\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/font>This telescope invites us to see with extended vision the magnitude of our spectacular world.\u00a0 This morning I\u2019m going to ask us to focus that telescope and in different places, because what we see depends on where we focus.<\/font><\/p>\n <\/font>Let\u2019s begin with our spectacular world.\u00a0 This week on my computer, I saw a remarkable picture of the Crab Nebula, currently one of the most studied objects in the sky, \u201cmaking it a cosmic icon\u201d, the caption on the picture read.\u00a0 The Crab Nebula is the remains of a star that died in the year 1054 CE.\u00a0 In the image I saw, it shimmers and undulates in fabulous energy rich patterns of red and purple around a more solid blue core. <\/font> <\/font>But there are other places we need to focus our telescope this morning.\u00a0 Let\u2019s turn the telescope and focus on what humanity has done and is doing to parts of this great universe.\u00a0 One obvious place to turn the telescope is onto the melting polar ice caps.\u00a0 This is not an easy thing to do. The reality of the melting polar ice caps which have become the symbolic representation for many climate change issues may cause us to wonder; what have we done?\u00a0 What are we doing? <\/font> <\/font>Hmm, this eschatological vision is hope-filled, the kind of hope that gives us the kind of perspective that allows us to see both the gift of this day and that everything that is not a gift will be transformed.<\/font> \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 Advent I Here we are at the Beginning of Advent,when we begin to anticipate our celebration of the birth of Jesus and the marvellous ability of God to break into our midst in unexpected ways.As you can see by looking around the sanctuary, the worship committee, specifically through the gifts of Shelley Lepp Fransen and with the banners from Deb Kopeschny and Carolyn Loewen,\u00a0 is trying to depict the magnitude and cosmic significance of God\u2019s vision for the world.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/font>The images of it that we can see are generally made of composite pictures provided by the Hubble Space telescope, the Spitzer Space telescope and Chandra X-ray imaging.\u00a0 The X-ray data from Chandra provides significant clues to the workings of this mighty cosmic “generator,” which is producing energy at the rate of 100,000 suns. <\/font>
<\/font>The images and the very fact of the Crab Nebula give us just one glimpse of God\u2019s vast universe that our telescopes only now allow us to see.<\/font>
<\/font>What I also find truly fascinating is that some of the things we see under microscopes are no less impressive or fascinating.\u00a0 God, the creator of the heavens and the stars, our moon, the sun and the planets and the earth and every creature on the face of the earth, this God, has a vision for beauty and intricacy that we human creatures can only begin to grasp.\u00a0 The spectacular beauty and intricacy of our world is one place to focus the telescope. \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n
<\/font>Some days I give my son a ride to school.\u00a0 A couple of times in the past month as we\u2019ve headed out of the driveway, I\u2019ve said to him, \u201chmm, beautiful day again, a bit unusual for November though.\u201d And his response both times was, \u201cYeah, its climate change, mom.\u201d And I cringe as we add our fossil fuelled un-renewably energized car to the neighbourhood school rush hour.<\/font>
<\/font>As a friend and I were talking briefly about the upcoming climate change summit in Copenhagen where a very large group of world leaders will be meeting in early to mid December to discuss what we have done to create these problems and what we can do now, she said, \u201cyou know, the more I hear about the scenarios for what the possible outcomes for our planet will be, the more I don\u2019t want to hear about them.\u201d \u00a0<\/font>
<\/font>There is no question that this is a hard place to look. \u00a0<\/font>
<\/font>Other hard places to look include:<\/font>
<\/font>\u2013 the pictures in the Toronto Star yesterday from a war photographer stationed in Afghanistan <\/font>
<\/font>\u2013 the men and women, old and young on the street corners of our cities asking for loose change, in the rain, in the wind, in the cold.<\/font>
<\/font>\u00a0\u2013 the significant differences everywhere in the world between those who have too much and those who have too little.<\/font>
<\/font>But we are invited by our scriptures today to look fearlessly at these things.<\/font>
<\/font>Our scripture texts today \u2013 Jeremiah and Luke don\u2019t hesitate to turn the telescope and the microscope on the hard to look places.\u00a0 They don\u2019t shrink from that task. <\/font>
<\/font>In Jeremiah, a few verses before the verses for today we hear about the desolation of the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem.\u00a0 The towns and the streets are deserted, inhabited by neither men nor animals.<\/font>
<\/font>In Luke, we hear of \u201cnations rising against nations, and empires against empires.\u00a0 There will be great earthquakes, plagues and famines in various places \u2013 and in the sky there will be frightening omens and great signs\u00a0 ..and a few verses later, it says,\u00a0 signs will appear in the sun, the moon and the\u00a0 stars.\u00a0\u00a0 On the earth, nations will be in anguish, distraught at the roaring of the sea and the waves.\u00a0 People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the earth.\u00a0 The powers in the heavens will be shaken.<\/font>
<\/font>This passage in Luke in particular is called apocalyptic literature.\u00a0 The word \u201capocalypse\u201d means lifting of the veil or revelation and apocalyptic texts are often concerned with the end of things as we know them \u2013 that\u2019s eschatology.\u00a0\u00a0 These apocalyptic passages are found a few places in our Bible, most notably in Daniel, here in the gospels in these words of Jesus, a few places in the letters of Paul and in the book of Revelation.<\/font>
<\/font>There are many peop
\nle who spend a great deal of their time and energy fixated on these apocalyptic passages trying to describe in minute detail what they mean and how they connect to the specifics in the world that we know.<\/font>
<\/font>\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Books are written on the topic, such as by Emanuel Swedenborg\u2019s , Apocalypse Revealed, first published in two volumes in\u00a0 1766, and more recently , “The Revelation Record” by Henry M. Morris.[50] As well there are TV shows like the Left Behind series that depicts one view of what the end of this age will look like.\u00a0 These are just a few of the examples of places one could focus the telescope.<\/font>
<\/font>But what if we put the telescopes away? Do we really need expanded or focused sight to understand what these passages in Jeremiah and Luke are trying to convey to us? I would like to suggest that we don\u2019t need that kind of assistance.\u00a0 What Luke in particular is trying to tell us is that what we need to know will be obvious if we are watchful.\u00a0 What we need to know is as observable and predictable as the budding of the leaves on a tree.\u00a0 When we see the buds on the tree we know summer is near.\u00a0 When we see all these things happening, Jesus says, we will know that the reign of God is near.<\/font>
<\/font>Even so, even if we can easily observe \u201call these things\u201d\u00a0 what might we do with all the fearsome warnings that a text like this one presents?\u00a0 It talks about things that are only too real for us, plagues, read – pandemics, famines, earthquakes, wars and rumours of wars.<\/font>
<\/font>Should we be overwhelmed, terrified, despairing?<\/font>
<\/font>As I was talking with this friend of mine who told me that she no longer wants to hear about the negative scenarios climate change scientists have outlined for our planet, she paused and said, \u201cyou know, maybe the world as we know it should end.\u201d<\/font>
<\/font>She didn\u2019t say this with fear, or despair, or even resignation, but what I heard in her voice was a quiet realization mixed with a twinge of hope that there truly must be a greater vision, a greater reality beyond what we humans have so far realized or might be capable of realizing.<\/font>
<\/font>This greater vision or greater reality, according to our texts for today will come and it will break in upon us.<\/font>
<\/font>In terms of our possible response, I like what preacher Fred Craddock has to say about this kind of eschatological thinking.<\/font>
<\/font>He says,<\/font>
<\/font>Eschatological thinking is vital to faithful conduct and to hope which resists cynicism.\u00a0 There will be an end to life as it now is, an end that comes as both judgment and redemption.\u00a0 Whether, we go or [Christ] comes, personal theological preferences do not alter eschatology, and contemplation of that fact should have some sanctifying influence \u2026 such thinking should aid us in keeping gains and losses in proper perspective.\u00a0 Such thinking should chase away the demons of dulling dissipation and cheer us with the news not only that today is a gift of God but also that tomorrow we stand in the presence of the Son of man.<\/font><\/p>\n
<\/font>This kind of eschatological vision also inspires us to keep alert and do what we can in the meantime. \u00a0<\/font>
<\/font>If we put the telescope away, grateful, of course, for all that it has been able to show us, we are invited to see that eschatology,<\/font>
<\/font>God\u2019s vision for our universe, <\/font>
<\/font>God\u2019s great and cosmic vision for our universe, \u00a0<\/font>
<\/font>God\u2019s reign as it breaks into our universe,<\/font>
<\/font>has already come in an unexpected way, even as we await something more.<\/font>
<\/font>God\u2019s reign broke into our midst a long time ago in the form of a child, the babe in Bethlehem.\u00a0 Already and for a long time the power of God\u2019s reign has been transforming the universe. <\/font>
<\/font>\u00a0 In the midst of a spectacular world and in the midst of a suffering world a child arrived and grew to adulthood.\u00a0 In adulthood, this man named Jesus revealed to a suffering world the very nature of God and began to proclaim that the reign of God was at hand, in fact \u201cit is among you,\u201d he said.\u00a0 Can this alternative world be seen, felt or experienced already? <\/font>
<\/font>Maybe it\u2019s not something we can see with a telescope.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s something that can only really be seen by the eyes of the mind and heart together.\u00a0 It is the eyes of our minds and heart together after all that reveal to us the places in our universe where the power of love prevails. \u00a0<\/font>
<\/font>Where the power of love prevails, that\u2019s where the universe is already being transformed and the reign of God has already broken into our midst. <\/font>
<\/font>However, even if God\u2019s vision for the universe is already among us, it is texts like the one in Luke that remind us that there is more.\u00a0\u00a0 Thank God there is more.\u00a0 The promise of our scripture texts today is that the Son of Man or the Chosen One will come again to set things right. God\u2019s vision for the world is a world where God through the Chosen One will make things right and love and justice will prevail. And the remarkable power and beauty and wisdom of this vision of God extends all the way from the awesome Crab Nebula to the helpless and vulnerable baby.\u00a0 May God grant us strength and hope in the face of all that is yet to come.\u00a0 Amen<\/font>
<\/font><\/div>\n