Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Randy Greve
The First Sunday of Advent, November 30, 2025
He had a vision. Jesus spoke to him - gave him the date (dates, two, actually). He said he was one billion percent certain. It was his mission now to share this great vision, this direct voice, with the world. Christians must prepare now. And thankfully we are not preparing in theory, preparing in a metaphorical way, but preparing for a date, a date certain. Pastor Joshua heard from Jesus about the rapture, when Christians will be snatched up and away into heaven and the tribulation will commence, conveniently without us. September 23 OR 24, 2025 were the dates - one of these days is when the rapture would happen. “About that day or hour no one knows” Jesus says in the gospel. But that does not mean we will not know about TWO days, just not THAT day, but one of these days! What good is a vision if kept to oneself? No good at all! On to YouTube he goes, describing in detail what Jesus said, even how he looked, and the need to prepare. Viral sharing and commenting commence, and, since it is 2025, a general stir is created among those Christians for whom the rapture is a sure and certain hope. What else could “caught up to meet the Lord in the air” possibly mean? True believers quit jobs, sell cars and furniture, and prepare. Last time I checked, pastor Joshua had updated the new dates of the rapture at least twice, this time not creating quite as much stir or as many views as with the original video. It seems that misremembering the details of a vision of Jesus that many times negatively affects one’s credibility.
This is not new, of course. Even the disciples, in the very moments before the Ascension, ask Jesus, “Is it now?” It is the Lord’s fault, I contend. Ask us to watch and wait for something to happen with no date, no prelude, no way to access any concrete information about when it will happen. Watch and wait. Just watch and wait. Can we have a clue? No. A little hint? No. What if we pray very sincerely to know the time, will you tell us? No. And don’t ask me again. I don't even know. It’s not fair. It leaves open too many possible misunderstandings and false predictions - manipulation and deception. Perhaps better to announce the date and let us sort it out when it gets closer, maybe an hour before. What we have now is too vague - it’s not practical. It’s not helpful.
We begin Advent with the confession that we are not generally a highly formed culture of waiting, especially of open-ended, don’t-know-how-long-we-will-have-to-wait-or-what-we-are-waiting-for kinds of people. Just note the lifting up of Christmas trees after Halloween and all of the hustle and bustle which has already commenced. When viewed at the surface, Jesus’ seemingly contradictory insistences on the need to be alert and the impossibility of knowing exactly what we are being alert for tie us up in logical knots. His principal focus, however, is the presence of God in the human heart which enters us into a different way of knowing, an altogether mysterious and foreign realm of “already and not yet.” We begin by remembering that we will not “figure it out” by thinking more or be “better” at Advent by trying harder. What we enter, if we dare, is a realm beyond time, a process that moves, but at its own pace and in its own way, that can only be thwarted by insisting on looking outside ourselves and ignoring the blossoming of readiness growing in our souls. Waiting and watching are not problems that are solved by more data, they are ways of being which usher us into God’s time that is beyond our limited notions of past, present, or future.
Scheduling the Parousia is God’s job. Being ready is our job. Jesus helps us by an example of what being awake is NOT. He says that the people of Noah’s time were in an unconscious trance of the everyday and ordinary. What happened yesterday is what will happen today. What happened today is what will happen tomorrow. Boy, those are some dark clouds, but it has rained before. Wow, this is some heavy rain, but I’m sure it will stop soon. Their lives were a kind of entitlement of continuity that rendered them unable to perceive the nature of the flood that had commenced. When the soul loses touch with meaning and wonder, the spiritual life animating us and the world, it loses the expectation that life can change, that something new might happen, that this world is passing away. “And they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away.” Their ignorance of and indifference to their own condition and the condition of the world around them is the cautionary warning of what NOT to become.
Readiness is a slippery state. It’s like humility - as soon as I know how humble I am, I am no longer as humble as I think I am. Watchfulness is always becoming. It is something like the acknowledgement that fresh insight, deeper understanding, fuller presence is always being offered to us and called forth out of us. I have a picture in my office of a sign posted on a tree in a wood that says, “You are NOT almost there.” This inner dynamic becomes a gift to the world - a precious and dangerous gift. Once we are willing to see, we can perceive the nature of the principalities and powers at work among us. We can name the systems and structures of evil and we can also reveal gratitude at the beauty and joy of life. Joy and peace and justice break forth in our world as we are faithful in our call to be stewards of making straight paths where no path seems possible. Christ will come on the last day, for sure. But it is also true to say that every day is the last day, every day is the day of judgment, every day reveals the quality of our presence and our engagement with announcing the urgency of the moment - life is short, time is passing, we are promised no certain number of future days, we can take nothing for granted, we continually rely on and entrust our lives to God who made us and who will receive our souls back we know not when. When in response to the travails in our country people say, “it can’t happen here”, “things will go back to normal” I wonder if it is the equivalent of saying, “Boy, those are some dark clouds, but it has rained before.” “Wow, this is some heavy rain, but I’m sure it will stop soon.” Is that not the same denial and avoidance used in Noah’s day? The myth of normalcy can still sweep us away, blind to the reality of the moment. Salvation is waking up and finding refuge in the Ark that is Christ, our only hope.
The glory of salvation is that God’s promise is salvation in - in these bodies, in this world, in this time. Not from them, but in them. Not escape, but renewal. One of the classic jokes in my family is that my father once asked my mother whether she wanted to be buried in a casket or cremated. Her response was, “I don’t know, surprise me.” Come and surprise us, O Lord, with aliveness today and life in the age to come beyond all we can ask or imagine. Amen.
This is not new, of course. Even the disciples, in the very moments before the Ascension, ask Jesus, “Is it now?” It is the Lord’s fault, I contend. Ask us to watch and wait for something to happen with no date, no prelude, no way to access any concrete information about when it will happen. Watch and wait. Just watch and wait. Can we have a clue? No. A little hint? No. What if we pray very sincerely to know the time, will you tell us? No. And don’t ask me again. I don't even know. It’s not fair. It leaves open too many possible misunderstandings and false predictions - manipulation and deception. Perhaps better to announce the date and let us sort it out when it gets closer, maybe an hour before. What we have now is too vague - it’s not practical. It’s not helpful.
We begin Advent with the confession that we are not generally a highly formed culture of waiting, especially of open-ended, don’t-know-how-long-we-will-have-to-wait-or-what-we-are-waiting-for kinds of people. Just note the lifting up of Christmas trees after Halloween and all of the hustle and bustle which has already commenced. When viewed at the surface, Jesus’ seemingly contradictory insistences on the need to be alert and the impossibility of knowing exactly what we are being alert for tie us up in logical knots. His principal focus, however, is the presence of God in the human heart which enters us into a different way of knowing, an altogether mysterious and foreign realm of “already and not yet.” We begin by remembering that we will not “figure it out” by thinking more or be “better” at Advent by trying harder. What we enter, if we dare, is a realm beyond time, a process that moves, but at its own pace and in its own way, that can only be thwarted by insisting on looking outside ourselves and ignoring the blossoming of readiness growing in our souls. Waiting and watching are not problems that are solved by more data, they are ways of being which usher us into God’s time that is beyond our limited notions of past, present, or future.
Scheduling the Parousia is God’s job. Being ready is our job. Jesus helps us by an example of what being awake is NOT. He says that the people of Noah’s time were in an unconscious trance of the everyday and ordinary. What happened yesterday is what will happen today. What happened today is what will happen tomorrow. Boy, those are some dark clouds, but it has rained before. Wow, this is some heavy rain, but I’m sure it will stop soon. Their lives were a kind of entitlement of continuity that rendered them unable to perceive the nature of the flood that had commenced. When the soul loses touch with meaning and wonder, the spiritual life animating us and the world, it loses the expectation that life can change, that something new might happen, that this world is passing away. “And they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away.” Their ignorance of and indifference to their own condition and the condition of the world around them is the cautionary warning of what NOT to become.
Readiness is a slippery state. It’s like humility - as soon as I know how humble I am, I am no longer as humble as I think I am. Watchfulness is always becoming. It is something like the acknowledgement that fresh insight, deeper understanding, fuller presence is always being offered to us and called forth out of us. I have a picture in my office of a sign posted on a tree in a wood that says, “You are NOT almost there.” This inner dynamic becomes a gift to the world - a precious and dangerous gift. Once we are willing to see, we can perceive the nature of the principalities and powers at work among us. We can name the systems and structures of evil and we can also reveal gratitude at the beauty and joy of life. Joy and peace and justice break forth in our world as we are faithful in our call to be stewards of making straight paths where no path seems possible. Christ will come on the last day, for sure. But it is also true to say that every day is the last day, every day is the day of judgment, every day reveals the quality of our presence and our engagement with announcing the urgency of the moment - life is short, time is passing, we are promised no certain number of future days, we can take nothing for granted, we continually rely on and entrust our lives to God who made us and who will receive our souls back we know not when. When in response to the travails in our country people say, “it can’t happen here”, “things will go back to normal” I wonder if it is the equivalent of saying, “Boy, those are some dark clouds, but it has rained before.” “Wow, this is some heavy rain, but I’m sure it will stop soon.” Is that not the same denial and avoidance used in Noah’s day? The myth of normalcy can still sweep us away, blind to the reality of the moment. Salvation is waking up and finding refuge in the Ark that is Christ, our only hope.
The glory of salvation is that God’s promise is salvation in - in these bodies, in this world, in this time. Not from them, but in them. Not escape, but renewal. One of the classic jokes in my family is that my father once asked my mother whether she wanted to be buried in a casket or cremated. Her response was, “I don’t know, surprise me.” Come and surprise us, O Lord, with aliveness today and life in the age to come beyond all we can ask or imagine. Amen.
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