My Dad said the other week he and my mom were at the mall window-shopping and I guess they passed a ladies' clothing store or whatever, because he paused there looking at the display and said, "You know, honey, that would look really good on you." So, good job, dad, right? Until he turns to his side and the woman standing there isn't my mom.

You know that feeling. When you're in your own little world, but not totally oblivious to your surroundings, you sense somebody at your periphery and maybe assume it's somebody you know...but oops. It's awkward, a little funny. Can be a little scary if, say, you were a little kid with the same experience -- wandering in the mall or grocery store and feel somebody at your side, assume it's still mom or dad standing there, but you turn and look up into a stranger's face. Not cool. But hang onto those feelings for a minute.

They may get at what's at stake in Matthew 24:36-44, where Jesus continues on in this little convo about the end of time. I think he's trying to answer people's questions about when/how he'll come back, and how we prepare. If you read it, he focuses on the idea that no one knows the when, not even him apparently (which is hard to deal with, umm, 'cause it's Jesus), or the angels. And he compares his coming to the days of the flood with Noah, where people went about life's normal tasks -- working, surviving, partying -- right up until the water swept them away.

So today the Sunday with the theme of Hope, wondering at Jesus coming back, his own words don't produce simple feelings of joy and rapture, rainbows and unicorns. We're looking towards Christmas, but where are the sugar-plum fairies and what-have-you?

Russell Rathbun has this to say: “Nothing raises my holiday spirits like the anticipated threat of Jesus kidnapping someone at work and then breaking into my house and robbing me. And the fun part is, it will all be a surprise! Yeah.”

Welcome to Advent. Welcome to Hope?

Alyce McKenzie wonders, where are the festive Christmas decorations that depict these sorts of scenes that Jesus offers us? Can you imagine a snow-globe of the Noah story? Not the cartoony one in kids' Bibles with animals hugging each other and Noah smiling on top of that big boat. Imagine a scene more like what we saw from Hurricane Katrina, with the earth rocked, muddy water churning around filled with debris, peoples' homes, and, above all, human bodies. Quite a snow-globe, eesh.

Or, my family likes to put jigsaw puzzles together around Christmas. Whenever you get bored you can go plunk a couple pieces down. And you know how they are, with the kind of pictures they create -- there's a whole Thomas Kinkade set with like little cottages covered in snow, that have warm light coming through the frosty windows, and chimney smoke puffing outta the chimney. There's a wreath on the door and you know people are inside drinking cocoa, with kittens curled up warm beside balls of yarn.

Okay, so take that picture, and throw in that Jesus is on the front porch creeping around trying to find a way to break in. The thief.


Yeah, that's an exaggerated image, but maybe it gets closer to the kind of tone that Jesus uses for the days when he'll return. Why? Why talk like this? Does he want us scared? Or, even more, paranoid? Are we to constantly, fearfully, full of anxiety, look over our shoulders for the day Jesus appears?

I can't think that, because he loves us. And because he loves us, he's being very real about the nature of the days when he returns. It's not exactly party time...God leaves us all to make choices about what we believe and how we live, and Jesus' advent will be a reckoning with that.

Jesus' instructions aren't: "be afraid, be very afraid." That's usually how we hear it, almost...be afraid if you get caught in what you shouldn't. Like, if you're in the middle of the wrong word or the wrong drink when Jesus pops back in on the world, oooh, it's bad news. I'm not so sure. I'm not calling that untrue, but just not deep enough. Because Jesus actually said: "be ready."

How to be ready? For me I think it means to stop trying to assert when there's no way Jesus is coming back. You know what I mean? Some of us spend time guessing at when Jesus will show back up, 2012 or whatever. I bet all of us, one time or another, guess at when Jesus will definitely NOT show up.

Not out loud. Not even consciously, probably. But we promise ourselves, "No way Jesus will interrupt this." Or at least we hope not. That's right, the most devout of the devout, there are times we are just wishing Jesus will leave things be.

Thanksgiving last week is a great example. It's a good time. Nationwide people gather, they fellowship, they try to get along (maybe). The central theme is giving thanks. In general, God probably pretty much likes Thanksgiving, yes? Many of us make preparations around Turkey Day, we're cooking and traveling, or eating and napping. It is the last time we'd expect Jesus to show up, and some of us would even say, "Nah, Jesus, not right now" if he chose to.

I'm saying, imagine that your table is set, the family has gathered and prayed, you've slaved for hours over pumpkin pie and the first bite of sweet turkey and gravy is on your fork. And Jesus rolls in on the clouds for judgment and justice and to set all things right. Our first reaction might be a little resentment, I'm just saying. Those times, those family times, those that we plan most for, where our idea of life is already good and occupied, that's when I'm usually assuming, "nah, Jesus ain't coming now, he's not interrupting this."

What's the danger in thinking that way? What's the big deal? There's not just a lack of readiness for the end of time... sometimes there's a lack of respect, understanding, connection or love for God. Sometimes when I'm surrounded by family, it's almost like I choose not to worry about God, speaking to God or hearing from God, because I'm doing something I think God must like and God should just leave me to it. Or when I'm doing something I've planned a lot for... God can just leave me alone for that. And so on.

There are huge chunks of my life when I just black out, or shut down, or take a quick break (or a looong break) from connecting with God. And when I let myself notice God again, it's almost a little awkward, less familiar, less intimate. I don't think God wants us to live that way, not day to day, and not on that ultimate day when we finally have a much more face-to-face meeting with God, either when Jesus returns or when we go to see him in death.

I don't think Jesus would have his followers suddenly look up from what they're doing, glance up and find that they don't recognize this person at their side. I don't think Jesus wants us to be taken by surprise, or stricken dumb with fear, or even feel a little awkward. Let's have none of that stranger-at-the-mall feeling. I think Jesus wants us to be ready so that when he comes we can recognize him and love him. So we can recognize him like an oldest, closest friend returned. That is worth hoping for, for later at whatever time the reckoning comes, and for now.

Do you know that the Christian calendar year runs a little different from the every day? Church calendars consider this Sunday the last Sunday of the year - it's "Christ the King" or "Reign of Christ" Sunday - when we try to realize Jesus at his fullest. Over the course of the church year that starts over again next week, we've wondered at Jesus' arrival (Advent season), celebrated it (Christmas), journeyed up to the cross and resurrection at Easter, and on and on, all the way until THIS day. It's the Sunday to remember that by what we believe ultimate reality is this: God lived among us in Jesus, who charged into death to destroy it and save us, and right now he still sits at the right hand of God awaiting the day to return. Colossians 1:9-20 is an awesome picture of that fullness.

These are the points of Christian faith where many folks who are kind of fond of Jesus as a person or teacher have to bow out of going so far with him. Where Jesus is still 100% man, but also 100% God. Where he is still alive. Where he reigns over all. I can understand how that's a big leap for some folks...those ideas assume much about life, the universe, reality. And I think most of us are nervous about putting too much power and authority into any one person's hands. We get nervous about putting all our faith/outlook into the hands of any one set of ideals anyway...there's too much room for error if we end up mistaken, we've been let down too many times, or it's just too exclusive of others. Besides, there's no pressing need to make such a jump, to assume so much.

So for plenty of us it's hard to buy fully into "Reign of Christ" Sunday. Maybe there's some truth in it about Jesus, but it's long been embellished into legend. Maybe it explains some of the things around us...maybe it's just good and entertaining. Maybe exalting Jesus so much fills some need in us to have a hero figure to hope for or to try to be like.... Maybe it's a lot like most of our legends, even like our American Tall Tales?

Really -- we've got Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, John Henry, Johnny Appleseed, Dan'l Boone and Davy Crockett, Pecos Bill -- there are actually hundreds of such characters. And some are absolutely historical, or at least started out that way. Every one of them is interesting or entertaining or tries to explain things.

Did you know that Paul Bunyan was so big that even as a newborn, it took five storks to carry him to his parents? At one week old he could fit into his dad's clothing. His first infant giggle boomed so loud it shattered every window in the house. When he grew up, he was so big that whenever he went camping he'd have to light a huge fire to stay warm; and the next day to be sure the fire was out he always piled up stones on top like most of us do. Only, his piles became what we know as record-breaking peaks like Mt. McKinley and Mt. Hood. And the Grand Canyon? That's what happened one day when Paul got tired of lugging his axe over his shoulder, so he set to dragging it along the ground behind him.

Good stuff. Paul Bunyan and some of these tales are a little goofy, but what is it about them and our other hero characters that appeals to us?

Jimmy Dean gives us another good example...he doesn't just make sausage, as a singer/songwriter this song of his came on the radio this week while I was preparing, it's called "Big Bad John". Listen:

So another story that has some historic basis, about a "big, big man" but also a mysterious one, an intimidating guy no one knew much about. But a guy who leapt into action when things looked their worst. That's a legend. If you like it, why?

I like it because it stirs something in me that hopes for "big, big" help in my darkest hour, when all looks lost and no effort of mine will be enough. But that's exactly where some of us decide to try and back off of our hero legends or faith. We rationalize and say, "...but it's not true, and I better have more sense than to count on help like that. I don't have that kinda luck, it's not smart to bank on it, I need to take care of myself." I agree, really. It's not smart at all, but I'd still rather hope when all seems lost than just lay down and quit, or sit there and rationalize.

Truly, all the tall tales and hero stories can give us hope. Not in and of themselves (don't know many folks willing to stake their lives on Paul Bunyan and Babe coming to rescue). But only if they point to the one story that is true, and the one hero that is all-sufficient. Because indeed we will all experience something that for many of us seems dark and freaky, or at least totally uncertain -- death. No power of ours, no amount of will or strength or intellect, can put the tiniest dent in it. The only shot we have to hope for any survival with it, is the hope beyond all hope that One can come to our aid and handle it.

And I need a hero not just for death, but LIFE. We're every day dealing with parts of life that smack of death -- hate and violence that make no sense, things that strike at our hearts and those of the ones we love, things that enslave and destroy. EVEN MORE, it is often ME who contributes to those deadly things in myself and on others around me. So the greatest hope story would involve a hero that deals with death, but also with saving us daily from life, and even those deep parts of ourselves that need it.

The tallest of tales, that is. Would be absurd to hope for it. But I still need it, personally. I think the world does. After all, "Christ the King" Sunday wasn't a day ordered by Jesus, it's a really recent development. In the early 20th century, events around the world were taking such a toll that the church saw fit to institute this day of celebration. One major component was the events unfolding in Mexico -- in 1918 the nation had passed a constitution that made it pretty easy for folks to pressure and eventually persecute the church. Until the 1940s, for their faith Christians dealt with imprisonment, confiscation of property, torture and death (this was the 1940s!). And in front of the firing squad one young priest shouted out something that inspired the naming of this Sunday -- "Viva Cristo Rey!" It means, "Christ the King Lives!"

So since 1925 when it was first observed in response to those events, this is the Sunday when we assert the reality of the fullness of Christ Jesus exalted above all authority in heaven and on earth. Now, no, that's not to say that whatever our leaders and governments do is pleasing to God or sanctioned by him. For God always leaves it to us to choose for ourselves, and I'd say we jack that up most of the time. But it is to say that those authorities and rulers, and even our own authority over our own individual lives, is still ultimately subject to Jesus and will be held to account one day soon.

In the meantime, can we take a look at ours and the earth's situation, and maybe see that nothing but heroic intervention is going to succeed here? Maybe we can start to consider that kind of hope.

Some of us recognize the speech above. FDR's "Declaration of War" before Congress following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Listen to it. It's a good place to start this week because today is Veteran's Day, and it gives us something to wrestle with. Because it is a good speech, and powerful, and seemingly very timely. After all, of all wars, isn't World War II the one that Americans romanticize most -- it gives us the best movies and stories, it's connected to that "great generation", and above all it was a war that we weren't even trying to be involved with but were drawn into. Having been surprised by a dastardly attack on our soil, leaving our entire west coast vulnerable, we felt the need to defend ourselves and join our allies, fitting what many call "just war". And, and, we pushed through to overwhelming victory.

It's the war that many love. It's not one that many people doubt or question. But however confident we are even in WW2, can't we still admit its atrocity? I mean, if nothing else the weapons of warfare had grown specially terrible -- the first world war saw weapons like air combat, machine guns, and tanks, but these were all perfected in WW2. Jungle warfare that was renowned in Vietnam for its gruesome, face-to-face quality was rampant in the Pacific. After the fact we learned the extent of the Holocaust. Concluding the conflict we saw atomic weapons devastate civilians.

For me, even with our most romantic of conflicts, even those we exalt and celebrate, there cannot help but be mixed emotions. Veterans advocate that, probably better than any, that "war is hell." So to honor them, and to honor God, even on Veterans Day as Christians we have discernment to do with war. How far do we go with it? Do we go with it at all? We who uphold grace, forgiveness, unconditional love, and love for enemies....

In Jesus' life, we hear the disciples stir up a conversation that's pretty similar, one of mixed emotions that calls for deep discernment. In Luke 21:5-19, as he and a crowd walk around Jerusalem, somebody looks up at the Temple and can't help being awed by its beauty. Its stones, jewels, golden doors, and the idea that God dwells there with the people. And that little comment sparks Jesus here to get into a wild subject, "the end of days" when all that grand Temple would come down. If we're in that crowd with him, all of a sudden this is a big moment -- as Jews we'd know that to talk about the Temple's destruction is to start thinking about the end of the world, so the prophets had been saying for centuries. If we're in that crowd, our ears perk up at where the convo has gone...Jesus is gonna let us in on some of the big stuff, the end of the world stuff. So they jump into our usual questions, "What will happen? When? Wha? Wha?"

For me, what he describes smacks of deep discernment. Just look at the advice he gives:

First, in verses 8-9, "watch out that you are not deceived...." Jesus gives a warning for taking great care, being patient and wise, and not getting swept up in things when they start happening. He says, basically, "don't just run after everybody claiming this or that, because most of them won't be representative of me." Why this warning? In part, I think, because imagine the excitement of the people at the "end of days." As Jews who count themselves as God's people, and as disciples following Jesus around who have seen his power at work and are convinced he's the victorious Messiah, many folks thought the end would finally bring justice and judgment, and all their enemies would be dealt with, and they'd inherit the kingdom of God. A good hope, in a way. Some of that is what draws us towards armageddon movies and 2012 predictions, it's wild to think we will take part in the most famous days in history, the END. So Jesus warns his followers not to be taken in by all this, not to be just swept up into it, but to be cautious.

That idea seems so true for our discernment with war. Can we agree that combat should be entered into cautiously (if at all), that above all we shouldn't be swept up and drawn in by the excitement and go too far. I mean, what's too far? There's a popular country song that makes it more clear for me. It gets played a lot around Vets' Day, called "The Angry American" and here's the video (WARNING: THE LYRICS ARE FAIRLY EXPLICIT):

Watch it. Does it ever rub you wrong? Or only all right? At what point does it go too far? Again, as people of grace, called to love our enemies and even to die for them before we consider killing them, where do we stand so that we don't enter that kind of conflict lightly?

Like FDR's idea of "Righteous might"...I understand the emotions that fuelled his speech and our nation. Feelings of vulnerability, and really the fear along with it, of having our own soil harmed and under further threat. But I wonder if Jesus' disciples had similar feelings. It sounds like Jesus didn't want them overtaken with their fervor for justice/judgment. Righteous might, sure, but careful not to make it "self-righteous" might.

Then there's the second piece of advice from Jesus. In verses 10 and 11, he describes the gnarly side of the end of time, the nation versus nation, natural disasters, and mighty groanings all over the earth -- and it sounds to me like he's almost trying to scare them. But I don't think that's it, if I believe all this is to try to prepare them (and us) for the end. Do I think Jesus wanted his disciples to be ostriches with their heads in the sand, or cowards fleeing for their lives? Jesus does get dubbed a big "pansey" much of the time for all his nonviolence, his "turn the other cheek" door-mat kind of talk. Is that it here? Negative. I think he hopes the people realize what's coming so that they can hang on and endure.

It reminds of something I've heard said about people of faith, that connects to the September 11th attacks. On that day, as the buildings collapsed and the dust-clouds rolled out, hundreds of folks were all running in one direction: AWAY from the buildings. But hundreds of others in particular were heading in the opposite direction. Emergency personnel rushed directly into the darkness. That is exactly where we should find the people of God. Rushing even headlong into disaster, distress, and the greatest trouble holding the banner of our faith. When everybody else is running for it. So in death, in the scariest of times, in indecisive times, we can be fearless in Christ Jesus like no other people can.

I think Jesus gets at that here, preparing his followers so that they can endure in courage.

So in the face of two extremes: being swept up and charging too far versus fleeing away in fear, Jesus advises us on where to be in the mix. He says, "Stand firm"..."Stand firm, and you will win life." Because the last verses here are clear that however exciting the times, and however insanely scary, they will also be personal. Faith will divide families, Christians will be disowned, persecuted, tortured, and killed.

And when that comes, can we cling to God's righteous might without going too far on into vengeance and personal satisfaction? Can we resist aggression without turning to cowardice? Can we offer the other cheek, not as big pansies, but in defiance? Remember, Jesus who chose death for the sake of saving even those trying to kill him, he still stood defiantly as if to say, "You're going to take this life? Then I will raise it again."

Can we stand firm?

Do you prefer being right to being wrong? I think most of us, yes. I mean, being proved right emphasizes that what we've always thought, or argued, or felt was accurate all along. It means our understanding of things is on track and unharmed. It means we've avoided the trauma of rethinking things, or feeling suddenly uncertain about ourselves and the universe. Being wrong does that, it makes us admit imperfection and rattles other things we think we're right about. Not to mention it usually means we have to admit somebody else was right, and that can chip away at our self-esteem or feelings of superiority. Ruh roh.

It's just easier to be right, for pete's sake. More fun, too. Forget being proved wrong, it's easier to be right than to have to talk about what's right and wrong. As in, healthy conflict, good debate, digging into what we believe is true/false is even harder than just assuming we've already got it right. It takes energy, creativity, patience, and perspective to be open to other ideas of rightness. Eesh.

Welcome to the world of the Sadducees (the Tsedukim), a Jewish order in the ancient world, like the Pharisees, that was very exclusive, influential, and chiefly concerned with being right. Their particular perspective was to take the Law (the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible) very literally at its word. They were totally strict in interpreting their faith that way. Part of that meant not believing in things that the Law didn't explicitly spell out, like much of the supernatural stuff -- angels and demons, heaven and hell, the resurrection and after-life. Didn't believe it. And they staked everything about themselves on that. Not just their faith, but their entire identities in society. Life's work, reputation, all that as Sadducees.

In some ways they sound very American...if what we believe is not verifiable, can't be proved, if it's supernatural, kick it out because it's silly. Like plenty of folks treat Jesus, "hey, the golden rule, love people, give to charity, I'm down with some of that Jesus...just not so much all that mystical junk, the dying on the cross, miracles, etc."

Jesus' interaction with the Sadducees sheds light on that attitude. It speaks to those of us who would treat Jesus as another spiritual/moral teacher in the crowd, but leave the Messiah business behind. It's summed up real well in a quote from C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

I think that's reality. It confronted the Sadducees in Luke 20:27-38 when they set out to assert their rightness by asking Jesus a trick question about something they felt very sure about, the resurrection of the dead. They lay it out, this conundrum in the Law, where if a brother dies and leaves a widow with no children his brothers are to marry her to foster kids in his name; in their version there are seven brothers who go through this process, marrying this one woman as each one dies childless, and in the end they ask Jesus whose wife she'll be at the resurrection.

Yikes, good one, most of us wonder those things. What's heaven like, what happens when I'm there with my first love from grade school and my high school sweetheart and my wife? Trouble. Or will I be able to recognize people at all? Oh, man. Anyway, questions, questions, and this one is put to Jesus by the Sadducees not so much for an answer but to prove him wrong. I think they expected him to be dumbfounded. But nope.

He responds, he talks about that life being a good deal different from this, and more. Read it. And his response does two things to the Sadducees, I think.

1) It offers them a sobering possibility. Because Jesus speaks with authority, like one who knows personally firsthand, and here the Sadducees know they only talk about ideas they've learned from other Sadducees. He speaks matter-of-fact about things they can only guess about. And in his answer he not only asserts that there is a resurrection, but it is connected to all these other ideas that are core to the Sadducees' disbelief -- angels, miraculous power, and more. So now if these scholars start to wonder, "What if he's right" then they're really opening themselves up to the possibility that everything they've been clinging to, everything they've built their identities on, could be false. Sobering possibility. Even more because Jesus uses a detail from the Law, their own tactic, to prove it, quoting from Exodus when God speaks from the burning bush using the present tense, "I AM", to describe his relationship to the dead. Ugh. Hard to ignore, Sadducees. What if he's right?

2) Now they also have, to me, a better possibility to deal with. I mean, Jesus makes the resurrection sound EXCELLENT. He talks as if this is what is, what was always meant to be, our perfect communion with God and each other. A new and different age, where all is right, and we're describe as God's own children. Sadducees can only argue that he's wrong, and that rather our lives are intended to end one place: a dirt nap, a game over, toes up, pushing daisies, worm food, in the fertilizer business, dead and only dead. But what if he is actually right?

These are the questions for all of us and the way we treat Jesus, and the way we treat our own rightness. Are we brave enough to let some things remain mysterious and consider the possibility that Jesus is right, that we can have resurrection? Can we be flexible with our own identity, whatever we've built it on, and weigh other potential ideas of true and false?

Because, after all, later in the story Jesus gives us a picture of resurrected life and what it might mean. After his resurrection he shows us that he's familiar but different, still human-like but not quite. Remember, he is touchable, bears his wounds, he eats, seems normal, but he can also appear in a locked room outta nowhere, isn't always recognizeable, and eventually flies off into the sky. Something is up. In The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey says it might speak to what our resurrected life looks like:

"I take hope in Jesus' scars. From the perspective of heaven, they represent the most horrible event that has ever happened in the history of the universe. Even that event, though - the crucifixion - Easter turned into a memory. Because of Easter, I can hope that the tears we shed, the blows we receive, the emotional pain, the heartache over lost friends and loved ones, all these will become memories, like Jesus' scars. Scars never completely go away, but neither do they hurt any longer. We will have re-created bodies, a re-created heaven and earth. We will have a new start, an Easter start."

What if Jesus is who he says he is? What if he's right?