Sermon for Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year B, "Hurry Up and Wait: Expecting," Luke 1:26-55

Sermon 12/21/14

Luke 1:26-55

Hurry Up and Wait: Expecting

            The children have already done a good job of proclaiming the good news for us today, haven’t they? I especially appreciated that refrain, “Go, Tell It on the Mountain.” That’s what we’ve been talking about – that’s what you do with good news. You share it! You tell it! You invite others to hear it and be a part of it. You live it!

            But, I am a pastor, so I can’t entirely give up an opportunity to preach at least a little bit, especially in this season of Advent, especially when we’ve finally gotten to something that sounds a bit like a Christmas story. Today we got to hear all about Mary, in three segments. First, Gabriel tells her she’ll bear a son who will be Son of the Most High God. The angel calls her “favored one,” blessed one. Mary asks just one question, “how can this be?” And then she responds, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.” Her faith always astounds me, the way she just absorbs the angel’s frankly outrageous message.

And then we see Mary go to visit her cousin Elizabeth, an older woman who is also expecting a child, John, who will be known as John the Baptist. We’ve been hearing a bit about him these past couple weeks. And Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit – the first person in the gospels we hear about receiving the Holy Spirit – as Elizabeth notes that she and Mary both believe that God fulfills promises made – even these miraculous promises to them.

And then finally, we get to the part we actually heard first, from Leona in our Call to Worship today: a song of praise, of hope, of Mary realizing that her child represents God turning the world upside down. This section of Luke is known as the Magnificat, “My soul glorifies/magnifies the Lord,” and it is one of my favorite passages of scripture. This passage is the longest single chunk of speech from a woman in the New Testament. Mary’s words echo those of Hannah, mother of Samuel in the Old Testament, who praises God when she is able to give birth after a long time of believing she could not have children. This song, Mary’s song, the Magnificat, is Mary’s vision of what Jesus’ birth will mean: the lowly are raised up and blessed by God. The proud are scattered. The powerful are brought down from their thrones. The hungry are filled, while the rich leave empty-handed. These words were considered so revolutionary that at different times in history – in Guatemala, in Argentina, and in India, the public reading of the Magnificat was banned. After all, if Mary’s words were taken serious, why, this Christ-child might upset the whole order of the world! And so we get a little insight into Mary – what she’s expecting in Jesus – through her response to Elizabeth.

            This Advent, I’ve been taking part in a Clergy Bible Study with some pastors in my area studying the Adam Hamilton book Not a Silent Night. The book focuses on Mary, and urges us to think about what happened to Mary after the crucifixion and resurrection, about what Mary went through when Jesus was a young child, and a young teen, and a young man. And of course, the book reflects on what Mary must have been wondering about after hearing the news from Gabriel that she would give birth to God’s son, the Savior. We talked briefly last week about whether or not Jesus was the Messiah John the Baptist was expecting. John expected the winnowing fork and the ax at the roots, ready to judge, but Jesus came preaching grace and forgiveness, and John had to wonder if Jesus was the person he was preparing for or not.

Today, as we read these texts, I’m wondering about Mary’s expectations. I think of all of those I know who’ve gone through their first pregnancy. There is so much to hope for, to expect, to wonder about, to prepare for. But there’s only so much you can really learn from What To Expect When You’re Expecting. And no matter how you imagine your child, they will be different and more than you could have imagined. No matter how you imagined your life with a brand new life in it, you can never completely anticipate all that the child will bring to your life. You are full of expectation, without knowing exactly what to expect. And you have to prepare – you’d be crazy not to – all the while knowing that you couldn’t prepare for everything.

As I think about Mary, I think about how long and short a pregnancy is all at once. The time goes by quickly, in some ways, but in other ways – how hard it must have been for Mary to wait to see what this child would really be. We read nothing of any additional visits from Gabriel from the time he told her she would have a child until the time the child is born and angels have sent shepherds to meet the newborn. Did she wonder if she had hallucinated? Was she crazy? Was she just going to have an ordinary child after all? Did she wish she’d asked more questions? She must have wondered not only what her child would look like, but also what he’d be like, a child who was a Savior. Was she supposed to parent him in the normal way? I just can’t imagine what was in her heart. On Christmas Eve this week, we’ll hear that when Jesus is at last born, what Mary does is treasure and ponder in her heart everything that happens.

The angel told Mary she was favored, blessed, and Mary believed it. The angel told Mary nothing was impossible with God, and Mary believed it. The angel told Mary she would give birth to God’s child, and Mary said, “Here I am,” and “Now, God is going to turn everything upside down.” She couldn’t possibly be prepared for it, be expecting everything that would happen in the next decades of her life. And yet she was prepared for and expecting God to be faithful as always.

I hope that is what this Advent has been, is, for you. It is hard to imagine what God has in store for us. But yet, friends, we can rely so completely on God’s promises being fulfilled that we can most certainly expect that the unexpected that God has in store will be all that we hoped – and more. Here we are, servants of God. Let it be with us according to God’s word. For blessed are we who believe that there will be a fulfillment of what is spoken to us by God. Amen.

             

Sermon for Third Sunday in Advent, "Hurry Up and Wait: Message," Luke 3:7-18

Sermon 12/14/14

Luke 3:7-18

Hurry Up and Wait: Message

            Every year around this time, we see news stories and facebook posts and tv coverage of the “War on Christmas.” There’s a story about whether or not you can say “Merry Christmas” anymore or if you must say “Happy Holidays.” People urge us to remember that “Jesus is the reason for the season,” and warn against “taking Christ out of Christmas.” Maybe you’ve even been frustrated by the secularization of the season. I certainly get frustrated by the consumerism, the commercialism, as if spending more and more money will somehow bring us a more joyful and meaningful experience celebrating the birth of Jesus. But I wonder, as we reflect on this season, what might happen if we worried less about how others might try to “take Christ out” of Christmas, if such a thing were even possible, and wondered more about how we, how you and I can produce any evidence that we’re working to put Christ into our preparation for Christmas. We can’t control what other people do, much as we might like to. But we are, in fact, totally responsible for our own behavior. And so, when it comes to Christ in Christmas, we have to ask: Are we putting Christ in? Rev. Robb McCoy writes, “Nothing can take Christ out of Christmas as long as I strive to be Christ in Christmas.” And that’s his sort of slogan for the season: “Be Christ in Christmas.” He tries to think of tangible, meaningful ways that he can act and live and interact as Christ in Christmas, and urges us to do the same. How can we be Christ in Christmas?

Last week we talked about our role as messengers. I asked what others would know from us about Christmas, about Jesus, about God, with us as the messengers. We’re the messengers of God in these days, the ones tasked with sharing the message, the good news. What kind of messengers are we? Today, we turn our attention to making sure we know exactly what our message is. What is the message that we’re delivering? Last week we looked at John the Baptist, messenger, announcing Jesus’ pending arrival, and today, we’re right back with John again. But this time we look to Luke’s gospel for a little more insight on the message that John was sharing.   

As our text opens, crowds are coming out to John to be baptized. Baptism like this was a cleansing ritual, practiced in many traditions. It signified renewal, a fresh start. So folks are coming to John to be baptized. But he’s not exactly warm and welcoming when he sees them: “You brood of vipers!” he hells. “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” He goes on to say that the crowds should not expect to rely on their Judaism, their families, their history, their cultural identity, to give them a free pass from responsibility. “Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” In other words, yes, God has had a special relationship with God’s people. But that doesn’t give you the freedom to do anything you want. You still have to hold up your part of the relationship, the covenant. John continues forebodingly: “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

            John obviously catches the attention of his audience – they begin asking him what they should do. He replies to them, to tax collectors, to soldiers – whoever has two cloaks must share, whoever has food must share, whoever has power , whoever has money must be fair and just. The people are filled with expectation at John’s words, and they wonder whether John himself might not be the messiah they are waiting for. But he insists he is not: “I am not worthy to untie his sandals,” John says. But, he leaves them, and us, with a compelling images of the messiah. “His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” A winnowing fork was a farming tool used to toss wheat into the air, so that the wind would catch the good grain and separate it from the useless chaff. Our passage concludes, “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”

Is John’s message “Good News?” There’s such an underlying tone of threat, between the vipers, the ax, and the winnowing fork. And yet, obviously his message was compelling enough to have crowds flocking to him to be baptized, ready to say: I’m changing things in my life starting now. John is sharing with the crowds, with us, his vision of what the messiah will be. In fact, John will eventually have to send word to Jesus to find out if he really is the messiah, because Jesus certainly acted differently than John was expecting. John sees judgment, just as surely as Jesus comes with salvation – a bit different in emphasis. John has a picture of the messiah that is his own – but the good news still comes because of the core of what John is preaching, as we read last week: Repentance for the forgiveness of sins. What John is preaching, at heart, is that all this preparation is for one who is coming who has the power to free us from the consequences of our sins, one who has the power to cancel out the results of our messes. And that, certainly, is good news. Remember, way back to the summer, when we talked about what the good news was Jesus was talking about. He came preaching about God’s kingdom, God’s reign, how it was here and present and not far off and unattainable in this life. Good news. So both John and Jesus preach the same action in light of this arriving kingdom: Repent. It means literally: change the direction of your mind. Change the direction of your life from all the other ways you’ve been wandering, and head in God’s direction fast, because God’s realm is right here, and you don’t want to miss out. A good message.    

            John tells us, though, that we need to “bear fruit worthy of repentance.” In other words, baptism and saying you “repent,” you’re starting fresh is great – but let’s see some signs that will show that we’ve actually heard – and lived – the message we’ve received. He gives some examples – to tax-collectors, to soldiers, to anyone who asks – about how they, even those who might normally be shunned or disliked or excluded – they – everyone – can bear the fruit of repentance. And not only does John urge the crowds to prepare for the kingdom of God’s imminent arrival by acts of repentance that make room for God, but also those very acts of repentance, preparation, and renewal are in themselves signs of God’s kingdom. Whenever I think of John the Baptist I always think of that phrase “the proof is in the pudding.” The little proverb is actually a shortening of the original saying, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” It means that you can tell how good a pudding is not by describing but by actually eating it! Nothing will prove the goodness like eating it will. That’s what John means about fruit – we can describe our transformation all we want. But nothing will prove that our lives are transformed better than our actually transformed lives. Nothing will better demonstrate that we’re Christ followers than our actually following Jesus. And so, then, nothing will better help us be messengers of the Christmas message than actually being the message with our very lives. Be Christ in Christmas.

            As Christians, we celebrate what is called incarnational faith. Incarnation means for us first of all the event of Christ’s birth – God became human. It means embodied. Jesus is called God-with-us, Immanuel. As the gospel of John puts it so beautifully, “and the word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” Our faith is embodied in God incarnate. Jesus is God-in-the-flesh, come to live among us. We celebrate it as a sign of God’s great love for us, that when we failed to get the message in so many other ways, God made the message tangible, made God’s own self into the living embodied message in Jesus Christ, the light of the world.

            But our incarnational theology doesn’t end there. It isn’t just that Jesus is the light of the world. The gospels tell us that we, then, as followers of Jesus, are the light too. We’re the light of the world, meant to shine for others to see, so that they might see Christ within us. We are the body of Christ in the world, the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. We are the body of Christ, the embodiment of Christ, in fact the incarnation of Christ that lives in the world today. We’re not just the messengers. We embody the message. We have the potential, the power, the responsibility to be Christ in Christmas.

            Here’s the amazing thing.  When we seek to be Christ in Christmas, which is exactly what we incarnational folks are supposed to be, called to be, created to be doing, we are not only the messengers of this good news. We actually embody the message itself. If we are Christ in Christmas, we become living, breathing, walking and talking messages of good news. And when we do that, when we live and breathe the good news, there’s no way we can miss the meaning of Christmas. Friends, if you find yourself worrying that we’re losing our grasp on Christmas, the best thing you can do is look into your hearts, and see if you find Christ there. Is the light of Christ shining from you? Are you not only a messenger, but the message? When people meet you, talk to you, interact with you – and by people I mean all the people – are they seeing Christ in you? If they do, we won’t have anything to lament! Be the message. Be Christ in Christmas. Amen.

             

         

A Sung Communion Liturgy for Epiphany Sunday

A Sung Communion Liturgy for Epiphany

(Tune: IN DULCI JUBILO (“Good Christian Friends, Rejoice”))

Good Christian friends, rejoice with heart and soul and voice!

Lift your hearts unto the Lord. Praise! Praise! Praise our God forevermore!

Radiant star that shines so bright: Jesus Christ, the world’s light!

Praise God evermore! Praise God evermore!

We’re in Your image made; to us this world You gave.

Yet, we turned our hearts from You. Woe! Woe! Set against the good we knew.

Still Your love remained steadfast. You beckoned us to walk your path.

Jesus lights the way! Jesus lights the way!

To table we’ve been called: Come one, come now, come all!

Here we share the feast of grace! Love! Love! Here, for everyone a place!

He breaks the power of cancelled sin and darkness quenched, the light pours in.

God-with-us revealed! God-with-us revealed!

Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna in the highest!

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord! Joy! Joy! Prince of Peace, Living Word!

Blessed be the child who comes in God’s name, the Promised One! 

Praise God’s holy name! Praise God’s holy name!

The night Christ was betrayed to us this meal he gave.

First he took and broke the bread. Life! Life! At God’s table they were fed.

Then he shared the loving cup. Forgiving us, he raised us up.

“Feast, and think of me. Feast, and think of me.”

Remembering these mighty acts, to You, O God, we offer back

Holy, living sacrifice: Thanks! Thanks! Full of joy, commit our lives.

We proclaim the mystery: Christ died, but rose in victory.

Christ will come again! Christ will come again!

On bread and cup outpour Your Holy Spirit, Lord.

Make these gifts become for us Christ! Christ! We, his body, him, our life.

By this meal we are redeemed and by this grace we are set free.

Jesus makes us one! Jesus makes us one!

Prayer after Communion:

The dark to light gives way, Bright Dawn of all our days!

Journey with us as we leave, Star! Star! People of the Star are we!

Now we travel other roads to shine Your light where’er we go

Overwhelmed with joy! Overwhelmed with joy!

Text: Beth Quick, 2014.

First stanza text: 14^th Century Latin, John Mason Neal, translator (1855.)

A Sung Communion Liturgy for Epiphany Sunday by Rev. Beth Quick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Sermon for Second Sunday in Advent, Year B, "Hurry Up and Wait: Messenger," Mark 1:1-8

Sermon 12/7/14

Mark 1:1-8

Hurry Up and Wait: Messenger

This week I've been thinking a lot about messages and messengers, and the kinds of messages we send and receive. We’re bombarded with messages every single day, certainly, from friends and family, from strangers we interact with each day, from the media, from TV, from advertisements everywhere. A message is simply some kind of content communicated from one party to another. And the one delivering the communication, in whatever form, is the messenger.

In particular, I’ve been thinking about what kind of messages I’ve been eager to communicate to others, and what messages others have been eager to communicate to me. I still remember learning how, in eighth grade English, to write what the teacher called persuasive essays – essays where the main point was for the author, the messenger, to communicate a message that resulted in persuading the reader to share his or her point of view on any particular subject. What kinds of messages have you delivered that seek to persuade someone? And when have you been persuaded by the power of a message you received? Maybe at first nothing comes to mind, but I promise you, we are all messengers and recipients of messages from more or less convincing messengers multiple times every day. Of course, as a pastor, you might say that I give what I hope are persuasive messages every week! I won’t deny that I hope my preaching has an impact. Not only do I want you to hear my message, a message that I hope is grounded in how God is leading me to lead you, but I hope that my message has a more concrete impact. I want you and me (I’m preaching to myself too!) to grow closer to God, to change our behavior, to turn onto a new path, to follow Jesus more closely, and I hope that my message is received and is persuasive.

But I’m a messenger in other ways too. I love the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. If you let me talk to you for any length of time about Superstar, I will try to convince you how awesome it is, how meaningful, and try to persuade you to watch the movie or listen to the soundtrack or take in a performance. I was pretty obsessed with the TV show LOST, and I talked most of my family members into watching it. Can you think of times when you convinced someone to do something, even something that seems trivial, like getting them to start watching your favorite show? How did you do it? What did you say that convinced them? On the flip side, I can think of times when I was the one who was convinced, persuaded, by a message I heard. My older brother Jim was the first one to go vegetarian in my family, and he was definitely a big influence on me, persuading me to take the plunge many years ago. What about you? When did someone’s message to you persuade you to do something differently? When have you been persuaded to change your mind, your belief, your plan of action, because of a message you received from someone?

In the Bible, the Greek word for messenger is “angelos.” As you can see, it looks a lot like the word angel. In the Bible, what we think of today as angels are called “messengers of God,” “angelos tou Theos.” The Greek word in the Bible for “gospel” is “euangelion” which means “good message.” That’s how we describe the Bible’s accounts of Jesus. They’re good messages! And our word for “evangelism” – meaning, the spreading of the good news – comes from these Greek words – good message. Euangelion. At this time of year, when we think of angels, God’s messengers, usually our mind jumps right to the angel Gabriel, telling Mary that she will bear a son, or the angel filling Joseph in on the plans, or the angel telling the shepherds about Jesus’ birth, or the heavenly host filling the skies. And those are certainly special messengers that are part of the story of Jesus’ birth.

But today, we’re talking about another messenger of God. Today, we’re in the gospel of Mark. As I mentioned last week, this lectionary year focuses mostly on Mark. I’ll tell you that Mark is my favorite gospel. It’s the oldest – it was written first of the accounts we have in our Bible – and it is by far the shortest. Mark is in a hurry. He says nothing in three verses that he can squeeze into one instead. He’s sparse with details. But he gets to the point. He’s a gospel writer, a sharer of the good message, and it is like he is so excited, so bowled over by the news, so anxious to have you know about Jesus that he can’t possibly get the story out fast enough. And so Mark’s gospel starts, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” and by the end of our reading today, John the Baptist is already preparing folks for Jesus’ arrival on the scene – not as a newborn, but as an adult, about to be baptized in the Jordan, ready to start preaching and teaching. Unlike Matthew and Luke, who talk about Jesus’ birth, describing the Christmas story, Mark gets right down to business. Who needs a nativity story when you can get straight to the point? Mark writes, The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God as his first verse, and in it he says who Jesus is – he is the Christ, the Son of God. And his gospel certainly attests to why Jesus came. Of the birth of Jesus, Mark simply has no comment.

But although Mark doesn’t describe Jesus’ birth, he certainly starts out with a messenger who announces Jesus’ pending arrival. John the Baptist is an angel – a messenger of God – in a very real way. John the baptizer appears in the wilderness, in the way of Isaiah, proclaiming baptism, repentance, and forgiveness, and announcing that someone was coming, the kingdom had arrived. Israel was then under Roman occupation, and the Roman government was ruling over the people. Their lives were monitored and controlled by these occupying forces. So people were coming to John, repenting of their sins and being baptized in anticipation of the one John said was coming, the one who would bring with him God’s kingdom. John might be an interesting messenger if you looked at his outside package. The gospels describe his appearance more than that of most others, so it must have been notable: He’s described as “clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.” You get the sense that he stood out in crowd, John the Baptist. But he was indeed a persuasive messenger. People were flocking to him to be baptized, flocking to hear someone tell them to repent, turn their life around, start fresh. He certainly had a compelling message, but clearly John was also an effective messenger.  

What message is so compelling to you that you are transformed into an effective messenger? The Bible is filled with unlikely sorts like John becoming effective messengers because they’re so compelled by the message they have to share. Next week we’ll spend more time thinking about the nature of the message John the Baptist is sharing in particular. But I’m wondering – what messages have been so important to you that you’ll tell anyone who will listen about them?

This month, I’ve given us all the homework of inviting someone to join us in some part, any part of our life here at Apple Valley: worship, Bible Study, Caroling, Pageant, Blue Christmas, Christmas Eve – I want you to invite someone to join you. I want you to be messengers. The best messengers, though, are the ones who are so excited about or convinced of their message that it can’t be contained. The best messengers have had their own lives transformed by the message. As you think back over your own faith journey, I wonder: who were the messengers who told you about Jesus? What convinced you? What messengers helped shape your life so that you ended up sitting here today? I think of the faithful example of humble servanthood in my grandfather, Millard Mudge. I think of the steadfast faith of my mom. I think of Sunday School teachers and pastors. I think of professors and colleagues in ministry. Of authors, of activists – they’ve all shaped me, delivered to me again and again in a thousand ways the message that guides my life, the good news, this life of following after Jesus. Who are your messengers?

And what message about God-with-us, about this Christ-child we’re preparing for, have you been delivering to folks? What would they know about this community and its role in your faith journey from your life and your words? What would people know about Jesus from the messages that you deliver with your life and your words? As we continue to prepare of Christ’s birth, I wonder: What do people who are not Jesus-followers know about the meaning of Christmas from those of us who are? What message are we, the messengers, sharing? If the messages we were delivering with our lives were being overheard by a group of shepherds, would they make it to the manger? If we were the messengers, preparing the way in the wilderness, would people be changing their lives, preparing to meet Jesus, who was just about to arrive?

Beloved of God, here and now, we are God’s messengers. We are. We’ve already received the message. Let’s deliver it, with the urgency of Mark. With the conviction of John the Baptist. With the persuasiveness that can only come from those whose own lives have been transformed by it. Amen.  

Sermon for First Sunday of Advent, Year B, "Hurry Up and Wait: Begin at the End," Mark 13:24-37

Sermon 11/30/14

Mark 13:24-37

Hurry Up and Wait: Begin at the End

            As many of you have heard, starting next month I’ll be working on a research project supported by a grant that I received from the Louisville Institute that allows pastors to dig a little deeper in whatever areas of ministry interest them. You’ll be hearing lots more about my research in the coming months, since I hope to have you all be one of my churches that participates in my research, but I can tell you that it’s an expansion of the work that I already did in my Doctor of Ministry project. I’ll be continuing to look at how congregations do outreach work, and how I can help congregations become more deeply invested in outreach ministries.

            When I was working on my Doctor of Ministry project, the steps I needed to complete in order to finish my degree were all outlined very carefully and specifically from the kind of paper I had to print on, to the font, to the margins, to the forms I had to have people sign to participate in my research. It was all spelled out – what to do to complete my work. But one of the first things I had to complete was a research proposal. I had to put together a 15 page proposal that stated my question – what was it my research was hoping to answer; and then talked about why, theologically speaking, I thought it was an important question to ask; and then stated my research process – how I intended to go about answering the question; and then my proposal also had to include the results I expected to get and why those results would be important. In other words, before I even did any research, I had to write out what I expected the results and significance of my research to be. It felt really strange to me at first. But it’s really how most research in any field is done. You start with a hypothesis – the answer you think you are going to get. And then you see if you can prove, or end up disproving your answer. But you start with where you think you’re going to end up. Otherwise, research would just be so open ended that it would be mostly useless. If you weren’t looking for a particular answer, but just exploring, it would be hard to make anything constructive out of what you experienced, even if you took in a lot of data. Ok, sometimes, discoveries are made accidentally, unintentionally. But most of the time, research provides results because researchers started out visualizing the ending they were trying to reach.

            People like to say that “it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.” And in many ways, I believe this is true. But usually this is true because we still have a destination in mind. The journey is fantastic because we know where we’re heading. If you don’t know where you’re going, trying to enjoy the journey is a bit more stressful! So with some things, we begin by figuring out where it is we’re hoping to end up.

            That’s a bit of the strategy with the lectionary readings for Advent. Remember, the lectionary is the scheduled set of readings for the church year – they go in a three year-cycle, each year focusing on one of the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, with the gospel of John sprinkled throughout. The new lectionary year begins on the First Sunday of Advent each year – that’s the beginning of the church year. Which means, as I mentioned last week, today is the beginning of a new church year. This is Year B, focusing on Mark. And every lectionary year, the first text for the first Sunday of Advent expresses similar themes: texts that sound an awful lot like they’re about the end of the world. Isn’t that sort of a strange place to start if our goal is to prepare for the birth of the Christ child?

            In Mark’s gospel, we find ourselves near the end of the book, with Jesus talking about the Son of Man coming to gather people to him. Jesus says we’ll know that he is near just like we know summer is near – reading the signs around us. And yet, at the same time, Jesus says, we don’t know the day or hour this will take place. No one does, he says, not even Jesus. So the best strategy: “Beware, keep alert. Keep awake.” When I read these words, they sound both exhausting and anxiety-producing. How can we live on the edge all the time? It reminds me of the color-coded terror-alert system we had in place for a decade following 9/11, that never fell below yellow – an elevated level of alert – for the entire time the system was in place. How useful is an anxious system of constant alert, where anxiety becomes the normal level? Surely, this is not what Jesus means. This is not the destination of Advent we’re trying to reach, right? What is it that we’re longing for?

So often, and especially in this season, I think children lead us. Now, I think children are excited and anxious for Christmas to come, but I also know that young children have a very skewed concept of time. Take my nephew Sam. He’s a little wiser now at the ripe old age of 7 and a half. But for a while, anything in the past happened ʺa couple weeks ago.” Things that happened ʺwhen he was littleʺ could be things that were when he was an infant, two years old, or earlier this year. Or Sam would talk about growing up – he defined this as the time when his feet would finally touch the floor when he sits on a chair. And when he started kindergarten, Sam was perplexed over what had happened to his friend from pres-school, Alex – who is the same age as Sam – since he hadn’t seen him a while. Sam mused: I think Alex must be a teenager now! Sam is indeed excited for Christmas to come, as he is excited for most joyful things to take place in his happy life. But Sam isn’t rushing time by. Instead, I would say he is ready. He is ready for the excitement he knows is on the way. A day, a week, a month – they can all seem long or short to Sam depending on his mood. But he isn’t in a hurry. He is just happy, and ready for Christmas when it comes, and although he’s getting older and wiser, I hope he can savor that sweet state of joyful, hopeful expectation for a few more years.

Joyful, hopeful expectation – that’s what I think God wants for us. Joyfully, hopefully we long for God’s will, God’s hopes, God’s dreams, God’s realm to be made complete in us and in our world. We remain alert, excited, hopeful, on the watch for signs of God’s kingdom moving among us and in us, and maybe even with our help. I know I’ll probably drive many of you a little crazy with singing more Advent Hymns during Advent than Christmas Carols. But the funny thing about Advent hymns is that they usually do a really great job of reminding us what exactly we’re getting ready for. Most Advent hymns don’t talk about baby Jesus and a manger scene. They talk, instead, about the savior we long for, and why the world stands in need of Christ’s coming in the first place. Take “O Come O Come Emmanuel.” The first verse talks about captive Israel, mourning, lonely, in exile, waiting for God to appear. And then the refrain, “Rejoice, Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.” Advent hymns are carols that tell us our destination and tell us how much we need to reach that destination, and then sing with eager longing for the journey that will help us arrive at that destination.

            That’s what Advent is. Advent is preparation with a destination in mind. We know what happens on Christmas. Jesus is born. But why is that so important to us? What are we longing for? I wonder how often we’re hurrying by the days of Advent, the days meant to prepare for Christmas, and we don’t even really think about what we’re hurrying to or why. And then when Christmas Day comes and goes, even as we’re really just starting the true season of Christmas, we already feel like we’ve missed something.   

Our task in Advent isn’t to rush the days by to Christmas, and it isn’t to drag our feet in an effort to slow down time. Our task is to figure out what we’re preparing for, so we can be ready. We are called as people of faith to be ready for God however God shows up on earth, wherever and whenever. It seems to happen in the most surprising ways. But always, God comes to us, God who is with us in the flesh, Emmanuel. And so knowing we’re heading toward God, joyfully, hopefully, eagerly, wakefully, we wait. Amen.