Be Like Bob

• First Sunday of Advent (Year A)
with Matthew 24:36-44
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Advent begins! We are about to re-tell our beloved ancient story.

I’m currently re-reading a favorite book,
The Dog Stars (2012), by Peter Heller.
It’s set in Colorado 9 years after “all hell broke loose” and a flu killed more than 90% of the population. There is no government, no infrastructure. In the whole book we don’t meet more than a dozen people, and they’re all survivalists.

Can you imagine? It could happen.

• Also a fan of The Walking Dead. Hit TV show these last seven years. The main character Rick Grimes is a policeman who was shot in the line of duty, and in the hospital went into a coma. When he comes to, he discovers that the zombie apocalypse has come. People forming tribes for survival, either cooperating with people or, more likely, competing with people for limited resources.

In season 4 our main character leads a group of people and they come across a guy named Bob, who eventually develops a liking for a woman named Sasha. One day Sasha notes that Bob is always smiling, and Bob responds that he is happy to be alive and not alone. She makes up a little game, The Good Out of the Bad: she says something “bad” and he finds the “good” in it: (Season 5, Episode 2)

Wet socks? / Cool feet.  
Mosquito bites? / Itching reminds you you're alive.
Danger around every corner? / Never a dull moment.
The hot sun beating down on you? / Come on, a glorious tan.
No privacy? / Captive audience.

Bob has survived the end of the world, he’s alive and not alone. He knows death could be around the corner but he does what he can with what he has, and seeks to live in a way that uplifts others.

• Matthew 24. Jesus has told the disciples that everything they know will be turned upside down. They want to know when. Could be any time. You can’t make plans for it. The only way to be ready for it is to accept that it could happen at any time and that you have no control over it.

I often write my sermons on Saturday evening. Works for me most of the time ;)  Well one Saturday evening a few years ago Melissa informed me shortly after supper that we had to take Lexi to the ER. Not in twenty minutes, not after you finish what you’re doing, now. Broken arm. We got home after 1AM. And I wrote my sermon then.

John Wesley is said to have said that a preacher ought to be ready to preach, pray, or die at a moment’s notice.

And scripture says Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15) – that includes you, too!

• So how do we get ready for [the end, the apocalypse, the return of Christ]?

1, accept that it could happen at any time and that you have no control over it.

2, take inventory, especially of what you know:
Jesus Loves Me, This I Know,
also belief that Jesus Christ lived & makes new life possible,
calls us into participation, and will come again.
2.1, consider the Apostles’ Creed

3, Be like Bob. Do what you can with what you have.

• 1 Thessalonians 5:14-22
¹⁴ And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. ¹⁵ See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. ¹⁶ Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray without ceasing, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. ¹⁹ Do not quench the Spirit. ²⁰ Do not despise the words of prophets, ²¹ but test everything; hold fast to what is good; ²² abstain from every form of evil.

• Hymn 117 O God, Our Help in Ages Past

Matthew 24:36-44 (The VOICE)

³⁶ No one knows the hour or the day, not even the messengers in heaven, not even the Son. Only the Father knows. ³⁷ As it was at the time of Noah, so it will be with the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸ In the days before the flood, people were busy making lives for themselves: they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, making plans and having children and growing old, until the day Noah entered the ark. ³⁹ Those people had no idea what was coming; they knew nothing about the floods until the floods were upon them, sweeping them all away. That is how it will be with the coming of the Son of Man. ⁴⁰ Two men will be plowing a field: one will be taken, and the other will be left in the field. ⁴¹ Two women will be somewhere grinding at a mill: one will be taken, and the other will be left at the mill.

⁴² So keep watch. You don’t know when your Lord will come. ⁴³ But you should know this: If the owner of a house had known his house was about to be broken into, he would have stayed up all night, vigilantly.  He would have kept watch, and he would have thwarted the thief. ⁴⁴ So you must be ready because you know the Son of Man will come, but you can’t know precisely when. X