus would return on May 21, 1988, and September 6, 1994. That didnt happen. He predicted that Jesus would return on May 21, 2011. Remember that? His campaign was fueled by a lot of money. SLIDE Heres one billboard that they ran. Many people believed Harold Camping. They gave a lot of money to the Family Radio network. When Jesus didnt return on May 21, 2011 Harold Camping said that May 21 was a "spiritual" judgment day, and the physical Rapture would occur on October 21, 2011, along with the destruction of the world. He didnt return any of the money he received before his May 21st prediction. Obviously the Jesus didnt return on October 21, 2011.

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Harold Camping is not the only person who has predicted the end of the world. Who saw the movie 2012. That movie predicted the end of the world. Some people believe that when the Mayan calendar ends the world will end. NASA actual has a web site that scientifically refutes claims that the world is going to end in 2012. The site shares a question answer section that logically responds to the belief that the world is going to end in 2012. I was interested in the history of predictions that the world was going to end. I found a web site called SLIDE: abhota.info.

This understanding that the world is going to end is nothing new. When the city of Rome was founded many residents of Rome feared that the city would be destroyed in the 120th year of its founding. There was a myth that 12 eagles had revealed to the leader Romulus a mystical number which revealed the lifetime of Rome. Some people expected the city of Rome to be destroyed in the year 634 BC. This site shared some stories of past predictions of the worlds end. Did you know that SLIDE Pope Innocent III expected the Second Coming to take place in 1284666 years

after the rise of Islam. SLIDE On February 1, 1524 some London astrologers predicted that London would be

destroyed by a flood. Around 20,000 people abandoned their homes and even some clergy stockpiled food and water. SLIDE 1982. Hal Lindsey made a lot of money in his book The late great planet earth. He predicted that the world would end. In 1980 Pat Robertson predicted the end of the world would occur in the fall of

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How about the Left Behind series. The authors of the Left Behind series made a lot of money writing a about the end of the world. If you read the Left Behind series that was an example of two authors writing a story using dispensationalist theology. Dispensationalist theology is a particular belief about how the world will end. Theres this belief that some people have the secret about the end of the world. Shortly after the Twin Towers fell on 9/11, many people started sending me E-mails about Nostradamus. He was a 16th century French philosopher who made predications about the world. Nostradamus enthusiasts have credited him with predicting numerous events in world history, from the Great Fire of London, the rise of Napoleon I of France , the rise of Hitler, even September 11th. Of course, no one who was a Nostradamus enthusiast said anything about 9/11 before that disaster happened. This is why Jesus statement in todays New Testament reading is so important. Jesus said, SLIDE: But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (Mark 13:32) If more of the world was familiar with this Scripture, the industry that predicts the end of the world would not have many followers. Jesus was clear that no one except God the Father the Creator knows when Jesus will be returning. Not even Jesus knew when his 2nd Advent or coming would be. In the first part of chapter 13 in Mark Jesus was asked this question by his disciples: SLIDE Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished? (Mark 13:4)

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Jesus was asked this question shortly after he said that all of the stones of the Temple would be destroyed. Jesus responded to this question by saying that his followers needed to beware that no one lead them astray. Specifically he said, SLIDE Many will come in my name and say, I am he! and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. Mark 13:6-8 What happens is people see wars and earthquakes and famines they take these as signs that Jesus is going to return. The problem is that earthquakes and famines and wars have happened ever since Jesus has returned. But many people expect that he is coming soon. When I served in Plainview we had a man in our congregation who was convinced that Jesus was arriving soon. Anytime there was a series of natural disasters that happened in a short time, he would start thinking that Jesus return was imminent. In Plainview we ran a mid-week program called Logos. This manwho is a great guywas on the planning board of Logos with me. In December we were making plans for starting the program in April. Because of all that was happening in the world, he wasnt sure if Logos would ever happen. My friend was expecting Jesus to return before our Logos program started. These predictions of Jesus coming is almost laughable, but at a certain point its not funny anymore. Because if people think that Jesus is returning soon to end the world, then why would we care about the world. If the world is going to end why should we try to help the poor or try to go out of our why to create peace, or do whatever we can to build a church. People have used Jesus return as an excuse to withdraw from the world.

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Whats sad is these false predictions of Jesus return cause some people to question whether Jesus is returning. I have many friends on the left side of theology who dont believe that Jesus will return. Many rational people will go to a web site and see the history of people falsely predicting Jesus return and they throw out the whole idea of Jesus return. Because if you believe in Jesus return then youre getting in the same boat as all these people who have made fools of themselves and have given a bad name to the idea of the 2nd coming. So what are we to think about the 2nd coming. And more importantly how will the 2nd coming affect our preparations for Christmas. Let me start to wrap up this sermon with two points. First, always keep the return of Jesus in the back of our mind. It could happen at any time. The fact of Jesus return should motivate us to live our faith passionately today. I compare the date of Jesus return to the date of my death. I know that Im going to die, I just dont know when the date is. My task is to live my life as if Im going to die tomorrow; just as our task is to live our lives as if Jesus will return tomorrow. Life can change so fast. A couple weeks ago I had a phone conversation with one of my best friends from growing up. Usually our phone conversations dont go too deep. We talk about the Orgeon Ducks or some other sporting event. After we did this for five minutes, he told me that his wife had left him. She came home from a movie and said that she needed spiritual fulfillment and asked him to leave. He did move out. For the last six months he has been trying to put his marriage back together. Hes grown tremendously through this process. I hardly recognized my friend when I talked to him. Im praying for him that his marriage can be restored. Theres still hope. His life changed fast.

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Who among us expects the doctor to say, its cancer. Who among us when we start a car wonders if well return. Who wakes up in the morning wondering if that is the last time well get out of bed. We dont expect our sudden death, but life can change very fast. I dont say this to scare us, but instead to acknowledge that you and I are not ultimately in control of our life. The point is to live our life to the fullest today, so that we dont look back on our life with regrets. Recently I had a man tell me a story of a friend of his. This friend learned he had a terminal cancer diagnosis. Instead of living these last days with deep sorrow, the man lived his last days with tremendous freedom. What if we lived our life with such freedom that on the day of our death we had no regrets. What if we lived our life with such faith that it doesnt matter to us when Jesus returns because when Jesus returns we are ready. Right now is the time to get ready. I want to challenge us to do one thing in Advent to get ready for Christmas. If we knew the specific date that Jesus was going to return, we might develop a deeper prayer life. Whats stopping us from developing a deeper prayer life? If we knew the date, we might spend time reading the Bible. Whats stopping us from reading the Bible this week. If we knew that Jesus was going to return next month, we might go out of our way to help the poor and hurting. During our prayer time today Im going to stop praying. As Kellie plays in the background Im going to encourage all of us to choose one thing we can do to be ready. FriendsJesus is coming back. Lets not be afraid. Lets be ready