November 27, 2016
Advent 1A
Isaiah 2:1-5
Psalm 122
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 24:36-44
Please pray with me,
May the words of my mouth
and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our
rock our strength and our redeemer.
Amen.
Well I don’t know about
you, but Thanksgiving seemed to sneak up on me this year. And so here we are in the season of Advent
already...I’m not quite ready.
The good news is that this
season calls us to a time of reflection and awareness of Christ in our
midst. This season also seems to ramp of
the speed of time, the business of schedules, and to do lists and preparations
that we just do not have enough time to accomplish. My guess is that if Thanksgiving surprised
you, this season is just as much of a surprise.
Yet what I do like about
the season of Advent is the focus on preparation. The time to ready our homes for the coming of
the Christ child and the preparation of our hearts and our lives…we take time
this season to light a candle on the advent wreath, to pause and pray and let
Christ’s light shine into the world around us.
And as we pause to see
that light shine, it gives us time to think about the complexity of God with us
right now and the reality that we are preparing for Christ to come again.
We are especially called
into this when our gospel message leaves us with a sense of urgency, and
tugging, that reminder that the Son of Man is coming…and it is at an unexpected
hour. We don’t know when…but we must be
ready.
As Jesus is talking with
his disciples he hearkens back to the story of Noah. An interesting choice of illustration,
right? But it works.
In Noah’s day, the people
didn’t know about the coming judgment but it still came. Noah tried to warn people about the flood,
but they wouldn’t listen, they wouldn’t help, they probably watched him, called
him crazy and went back to work. They
didn’t know what Noah knew…that this coming of the flood was a new beginning…that
all the sin would be washed away, that the world would begin anew…and most
importantly that God would be there in the midst of it all.
The flood would be a new
beginning, creation begun anew again.
So maybe, this retelling,
this reminding of the Noah story pre-echoes , or foreshadows, the story of
Christ. That when Christ comes, sin is
washed away, we begin anew. This IS a
new creation…where forgiveness and eternal life are gifts and death is not the
last word. That, my friends, is good
news. The good news is that tomorrow
will be different than yesterday because the future is based on the promises of
God which are always new. (Feasting on the Word, Erskine.)
Even though this story IS
good news, how do we hear it today?
Do we hear it as a gift
coming to be live with us, teach us and who will die for us?
Or do we hear it as a
command to get ready…for the judgment is coming?
How do we hear the message
of Christ’s coming today? I think we
hold in tension that this both a message of good news, but also that we are
commanded to be ready. We are called to
be awake, to be ready and prepared…yet we still tend to carry on with our
lives. We continue to eat, drink and be
merry, we go to our jobs, we care for our families. Our lives go on…and as much as we hear about
preparing for the coming of Christ, we may not see the urgency.
So that’s the wake up call
to us today, right? Get ready….stay
awake…be on guard….as we prepare for the coming of Christ.
We are called, commanded even, to be prepared…to be the
church militant…the church awake and aware of our circumstances…ready to be
active in the world around us…ready to respond to God’s call in our lives today
and all days…ready to march away to onward Christian soldiers!
But as we are called to
march…we may not truly be aware of what our actions can and should be in the
world today… we have a deep sense of longing for the coming of Christ, yet at
the same time, we seek to see him in our midst here and now.
And that, my friends, is
the heart of the tension of the season of Advent.
The longing for a wonderful
counselor when we feel utterly alone.
The longing for a mighty
God when we are need of guidance and support.
The longing for the
Everlasting Father…a parent who never leaves us, who is always there for
us.
The longing for the Prince
of Peace in a nation deeply struggling with conflict.
So where does that leave
us today?
Called to be the church at
work in the world today….what does it mean that God is already with us? It may look different than we expect.
Look back at our reading
from Isaiah,
“God shall judge between
the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords
into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not light up
sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
Imagine that world…that in
God’s vision, in God’s eyes…the people and nations turn implements of conflict
- like swords and spears into tools that
cultivate and support community.
How beautiful is
that?
How powerful is that
vision? That view of the world… view of
God’s kingdom…
This transformational
image is the inspiration for a large sculpture that stands outside the General
Assembly tower at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The hope is that through the cooperation of nations, the tools of community can replace the weapons of war. (FOTW, Birch.)
The hope is that through the cooperation of nations, the tools of community can replace the weapons of war. (FOTW, Birch.)
“In a similar way, a small
Jesuit chapel at St. Louis University has light fixtures that are made of
twentieth century cannon shells, converted.
Emptied of their lethal contents, they now hold light for people to pray
by. In such light we pray and
live.”
(FOTW, Duke.)
In such light we pray and
live.
In Christ’s light we pray
and live. We are called to transform implements of conflict into instruments of
peace that cultivate and support community….in our homes, in our community, in
our nation and in our world.
We called to respond to
the darkness in our world by allowing the light of Christ, the gifts of the
Spirit to guide our words and actions.
We are called to live our
lives not out of fear, but out of the faith that we have in God always being
present with us and willing to trust that enough light lies ahead.
I pray that this Advent
season allow us time to reflect on God’s presence in our lives here and now, and
that we see who God created us and continues to call us to be, not just as
individuals but as voices joined together as the body of Christ in our
community and world.
And now may the peace,
which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus and
let all God’s people say, Amen.
