Stand up, raise your heads, for your redemption is drawing near. This is no time for despair. Though those around you faint from fear and the signs of the times are terrible and terrifying, this is not the time to despair.

When the storm was about to overwhelm the boat in which the disciples thought they were perishing, Jesus was close at hand to quell the fury. When the crowd was exhausted and hungry and quite possibly on the point of revolt and violence (because hangry crowds can get that way), Jesus took bread, took pause to look up and give thanks, and fed thousands with next to nothing. Even when Lazarus was lying in the tomb, in his graveclothes, in death, Jesus was already on his way to call him out.

Jesus said, these things will happen, and I will be close at hand.

Then he told them a parable, about a fig tree, and spring, and the warmth of summer, and the green shoots, and the providence of God that is hardy and persistent and that grows sweet fruit for all creatures to eat. Don’t miss the parable for the apocalypse, the fig tree for the forest of prophecy. The signs of the second coming of Christ are the signs of God’s continuing love for the world that God has created, and sustains, and has redeemed.

And Jesus advises, pray for the providence, the sustenance – give us this day our daily bread – the strength to endure all of the things, so that you might still be standing and see the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Sun of Righteousness at his next dawning.

He tells his disciples not to get weighed down, bogged down in the dissipation and despair of the world. It’s so easy, isn’t it, to follow the signs of fury, the signs of distress, the signs of indulgence and ignorance and exploitation, the signs of corruption and capitalizing and capitulation, the signs of the world as we know it, and the end of the world as we know it.

But there is more to the world than its ending, and more to creation than its corruption, and more to humanity than its worse moments. There is hope in fragile ceasefires, despite the ongoing famine and war. There is joy in family reunions, despite the ongoing feuds and the missing faces. There is laughter to be found in the children’s snowman, despite the snarled up snowstorm traffic. There is repentance in the recognition that this land is not our own. There is love in the resolution to respect the dignity of every human being, and it is more than a fig leaf.

Advent is an odd season, a disruption of the calendar. We look forward to the birth of Christ which happened millennia ago in our history. We look back through the apocalyptic scriptures which told generation after generation that they were living through the end of the world. Time is out of joint, and we are unsettled by it.

But it is in this break, through this fracture, that the light of Christ shines, through clouds and glory, through sunspots and shooting stars, through the darkness of the longest night. This is the sign that Jesus is close at hand – that we need him, now as much if not more than ever.

But what I really wanted to say to you, church, is what Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: how glad you make me feel because of your faith; And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. You are good news for Euclid and further afield. You stand, in the shortened days and lengthening nights, as a lighthouse, a beacon of good news. You are hope for the sinner, welcome for all of God’s children, affirmation that God’s love is without exception.

And the good news for you, for us, is that Jesus is near. His arrival is at hand. His birth, his new birth, his coming in all humility and in great glory. When we need him the most, he is already on his way.

Amen; come, Lord Jesus. Amen.