A Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock
[Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:3-=13; Luke 21:25-36]
“Jesus is the reason for the season!” That’s a slogan from decades ago that I am recalling today. A colleague had circular-shaped pins made up with this reminder imprinted and distributed them among his parish members. It was a quiet reminder of what these next weeks are actually about for folks like us.
Particularly this year, I have been thinking about how to leave the overloaded month of November and enter what could easily be an equally overextended December. “Jesus is the reason for the season”: That phrase came to my mind; and I, for one, need its message!
Of course, the “season” the slogan proclaims is Christmas, but the reality of Christmas does not exist – or should not exist – in a vacuum. And even though those of us who know and honor Christmas and its twelve-day presence among us, on this first Sunday of Advent, I am also quite mindful of Advent’s indispensable role – spiritual and otherwise. It is not simply as a preparation for Christ’s birth; but more so it is a descriptor of our present life as followers of Jesus.
You see, as indispensable as Advent is in terms of preparing ourselves for Christmas, its larger place stems from the fact that you and I “live and move and have our being” in an in-between time: the time between Jesus’ first “Advent” (his “coming” among us) and his promised return, when all things in creation will be completed as God has promised, as God has willed. We speak of this “in-between-ness” in our celebrations of the Eucharist. The “Memorial Acclamation” [the “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again” proclamation we make together – or as Eucharistic Prayer B (the prayer we are using in the Advent/Christmas time] expresses the acclamation: “Awe remember his death . We proclaim his resurrection. We await his coming in glory.”]– this acclamation stands as a marker on our spiritual maps, identifying where we are as Jesus’ followers and what it takes to stay the course. We are in-between what God has begun in his Christ and what God will finish when the Holy One’s creation and his will completely overlap. We exercise our faith in what is technically referred to as the “already/but not yet”: already begun in Christ but not yet completed by virtue of our opposition to God’s will.
So it is that Advent does lead us directly to Christmas; and it is vitally important that we prepare ourselves to mark the anniversary of Jesus’ birth, remembering and honoring what God has inaugurated in Jesus; but there is more to Advent than this. Specifically, how is our celebration of the birth of “Emmanuel: God with us” a part of how we live now? To what extent does Advent proclaim the ultimate consequence of what Christmas holds: namely, the gift of unassailable life?
In the past I have likened Advent to the late comedian, Rodney Dangerfield, and his self-effacing tagline: “I don’t get no respect!” In a manner of speaking, Dangerfield’s famous comedic complaint illuminates how Advent is often treated. The fact is that Advent “don’t get no respect!” And I understand the reason for this: Advent moves us beyond the life we make for ourselves. Even for faithful people, Advent tends to be limited to being an “on-ramp” to Christmas, to the extent that many who claim Christ can be pressed to say much about “Advent being the reason for the season.”
Yes, Advent does bring us to Christmas and necessarily so. Yet, Advent also begs the question: What is Christmas? What are the consequences of knowing and receiving Emmanuel: God with us? How does such a God-life opportunity shape the way we live? the way we make decisions? how we grow into “the full stature of Christ”? how we maintain hope?
Considering these questions points to the reality and impact of Advent because Advent is, in fact, the spiritual season of our living in the “in-between” of what God has begun and what God will finish – the “already but not yet”.
And so, we begin a new worship year, another cycle in which and through which we live with God at the center. “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” We remember his death. We proclaim his resurrection. We await his coming in glory.” We continue to live in the “in-between” of what God has already done and what God will finish doing. What this means is that Advent is about hope, and this hope rests in God’s faithfulness; that in God’s hands creation continues; that God is not done with any of us yet; that we are called continuously to be what we see in Jesus – even and especially in the darkest times.
The way this God-life gets to be in our midst is in our daily realization of our need for God’s future and how we yearn for it. In the incompleteness of our lives and in the shattering events of the world, we are called to be alert to the things around us that mark both our need for God's promise and how God’s promise is already leading us onward.
Like the fig tree in the gospel parable, we are told to look for God’s life-signs. They are among us here at St. Philip’s -- now. In the incompleteness of our own common life, we nonetheless push against the tide of our times and are faithful to the reality of love, grace, and mercy. We are not imprisoned by the transactional loyalties of power politics. Rather, our life together continues to be fruitful, continues to be watchful, continues to reach for our part of God’s promises so that we can share life in the darkness and keep following the light of Christ.
So much of what our little community of faith reflects is Advent faith. In the hope that started at Christmas and has been shared in our lives through baptism, you and I are Advent people. We keep watch because of what we already have seen. We wait patiently and with endurance because God has brought us this far, provided us with signs of encouragement and new life. As a result, our job is to bear the fruit of new life – as individuals and as a community.
Advent: New start. Advent: the Coming of what we yearn for. Advent: Promises kept. Advent: It’s more than “comfort and joy”. It is the God-life emerging among us – just as we have always hoped for.
I close with a poem that expresses our experience of Advent in the fullest sense: One that speaks of hope and new life and our “already/but not yet” faith life. Here it is.
In our secret yearnings
we wait for your coming,
and in our grinding despair
we doubt that you will.
And in this privileged place
we are surrounded by witnesses who yearn more than do we
and by those who despair more deeply than do we.
Look upon your church and its [leaders]
in this season of hope
which runs to quickly to fatigue
and this season of yearning,
which becomes so easily quarrelsome.
Give us the grace and the impatience
to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes,
to the edge of our finger tips.
We do not want our several worlds to end.
[But] come in your power
and come in your weakness
in any case and make all things new.
Amen.
Comments