Advent: Staying Awake to the Human One

Matthew 24:36–44 (in italics)

But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son but only Abba God.

Advent lectionary texts always begin in uncertainty. Just before today’s passage, Jesus has spoken of the Temple’s destruction and foretold nations rising against nations, earthquakes, famines — the end of the age is nigh, he says. When his followers ask for signs about when all this is about to happen, he tells them they will suffer trials, but “the one who endures to the end will be saved.” That really didn’t answer their anxious question, so they press him again: When will all this happen? And Jesus responds: “About that day and hour, no one knows.” Not the angels. Not me. Only the Creator, Abba God.

Great. That kind of uncertainty is always so stabilizing.  And it gets worse. 

For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Human One. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Human One.

A flood is coming. Everything solid will disappear. This does not sound like “Silent Night, Holy Night, all is calm and all is bright.” We already have enough dread and doom in our lives, enough uncertainty. So why does Advent start with apocalyptic images like these? Why is this good news?

Because we cannot understand the good news of Jesus’ birth until we first really see the bad news of the world as it is. Advent begins with apocalyptic texts because apocalypse is divine truth-telling. The word literally means “unveiling.” Apocalypse removes the veils, pulls back the curtain, so we can actually see the systems of domination that constrict our lives and tell us that injustice is just the way the world works. That unveiling is actually good news.  

The phrase “a long, loving look at the Real” is one that has guided my life for decades now. Doing this means that, when the veils drop, we stay awake to what we are seeing —whether it it beautiful or ugly, whether it inspires us or makes us feel the pain of suffering — we stay with what we are seeing. And we let our gaze be guided by love and compassion, toward all we are seeing and toward ourselves, because sometimes this kind of seeing is difficult for us; it causes us pain.  But this way of staying awake to what is being unveiled is a necessary part of the good news.  Jesus is saying: I want to show you what keeps you unfree—and reveal the path into a new way of being human.

Many of us associate “apocalypse” with doomsday charts or bleak dystopias but that’s a distortion. Biblical apocalypse is not about predicting the end of the world. In fact, Jesus says the opposite: no one knows when things will shift. Not him. Not the angels. The point is precisely that we don’t know.

And this is absolutely not about bleak dystopias. Apocalypse reveals what is wrong and it reveals what God is already doing to set it right. It unmasks the domination systems—what Scripture calls the Powers and Principalities — that disrupt human life, normalize domination and make it seem inevitable and reveals the deeper, more powerful reality of God’s inbreaking reign.

Apocalypse is a language of hope spoken by people under pressure. Repeat. Are you under pressure? Are we under pressure? You betcha. Apocalypse is our language of hope.

Therefore you also must be ready, for the Human One is coming at an unexpected hour.

So who is this Human One whose coming is known only to God? The title “Human One” is usually translated “Son of Man” but scholars say it could just as easily be translated “the one like a human being.” “The one like a human being” is Jesus’ favorite name for himself. He uses it more than 50 times. It echoes Ezekiel, whom God calls “one like a human being” and it echoes Genesis, where human beings are created in God’s image.  Jesus seems to be intentionally drawing upon a symbol from his tradition that doesn’t carry the heavy political expectations  of the “Messiah,” a title that too easily conjures dreams of a warrior-king and that king’s nationalist project. Instead, Human One” points to something bigger: a new kind of humanity aligned with God’s reign, which encompasses the whole earth.

Jesus uses the “Human One” to describe who he is in the world—but also who we are. Jesus is the Human One… and so are you, and you, and I, whenever our lives align with God’s liberating, healing work rather than the Powers that seek to dominate. 

Being the Human One looks like the volunteer who accompanies a church member to a court hearing and tirelessly advocates for him when he is threatened with deportation.

Being the Human One looks like the person who takes care of a fellow congregant who just had surgery.

Being the Human One looks like the one who keeps praying and showing up in protests and actions even when the Powers keep insisting nothing will change.

Being the Human One means forgiving when the easier path, it seems, would be to harden one’s heart.

Being the Human One means healing our trauma.

Being the Human One looks like a congregation that refuses to let its imagination be colonized by despair.

Being the Human One looks like creating little pockets of beloved community in a bruised world. 

Jesus is the Human One and so are we, whenever we align with God’s liberating, healing work.

Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 

Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. 

Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day the Human One is coming. 

This is not about a literal rapture. It describes what happens when God’s truth is unveiled—when the Powers are exposed for what they are, and God’s alternative way appears. Suddenly our deepest loyalties become visible.

Two people can stand in the same place, doing the same thing, and the unveiling is really seen only by one. One wakes up or sees reality differently and one does not. One becomes ready to align their life with God’s healing and liberating work—to step into their own calling as the Human One alongside Jesus. And the other remains asleep, unaware of who they truly are or who they were created to be.

Advent invites us to be the ones “taken” by this new way of being human.

Therefore you must be ready, for the Human One is coming at an unexpected hour.

So let’s be ready. And may this readiness be rooted not in fear (or fear alone), but in the knowledge that the Powers are being exposed.  

So let’s be ready — not for catastrophe, but for God’s reign to break through.

So let’s be ready — not for the world to end, but for a new world to begin, a world that is already breaking into this one, a world God longs to birth through us, through every Human One who is ready to be awake.