Our Signs in the Heavens

When the Lord comes, He comes to judge, He comes to unmake old worlds and comes to remake them into something new. He comes to break up fallow ground and make it fruitful. He comes to break the sea in two and bring His people through in safety and drown His enemies in the same waves. He comes to break Adam open and remake Him with a wife in marriage. The Lord comes to break families apart, even parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and He comes to break apart the old world in order to make a new one. He shakes the heavens so that those things which may be shaken, are shaken and fall, so that He might establish that which cannot be shaken more and more. And so here we are enacting the Advent of the Lord, here at this meal. We come, we take, we break, and then we eat and rejoice together as a new loaf, a new body, a new family. The sacraments are called “signs,” and in the gospel text for today Jesus tells His disciples that they will see signs that prove that one world is coming to an end and a new one is being established. This meal is an ongoing sign of that very fact. Here we display the sign that our God rules over the world, and He comes and judges, He comes and shakes the nations, shakes our families, shakes our lives, and when we see this sign, like the signs in the sun and the moon and the stars, then we, like the first disciples ought to look up and lift up our heads, because our redemption draws near. If God has come for us in Jesus, then we can have no doubt that He continues to come for us, He comes to break us open by His Word and Spirit and to shake us and remake us in His image and glory. So come, come and be broken, come and be shaken, come and be healed, come and rejoice. Your redemption is near.