So, my niece
Kathy has a baby due in mid-December.
Friday night was interesting, because she was having contractions 3
minutes apart. This is her third child,
so early would not be unheard of, but what was most interesting to me was the
statement her mother made: with all
three children, Kathy had had Braxton Hicks' contractions beginning about the
fifth month. At this point, she knew the
difference between the fake contractions and the real ones. She knew these were real, but with the advice
of her midwife, she took a benadryl and a bath, and they slowed back down.
Birth
pangs. Jesus warns of them, stating that
nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom; we will have
earthquakes and famine. The Lord told
Daniel, "There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred
since nations first came into existence."
He, of course, is talking about the birth of the Kingdom of Heaven on
Earth. Nation against nation, kingdom
against kingdom – sounds like the "war to end all wars" that we
talked about last week.
We've heard
birth pains described as one of the most painful experiences possible, followed
by one of the best. The most colorful
description I've heard thus far is, "[It's] [l]ike if you ate 100 hot
peppers and then pooped out a watermelon."
And I think Christ was being pretty literal in how bad it was going to
get – before it became sublime.
And that's the message here today. People have been waiting for the end times
since before Christ. The passage in
Daniel today marks the first time in the Hebrew scriptures where the experience
of resurrection is discussed. He talks
about the coming of "Michael", and scholars are divided on whether
the Michael referred to here is Christ, or whether they're discussing the
Archangel Michael. The name Michael
itself, means "Who is like God?"
So some believe that this reference, like the apocalyptic reference to
Michael in Revelations 12, is actually referring to the Word made flesh, or to
Christ. If this is the case, the Hebrew
scriptures are referring to a pre-incarnate Christ, or one of those sightings
in the Old Testament of a person who simply appears, performs miraculous deeds,
is the wisest of the wise, and yet has no parents, and no birth or death is described. For a people who keep track of genealogy the
way the Jews do, that's an anomaly.
But whether
Michael is Christ, or the Archangel, we know that there will be a battle, and
that all those with their names written in the Book of Life will be
delivered. This includes those alive and
those who have already died, or as Daniel puts it, who have been sleeping in
the dust of the earth. They will be
divided into those who will have everlasting life, and those who will have
shame and everlasting contempt.
Now let's take
a look at both the words of the Psalm and the words of the New Testament
lesson. The Psalm mentions, "Their
libations of blood I will not offer, nor take the names of their gods upon my
lips." Part of what this is
referring to is what Daniel had been lamenting prior to our Old Testament
lesson. The people had been experiencing
a period of unspeakable oppression of the Jews under Antiochus IV/Epiphanes in
the second century BCE. This king, who considered himself divine, had
desecrated the Jerusalem temple, the dwelling-place of God, turning it into a
pagan shrine. There had been a vicious civil war (167-164 BCE), following
centuries of foreign domination, and the persecution of the faithful Jews was
ongoing. Worship and sacrifice in Jerusalem had come to a temporary close, and
the observance of festivals and circumcision was prohibited. The sacrifices, as mentioned in the Psalm,
were not to be acknowledged by observant Jews.
Now compare
that to our New Testament reading, where Paul, or whoever actually wrote
Hebrews, discussed the fact that the priests can preside over sacrifices, day after
day, but that Christ came once and sacrificed Himself for us all. "By a single offering, He has perfected
for all times those who are sanctified."
Again, the experience of horrible suffering, followed by the
resurrection to everlasting life.
And lastly,
let's look at the Psalm along with our Gospel lesson, and the warnings against
false teachers. The Psalm tells us,
"But those who run after other gods shall have their troubles multiplied." And Christ tells us, "Many will come in
my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray." To stay with the whole childbirth theme,
these will be the Braxton Hicks contractions, always coming at a time of strife
and worry and calamity – but without the promise of the life to come.
So how do we
tell the difference? Let's go back to
the Psalm: "Protect me, O God, for
I take refuge in you; I have said to the Lord, 'You are my Lord, my good above
all other.' All my delight is upon the
godly that are in the land, upon those who are noble among the people." We trust in God to guide us rightly. We follow the commandments to love God with
all our heart, strength, soul and mind, and we love our neighbors. We think about the grace we have been given,
both through Christ's sacrifice of Himself, and in our knowledge of the way,
the truth and the life. And we share
that with others, so that they, too, may experience that grace.
Our world has
experienced more than its fair share of earthquakes, tsunamis, fires, floods,
and hurricanes. We've experienced the
war to end all wars, and the ones that came after. People around the world experience famine and
degradation that we can only imagine in our very privileged lives. I don't think we're experiencing Braxton
Hicks, but rather, the beginnings of the birth pangs. We're at the 3-minute contractions, and
likely, those contractions will slow down again. We're not yet at hard labor. And that's a scary thought. But at the same time, we know that at the
end, we will be living with Christ, resurrected into the Kingdom of
Heaven. And that's what we have to share with others. There is hope; there is life eternal waiting
for us. We just have to get through the
labor, and the nursery still needs to be painted.
No comments:
Post a Comment