In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

After 14 years of studying the Bible, William Miller an American revivalist attracted a large following of between 50 and 100,000 followers, known as Millerites when he became convinced that Christ would return in 1843. When Miller announced April 3 as the day, some disciples went to the mountains hoping for a head start to heaven. Others went to the cemeteries planning to ascend with their departed loved ones.

The wealthy ladies of Philadelphia clustered together outside of town to avoid entering God’s kingdom amid the poor and common people. Well, I am sure you can guess what happened on April 4. Yes, the Millerites were disillusioned but they took heart. Their leader William Miller had predicted a range of dates for Christ’s return. They still had until March 21, 1844. The Millerites got ready again but once more they were disappointed. A third date-October 22, 1844 was set, but it also passed without any excitement.

Certainly William Miller was not unique. Various individuals throughout Christian history have made their predictions concerning the return of Christ. They are still present with us today filling our multi channel universe with their calculations and predictions drawn from years of studying the Bible. But I guess they missed v. 32 of Mark’s Gospel.
“No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come.”

Now these words drawn from Mark’s Gospel come towards the end of chapter 13 entitled “Signs of the End of the Age”.  This chapter in particular seems bizarre with its antiquated worldview, its apocalyptic imagery and eschatological sense of time. Time is short. The world of the supernatural is about to break in on the natural. The Lord is about to return in power and glory with angels to gather the elect from the four corners of the earth.

But it has been many years, many centuries in fact, and God has not shown his hand with power and great might. It becomes harder to hold the faith that God is indeed in control of human history, that our history is moving towards a goal, that there is purpose. After two world wars, numerous savage wars of peace, the Aids pandemic and environmental crisis in the twentieth century alone, the idea that the culmination of God’s justice and the final defeat of evil is about to unfold seems to many a quaint and perhaps dangerous superstition of an age that has passed.

And yet I think many people are living with a sense that time is short and that human history is about to play itself out. There is this sense that the modern project called progress has played itself out. But there is no hope only by a sense of despair and lack of meaning. This sense that time is short, this sense of despair may not even be consciously acknowledged but rather is reflected in their behavior.

An effort to compensate for the lack of hope by chasing whatever pleasure can be wrested from the moment. Are these not symptoms of a systematic hopelessness in our society? A time of not only reduced economic expectations but reduced spiritual and emotional expectations as well.
And what about us? Surely we cannot be immune from this sense of despair in what seems to be insurmountable suffering in the heart of God’s world. For if we have the courage to acknowledge it there is that part of each of us who wants to cry out the words of the prophet Isaiah; “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!

A cry of lamentation lifted to the heavens for the 25 million people who have died of AIDS.
A cry of lamentation for the thousands of Africans, Afghanis, Iraqis who have lost their lives to war. A cry of lamentation for the thousands touched by global poverty.
A cry of lamentation for our loved ones who have lost their lives to cancer.
A cry of lamentation for our wounded earth
Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!

In 1927 the wife of Scottish preacher Arthur Gossip died suddenly. When he returned to the pulpit he preached a sermon entitled, “When Life tumbles In, What then?” In that sermon Gossip compared life to watching a place pass through the sky during wartime. There you are, lying in your back watching the plane gracefully cross a brilliant blue sky when all of sudden it is blown apart by gunfire and falls to earth. Only on this occasion the gunfire was the tragic death of his beloved wife.
Gossip went on to explain that he didn’t understand this life, but what he did know was that during the darkest period of his life he needed his faith more than ever.
“You people in the sunshine may believe in faith, but we in the shadow must believe it. We have nothing else.”

Certainly all of us have moments when we wish that God would come among in the power of earthquake and fire so that there is no confusion. But so often God communicates to us in the “still small voice” – the silent whispers of the heart.
God is the hidden God, as Arthur Gossip discovered, present especially in the shadows of life, in the dark moments of despair. Why God chooses to act in such a manner? I don’t know. Maybe this is where the love of God is needed most.

For if God is present in the shadows it is easy to miss God’s presence amongst us.
To miss God in the darkness of despair, in the desolation of the cross- the crucified God.
Maybe that is why we have this season of Advent in the weeks before Christmas. A time to prepare for the coming of our Lord for if we are to see the fragile light of Christ that dawns we must sit awhile in the darkness. If we are to hear the songs of angels we must first be silent.
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down…”

Words uttered in a spirit of radical hope.Hope in the midst of despair. Hope in the God who comes to us as a whisper in the midst of silence, a shadow moving in the midst of darkness, a little child hidden amongst the poor in a lowly stable in non descript town. And for those of us who are listening and leaning towards the light, Emmanuel- God is with us.
THANKS BE TO GOD, AMEN