Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Revelation 1:4b-8
Howard W. Roberts
November 25, 2007
           
The observation has been made that some people are so heavenly minded they are of no earthly use and others are so earthly minded they are of no heavenly use.  Which are you?  Are those the only two options?  I think not.  I hope not.  The question with which all of us wrestle is, "How can I live in the world but not be of the world?"  Other ways of asking the question is, “How can I stay centered”  “How do I keep my equilibrium in life?”  The issue that these questions address has been a part of people's lives through the centuries.  Many passages of Scripture attempt in various ways to address this issue.  People get lost which means they wind up in the wrong place.  Salvation means to have enough space to get away from doing evil.  Our readings today from Daniel and Revelation speak to this issue. The theme, tone, and style of this material is referred to as apocalyptic literature.  This is literature written in highly figurative, symbolic, and imaginative language in an effort by the recorders to help people face and deal with things that threaten to destroy them.  The language that is used communicates themes like end of the world, end of the age, the rule and reign of God in the world.   
           
When our anxiety rises and we feel cut loose from our moorings, we loose our balance and our center.  The temptation is to run into the past because we remember a time when we felt secure and that must have been the “good old days.”    
           
Aaaah, the "good old days." Depending on your perspective, that phrase could mean virtually anything. As time refuses to do us any favors and relentlessly marches on, it creates new "good old days" out of what we thought were the "worst of times" just a few years ago.
           
For example, it took the political and social radicalism of the 60s to turn the 30s and the 40s _ the years of a Great Depression and a World War--into the "good old days" for the Booster Generation. It took the unharnessed greed and lust for status and success of the 80s to turn the 60s--the years of Viet Nam and rampant nuclear arms proliferation--into the "good old days" for the Boomer Generation. It took the social insecurity and technological audacity of the 90s to make the 70s--the years of economic stagnation at home and terrorism abroad--into the "good old days" for the Buster Generation.
           
The same principle applies to the way we romanticize the Old West or forget the benefits of modern medical science, which were unavailable in the "good old days." Instead of wishing for some mythical, never-were, "good old days," let’s celebrate that we are living in precisely that moment known as the present looking back to build on what has been and looking forward to what will be.  To wrap ourselves in nostalgia and conclude that the best has already been is for us to be fearful and faithless.  As we move beyond Thanksgiving let us adopt Dag Hammerjold’s approach by praying, “For all that has been, thanks.”  And continuing with Hammerjold’s prayer as we look forward, let us say, “For all that will be, yes.”  In this way we acknowledge that God is present with us whatever the circumstances; strengthening, guiding and encouraging us to do what those who preceded us who experienced meaning and value in life did, they played the hand that was dealt them.  This is what is exclaimed in our text from John's Revelation: "'I am the Alpha and the Omega,' says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty" (v.8).
           
God is acting in the world today because "God is." We are called to minister in "this present age, our calling to fulfill" because the spirit of God is as vitally present today as it was in the "good old days" or as it will be in the astounding apocalyptic future John's Revelation foresees.
The Hebrew version of "Alpha and Omega" _ though it never caught on as a popular idiom _ is "aleph and tav." To emphasize the middle, the here-and-nowness of God's abiding presence, pious Jewish scholars often referred to God as "truth." In Hebrew truth ("emet") is spelled "aleph, mem, tav" _ a combination of the first, the middle, and the last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In truth, God is always with us. God was, is and will be.

The God who was. This is the God we think we all yearn for--the "good-old-days" God. We like to recall the God of ages past as that "on-the-spot" Deity who brought the Hebrews out of Egypt, or who helped the Israelites clear the Promised Land of Hittites, Canaanites and Philistines. This is the God who turned up the volume on Joshua's trumpets at Jericho, and who helped David whip 13 disparate tribes into a proud nation.

But even those who lived in the service of this "one who was" longed for "good old days."
--The Israelites fleeing through wilderness longed for the security of Egypt.  Once they were free but in the wilderness how they longed for the good old days when they were slaves rather than free.  Isn’t it amazing what current anxiety will cause people to desire?

--Job agonizing through an unexpected test and unforeseen trials cried out at the unfairness of life
--Habakkuk, suffering under the abuse of the Babylonians, asked of God, "Are you not from of old, O Lord, my God, my Holy One?" (Habakkuk 1:12).

Yet, from a distance it is so easy for us to see "the God who was" standing beside the Israelites in the wilderness, Job in his losses of family, and Habakkuk in the midst of political torture. God of the ages was the God of their age.

We so easily and quickly repeat what our religious ancestors did from the beginning.  The transition into a new age, a new place, a new experience created enough anxiety that they longed for the good old days that were anxious free.  They suffered from a serious case of amnesia and a failure of vision to recognize that in reality the good old days were not really that good or that old. 

The God who is. Paul's words to the Corinthians remind us of God's continued presence, just as they buoyed up that first generation of Christians: "See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2)." Every age is equidistant from eternity, from the standpoint of a God who was, is and is to come. Truly, then, now is the acceptable time for God to be acting and moving in our world and in our lives.
           
How can we claim for God this postmodern age in which we live and not be afraid of it or long for some "good old days?" Let God be present in this age by claiming each facet of this world for God, not abandoning it to the demons of greed, poverty, violence, neglect, abuse, pollution and despair.

Let God be God ... in us.
Let God be God ... in your church.
Let God be God ... in our neighborhoods.
Let God be God ... in our jobs.
Let God be God ... in our families.
Let God be God ... in our world.
           
So often those focusing on the “good old days” imply both implicitly and explicitly that God is only present in the past.  There also is the view of salvation as a once for all experience.  With this view once a person has acknowledged and accepted the grace and love of God there is no further responsibility or obligation on the person's part.  But these approaches and emphases fail to consider, expect, or look for the little advents of God every day.  We really cannot know what and if there is a big advent of God if we have not been open to and experienced the little advents of God each day.  There really is no evidence that God's arrival is ever in the grand and glorious or in the horrifying cataclysmic events.  Rather God's arrival seems to be in the everyday, simple, commonplace things.  God comes as if like fog on cats' paws or as a newborn baby.  Or as James Worley beautifully describes a monarch butterfly, I sense God's presence in this poetic description.
           
"An airborne chapel levitating light, its stained glass windows beat back gravity from the altar they are fastening on the air."  (The Christian Century, vol. 106, no. 29, p. 901)

Let us look back and recognize that the good old days were neither so good nor so old but whatever the circumstances there were those in the good old days who experienced God at work in their lives through the miracle of sufficiency.  They were strengthened through their relationship with God to face ending of one age and the beginning of a new age.  They were confident that the one who had guided and strengthened them in the past could and would strengthen and guide them in the future.  That gave them the hope they needed to live in the present. 

Here we are between Thanksgiving and Advent, a time to look back and give thanks for all that has been and a time to look forward to a new awareness and understanding of God being made known to us in fresh, new ways in the new age into which we are moving.  Let us look back and for all that has been give thanks.  And let of look forward and live with great hope saying, “Yes.”

The God who is to come. Because God is yet to come, today makes a difference. Because God is yet to come, all the saints who have gone before us, who have died living their faith made a difference in the lives of those around them.  It is because of them that passages like those found in Daniel and Revelation, apocalyptic literature in the Bible, were so important to those who sought to serve God in the “good old days” when Jews were suffering great persecution under King Nebuchdnezzar and early Christians were suffering great persecution under Roman Emperors.  The message from both of these writings is the same, “Persecution is a horrible thing.  Unfaithfulness to God is worse.”  The message from Daniel and John in Revelation was, “Look back to those who have been faithful to God and draw strength and encouragement from them so that we can look forward and be faithful to God as those who went before us were faithful.  Because God is always coming to us, because we are constantly being offered the opportunity to experience God’s presence in our lives, the way we "live and breathe and have our being" makes a difference.

Are we making a difference? Are we incarnating the God who is, who was, and who is to come, in this age, in your life, today?

The following advice, once given to young preachers by W. H. Griffith-Thomas, applies to everyone who is about to do something for God:

Think yourself empty
Read yourself full
Write yourself clear
Pray yourself keen
Then enter the pulpit
And let yourself go!

As we look back to Thanksgiving and look forward to Advent, will we let go and let God be God in us? We can by looking back and saying, “For all that has been, thanks” and by looking forward and saying, “For all that will be, yes.”