"A gift from our community of faith to you. Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is devoted to preparing outstanding leaders for Christ’s church. One of the ways we nurture leaders is by building a loving community of faith and extending God’s grace to others. In this season of anticipation, we extend God’s grace to you and invite you to explore this book of Advent devotions. Through this collection, please join us as we prepare to receive God’s greatest gift—the birth of Jesus Christ."
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Advent Devotional for First Sunday
December 3
• Mark 13:24-37
I'm writing these words on 21 August 2017, around 1:00 p.m., and the “Great American Eclipse” has begun. Already the moon-bitten solar disc is making its transitfrom west to east across the country, while millions of people witness Jesus’s words take on an unanticipated truth: the sun will indeed be darkened, even if only for two minutes. A week or so ago, in the wee hours of 11, 12, and 13 August, if your dog woke you up to go outside, you witnessed the Perseid meteor shower and saw “the stars falling from heaven.” A few days later we all got a good shaking as the powers of evil and hate staked their claim on heaven from the base of the Robert E Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia. You might be forgiven for wondering, in the back of your mind, if the apocalypse has already begun.
Of course, by the time you read these words, we will all know better, even if in the moment we weren’t so sure. It’s just an eclipse, and on 22 August the sun rose just fine. They’re just meteorites, overgrown bits of space dust that had the misfortune to burn up in our atmosphere for our midnight entertainment. It’s not the powers of heaven, just a bunch of racist neo-Nazis. It’s not the Kingdom. It’s not the end.
Or is it? Advent reminds us that, though the sun rises and the world turns and the stars whirl about on their celestial axis, things are not always what they seem. One day, Jesus says, the sun will be darkened and the stars will fall and powers from the roof of heaven to the sub-basement of earth will be rocked to their foundations. One day the Son of Man will come and the Kingdom will arrive.
Who’s to say that day is not today? For after Advent comes Christmas when the stars sing their glorias, and then Good Friday when heaven and earth shake, and finally Easter after which nothing is the same. Christ has come. The Kingdom has begun. The powers of evil, hate, racism, and death—however potent they seem—cannot slow its progress. Perhaps the real lesson of this eclipse is not astronomical but theological. Like the path of totality, God’s reign travels inexorably through the world. There is good news in that. And just in time.
Come, Lord Jesus. Quickly come. Amen.
Paul Hooker
Associate Dean for Ministerial Formation and Advanced Studies
For the glory of God and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is a seminary in the Presbyterian-Reformed tradition whose mission is to educate and equip individuals for the ordained Christian ministry and other forms of Christian service and leadership; to employ its resources in the service of the church; to promote and engage in critical theological thought and research; and to be a winsome and exemplary community of God's people.
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