This is week two of our Advent/ Christmas sermon series: Angels Among Us.

Last week, we read that the priest Zechariah freaked out when the other-worldly creature appeared to him. But Mary was simply “perplexed.” Why would such an incredible message come to a common girl just barely a woman? Then her reply to such a foretelling about her purpose in life was also simple: “Let it be so.”

Have you ever struggled with finding your purpose and being at peace with it? Or are you yearning for more peace in your life and relationships? #morepeace in the world happens when all of us feel #morepeace within ourselves and live out that message each day.

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Over the last few weeks we’ve been talking about how to cling to our faith and difficult times, how to remain hopeful, even when the headlines conspire to steal our hope away. It’s fitting that we close this series today by turning to what is simultaneously the darkest moment in human history, and the one from which we draw our greatest hope. today is the culmination of the Christian calendar, the climax to which the entire story builds, the day on which we announced that Christ is Lord of heaven and earth.

This king we have come to Crown is unlike any other, and his throne will be a cross — which helps to explain why most of the people around him cannot see him for who he is. In times that test us and show what we are made of, who will we be? Who will the Church be?

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This third week of our series (“It’s the End of the World As We Know It”), we come to two very different viewpoints on the same story. As we think about what the future holds, what do we think it will be like? Does the current state of the world and our country make us feel hope or dread? In scripture, we consider God’s dream of a peaceable Kingdom in Isaiah alongside Jesus’ disturbing words in Luke about the destruction of the sacred temple and more. Jesus never promises that following Him will ensure a smooth and stress-free life, but He does promise that God has a bigger plan, and that we are a part of it!

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In this second week of this series (“It’s the End of the World as We Know It….And I Feel Fine”), we continue to examine apocalyptic scriptures and consider how we behave when life feels like everything is coming apart. I wonder how many of you remember the Left Behind series from the 1990’s fictionally describing in terrifying detail how it would be to experience the Rapture and the End Times. Human beings have always wanted a timeline and a strategy for times of fear and upheaval. What we really want is to skip to the end; we struggle to live in the present uncertainty, and part of how we cope is to try to speculate when and how this story will end. But we live in the times of in-between. Jesus tells us that “no one knows the day or the hour”. How can we live in the present in moments like these? What is our call in such times? What is the role of believers and the Church? Let us not hide under the covers, but allow this apocalypse (literally “uncovering”) to show us new things about ourselves and new paths forward.

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