Sermons Online ...
Sermon - Advent Is Here - 9th December 2007
St Aidan’s West Epping 8.30 am
Readings: Isaiah 11:1-10, Psalm 72:1-7, 18-21, Romans 15:4-13, Matthew 3:1-12
Advent has a habit of sneaking up on us. Part of the surprise is that Advent comes when we are most caught up with the routines and pressures of keeping things going, making Christmas preparation and, in the midst of our hurried and harried activities, Advent tells us we must wait. Lifting us beyond the routine and the obvious, Advent invites us to watch, to expect the unexpected and, today, to live in hope.
Waiting is something few of us do very well. It is not just children who become impatient at this time of year adults are agitated as well. Outside of this building everyone else is decking things out in red and green and we have this curious royal purple. Everyone else is playing Christmas carols while we are singing about the coming of God's reign and what that means. More than once each year at this time, our frustration with waiting is expressed as some inevitably ask, "But why can't we sing Christmas carols now? Why must we sing these Advent hymns?" While the world rushes to a glitzy Christmas tree with, perhaps, an ever-so-brief glance at a manger along the way, Advent bids us wait and wear the purple. For now, wait, sing our Advent hymns of hope to remember just what it is we await.
The prophet Isaiah sings such a hymn of hope in our first reading. As a new king came to the throne of David, a dejected and demoralized people had no reason to expect anything more than more of the same. To them, Isaiah's words of hope seemed terribly unrealistic, as unrealistic as Isaiah's words seem to us today.
Enter, the Spirit of the Lord, a new shoot is coming out of the dead stump of the monarchy. The Spirit of the Lord always brings life where things have been dead. This is one of the things we remember in Advent, one of the reasons we wait in hope, the Spirit of the Lord invades places in our lives that have seemed dead and brings forth new green shoots of life.
Isaiah tells of the remarkable qualities of this new king, intellectual gifts, practical gifts and spiritual gifts. This king will have it all because the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him. "He shall not judge by what his eyes see" and not be open to bribes or to the abuse of personal power. Nor will he "decide by what his ears hear", that is to be swayed neither by the polls of the crowd nor the special interests of his own supporters; new and refreshing, indeed! Rather, this king will serve the people with equity and righteousness. As God's Messiah, his agenda will be the needs of his people, all his people, especially the meek and the poor, those who otherwise have no advocate.
Notice the results of the messianic reign. The enmity that dominates the world is transformed into peace. "Do you want peace in this world?" asked the theologian Reinhold Niebhur, "Work for justice." Until there is justice for everyone, there will be no peace. For even a defeated enemy, remains an enemy. Remember that out of the defeat of Germany in the First World War, came the raison d’etat of the Second. The only hope for peace is not the accrual of more power to defeat and control, but power used to make our enemies our friends.
Advent bids us await in hope the coming of the King who will bring justice to the disposed. Who, as the king of righteousness and peace, will use his power to turn enemies, both ancient and modern, into friends. Then the utopian words of Isaiah's hymn will become reality. Nature itself will be remade and the wolf and the lamb will lie down together in peace. Imagine, if you can, a world without fear; no fear in Iraq, no fear in Bethlehem, no fear in Afghanistan, no fear in the Sudan, no fear in homes where a parent has been a tyrant or a spouse an abuser! "They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." Such is the promise of a world ruled by one upon whom the Spirit of the Lord rests. This is what Advent bids us await in hope. But we are almost as poor at hoping as we are at waiting.
Hope is a fragile thing, a fleeting thing that slips away without our knowing it. So, every second Sunday in Advent, John the Baptist reappears to remind us of our reason for hope. Here he is again, acting out his divine vocation, standing in the wilderness, announcing the Advent of God's reign. Not only will he manifest God's presence among us, he will share God's Spirit and power with those who embrace the coming of his reign. "Repent," cries John, "the kingdom of heaven has come near; it is at hand."
For two hundred years there had been no prophet in Israel's religious life. Now, suddenly, John appears looking and sounding very much like Elijah, Israel's prophet of prophets, who was expected to return to prepare the way for God's coming Messiah. Here is John, standing in the wilderness announcing that God is breaking in to keep God's ancient promise spoken through Isaiah. A people desperately in need of hope flock to John in droves, confess their sins and are baptized in the river Jordan. When asked what he is doing John says, "Preparing the way of the Lord," doing his best to straighten out the path.
The turnaround John calls for is one of behavior. It involves not so much remorse over one's past but a serious commitment to one's future as God's future. This is the essence of repentance. It is a turnaround in which we see our world as God's world and our future as God's future and so live that way, bearing fruit that give witness to such hope.
Unlike those coming out to the Jordan to be baptized by John, the turnaround you and I are called to have to do with living in hope because God's future is present and at work among us now. Advent is not only about waiting in hope to celebrate the fact that the Messiah came as God promised, nor is it simply waiting in hope for his ultimate return, that time when all the nations will come to him as Lord and Messiah. John shows up every second Sunday of Advent to remind us that the reign of the One he was announcing has been among us now for some two thousand years.
He baptizes with God's Spirit, a Spirit, Paul tells us, is one of steadfastness and encouragement, a Spirit that produces hope. Paul reminds us that all of this has been written down not only for our instruction, but also to strengthen us in hope, that through such steadfastness and encouragement, you and I might live in God's reign now and be messengers of that reign. We are to make straight the path and prepare the way in a world where the word of God's reign is every bit as countercultural now as it was when John first appeared in the wilderness.
What would it mean for us to take up John's vocation in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord? First, what do we need to do to make his path more straight in our own life; where is our life a wilderness, where do you and I need to embrace our future as God's future? Then where in the wilderness that surrounds us, as Christ's people, can we prepare the way of the Lord?
While everyone else is decking things out in red and green, you and I are called to sing about the coming of God's reign and what that means. Advent bids us not to rush to Bethlehem too fast. For, if we do, we risk missing what Bethlehem was all about, not a baby, but the birth of the King of righteousness and peace.
We wait, living in hope, not only because God became incarnate in the Christ child, nor simply because the Christ promises to come yet again. We live in hope because Christ's reign is among us now. He promises to become incarnate in you and me as we live by God's Spirit, as we bear God's Spirit, as we embrace our future as God's future, working for justice and seeking peace, not simply for ourselves, but for everyone. This Advent, we wait in hope because Christ has come, and is present in this world in and through us, as we give ourselves to the power of his reign.