Waiting for the Cavalry?

I was taking the service at my own church last Sunday, and of course it was advent themed. Like many churches we light an advent candle on each of the four Sundays, and we usually get one of the children to do the actual lighting – fun for them, but always a heart in mouth moment for those on the fabric committee! As they were being lit, I asked the children why we lit the candles. Unsurprisingly, one of them said “We’re counting down to Christmas.” And so we are. But that is not all that advent is. Advent is the particular season in the church’s year when we reflect on both the first coming of Christ and on His return, His second advent.

That was the theme I took for my sermon, in which I reflected on the big story, which actually runs from Genesis to Revelation, of God’s purpose ultimately to reconcile to Himself all things, as Paul puts it in Colossians 1: 20. As I did so, and particularly as I thought about what it means to live in the light of Christ’s return, I found myself struggling for the right metaphor. You see, for many Christians, perhaps particularly in the times in which we live in contemporary Europe, marked by rapid secularisation and church decline, we look on the Second Coming as the cavalry. Many of us remember a classic Western movie image of the beleaguered travellers, circling the wagons and attacked by hostile Apaches, holding on desperately until, at the last minute the cry goes up “Here come the cavalry!”, and sure enough, over the brow of the hill come the cavalry to save the day. Is that how we feel we should anticipate the return of Christ – desperately holding on, trying to keep our churches safe and pure until, at the last minute, Jesus comes to rescue us?

There will certainly be times when it does feel that we are holding on by our fingernails, and times when we experience some marvellous and unexpected intervention by God into our lives. However, I wonder whether the Bible calls us to have a more optimistic view of the times in which we live than that. What if we should think of the return of Christ not so much as a last-minute rescue but more as the culmination of a movement that begins with the Word becoming flesh - and in fact which is pointed to way back in Genesis 3: 15, with the promise of the defeat of Satan by the seed of the woman. In the parable of the mustard seed, in Matthew 13, Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God as something which grows into a great tree. In the parable of the wheat and the weeds, also in Matthew 13, again the image is of growth, albeit tempered with the parallel spread of evil. Paul too, in Colossians 1: 6, speaks of the Gospel bearing fruit all over the world.

This is not to downplay the crisis event of judgment which accompanies the return of Christ. Instead it is to see that event as the fulfilment of what God has been, and is, doing in the world. If this is right, then it means that Christians should see the time between the advents, in which we now live, not as a time to circle the wagons and hold on for dear life, but instead as a time for active involvement in the world and for commitment to incarnate the good news of the kingdom, in our own lives and in our communities. We need a new metaphor. Perhaps we should see ourselves not as pioneers hiding behind wagons, but rather as pioneers who have arrived, and are making a new life, or a new world, for themselves. This involves the steady slog of digging, clearing, felling, planting, nurturing and reaping – with all the struggle with bad weather and hostile terrain, and all the joys of seeing the fruits of our labour being gathered in. So, instead of “Here comes the cavalry!” how about “Here comes the harvest!” “See, I am making everything new” says the Lord in Revelation 21: 5. Those who live between the advents have the incredible privilege of sharing in that work.

(P.S. If you were reading this expecting some comment on Jona Lewie’s “Don’t Stop the Cavalry” sorry to disappoint – though I personally think that’s another cavalry reference we could do without!)