Sandwich board prophet

Have you even seen the sandwich board prophets with their doom and gloom messages about the end of the world being near? I remember seeing one in New York City once with his message typed in a normal sized typewriter font. I had to get up close to read it. Then the sandwich board prophet had me right where he wanted me, right in his face. "Do you understand that the end of the world is near and you had better get your house in order. You don't have much time maybe just a few days, but certainly not longer than that, get ready for the end to come. And it won't be pretty!"

Jesus was a sandwich board prophet. Read what he says:

"There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." (Luke 21:25-26)

This Jesus saying is usually read every third year during Advent as part of our Sunday morning worship.
This "sandwich board prophet" saying of Jesus focuses on the end of time. Contrary to popular opinion, advent is not about watching for Jesus to be born. Advent is about watching for Jesus to come again as the reigning monarch, judge and redeemer of the universe. The season of Christmas is the festival of the first Advent or first coming of Christ. The season of Advent is watching for the second Advent, the second coming of Christ. But since we are all rather uncomfortable with this second coming stuff, we sort of turn our attention to a much more comfortable story of a baby being born rather than focusing on the rather foreboding tones of predictions of the end of time.

Now to be honest, I don't spend much time worrying about the end of time, or the second coming of Jesus. This was a major concern of American pietism in the first half of the 20th century, but hardly any more, except in some fundamentalist circles. In fact, I affirm is that the end of time on this planet is ultimately up to the human race, and we could either blow ourselves up or destroy the planet by pollution. I equally affirm that in the economy of God there has to be other divine creations of intelligent life in our universe. Just because we extinguish life on planet Earth does not mean the end of time for other civilizations in other solar systems. All this does not mean that we toss out the idea of the second coming of Christ as an old Hebrew apocalyptic myth, which it is. Rather we must de-mythologize it. So the second coming of Christ needs to be reinterpreted in a new way. Therefore the season of Advent must be re-interpreted.


The season of Advent and its theme, the second coming of Christ, gives us a perspective on time, our personal time, time in our families, time in our careers, time in our communities, national time, or even time among nations. Advent reminds us to watch, but at some point, time will run out. At some point we will have to decide or things will be decided for us. Advent reminds us that time in our lives is a little bit like pregnancy-- there is a limit to watching. If you watch too long events will decide our lives for us.