Unexpected Turns
Paul Walton
3 December 2002
Isaiah 64.1-9
Psalm 80.1-7, 17-19
1 Corinthians 1.3-9
St Mark 13.24-37
The verse that interests me in tonight’s Gospel is St Mark 13.32:
But about that day no one knows,
neither the angels in heaven,
nor the Son, but only the Father.
When I was younger, I thought that Jesus was like Superman, only better: kryptonite couldn’t touch him, and he wore his underpants on the inside! If he’d wanted to, he could have leapt tall buildings in a single bound, and if there were any speeding bullets, he would have dodged them with ease. He also knew everything—after all, he was God! Then I found this verse. It was one of the unexpected turnings my life has taken, and since that turning I have had to grapple with who Jesus is time and time again.
My life has been full of unexpected turnings—perhaps yours has too. I was born in the north of England—a grey, wet, windy, foggy place for much of the time. No one could predict the way my life has turned out, with that beginning. My accent sounded very different, the town I lived in is nothing like anything here in Queensland, even the thought of being so warm on a December night could never have occurred to me. December was a freezing cold time of the year. My life has taken very unexpected turns. Perhaps you have had your own unexpected turns as your life has unfolded. Maybe you are in a place that you would never expected once upon a time. If your life has gone smoothly so far, then just wait, it’s sure to take an unexpected turn soon …
A day begins in the ordinary way—you get dressed, you have some cornflakes, you brush your teeth, walk down the street and catch the bus. But on that particular ordinary day, you meet someone who will change your life. When a man and a woman meet, they may not realise what is happening at first; but when love dawns, everything that they have done together takes on a new meaning.
Sometimes, it’s not so much that the turns our lives take are unexpected, but that the timing takes us by surprise. I work as a hospital chaplain; I see people all the time who are grappling with news that they would rather not have heard. Cancer. Stroke. Disability. Death. An unexpected turn—yet one which could have been expected. After all, none of us are here for ever. But the timing—that’s the thing that takes our breath away!
Timing is everything. We are creatures of time. We feel a need to know what time it is. We feel a need to plan our time. We don’t want to waste time. But in the end, we are creatures of time, caught in its flow, whether we are buoyed up or whether we sink.
As Advent begins, the Lectionary readings direct our thoughts to time. The Gospel speaks about the ‘coming’ of the ‘Son of Man’. It contains that little parable of the fig tree—you can see when summer is coming when its leaves begin to grow back. Then the passage it drops its bombshell, and takes an unexpected turn. The fig tree might let us when summer is coming, but we don’t know when the End of all things shall come. We have no idea at all, just as we have no idea when love will come:
But about that day no one knows,
neither the angels in heaven,
nor the Son, but only the Father.
What’s that about? We need to know what time it is, we’ve got to plan our lives, we’ve got to plan Church activities. We can’t be left dangling like this! What’s the point planning anything, if God can just turn everything over? What if God were to say, ‘Sorry folks, I know you’ve been planning this quiet day for months, I know it would be a wonderful thing, but—well, it’s the End. This is the time. Now.’
Any moment can be the moment that God comes into our lives. It might be an ordinary day, you get up, you have a coffee, you grab your bag and you leave home. But on this particular day, life takes an unexpected turn. God comes into view. How does that happen? Any number of ways. About that day or hour no one knows. We can’t control time, we can’t control God. Thank God for that.
We can’t even plan our time. It’s an illusion to think that we can. Love, or illness, or opportunity, or disaster will intervene and change our plans. And we will be at a crossroads. One way will be the unexpected turning along which we will walk with Christ, and Christ’s followers. We can’t know where or when that turning is in advance. What we can do is to keep awake, to watch. It’s the only way we have, and it’s the only way that we can be prepared for the coming of God into our lives. Let us pray.
Saviour God,
your purposes are sure;
help us to keep awake,
trusting the future to you,
that we may be constant in faith,
in hope and above all in love.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.