Signs
This is the sermon I preached on Dec. 2, the First Sunday of Advent, at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The text was Luke 21:25-36 Waiting is hard. Children on road trips cry out, “Are we there yet?” A friend of ours in PA. tells of when her son, Luke, was younger. When he knew a package was coming, each day he would sit out on the front steps of the house waiting for its arrival. Today is the first Sunday of Advent, itself a time of waiting for the coming of something far more precious than a package. We await two comings of Christ: his first as one of us on earth and his second when he returns in glory. Today we focus on the second one. In today’s gospel text, Jesus moves his listeners from the realm of cosmic signs, to the realm of the listeners’ experienced world of nature and finally to their personal realm. Jesus first talks about the realm of cosmic signs (vv. 25-28). “ Sign, sign, everywhere a sign Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind Do this, don...