The Days are Surely Coming
12-2-18 (Advent 1C)
Jeremiah 33:14-16; Luke 21:25-36
As we come into the season of Advent, we enter into a time in the life of the church that is unlike any other. It’s a time of excitement, a time of anticipation, of waiting and preparation. It’s a time where we look forward with joy because we know that now, there are only four weeks until Christmas. And everywhere we turn during the next several weeks, there’ll be no way of escaping that sense of eager Yuletide expectancy. Christmas music has appeared on many of our radio stations, the Salmons light display is up at the fairgrounds again, and stores are trying to maintain the Black Friday surge as long as they can with Christmas sales and specials to help out those people who still haven’t found all the gifts they’ve been looking for. People are putting lights out on their trees and houses, plugging in the inflatable decorations, and setting up other illuminated displays of holiday cheer while Christmas trees have finally started popping up in people’s front windows. For some, this becomes the perfect season to brush off that “ugly Christmas sweater” to wear to their friends’ parties and contests.
But if you really want a reminder of the kind of fanatical yearning that this season brings about, just look around the neighborhood at all the different kids throughout the next four weeks. Parents turn into broken records: “No, you can’t have this right now - you don’t know what you’re getting for Christmas!” Children pore over the latest department store catalogs with meticulous care to make sure that they haven’t overlooked a single thing to put into their Christmas list for Santa, then wait in line to spend that one crucial minute on Santa’s lap in which they can convey their list to the man himself as quickly and carefully as possible in the hopes that Jolly Old St. Nick will bring them their hearts’ desires. Kids gather eagerly around the Advent calendar on the fridge, counting out the number of days and waiting with excitement to open one more window that brings them one step closer to the big celebration. And at least five times a day, parents hear their children ask the question they have come to dread: “How many more days till Christmas?”
This time of year is a time of high hopes, both for children and adults alike. And yet, amidst all this time of expectation and waiting, it’s easy to get distracted and to lose sight of what makes the Advent season so important. We can get distracted by the glitz and the glamour of the holidays and lose ourselves in visions of sugarplums to the point that the Savior takes second fiddle to Santa Claus. We hearken to the angels as they proclaim their message of “Peace on Earth,” but so often we fail to show goodwill to our fellow men and women. Our hopes become misplaced as we think more on our Christmas lists than on the King of Kings who was laid in a lowly manger.
And yet that’s only a part of the message we need to hear! It’s good for us to spend these four weeks dwelling in Jeremiah’s words from today’s reading, confident in the knowledge that Jesus is that “righteous branch” that has come from David. We need to find ways to be continually grounded in the knowledge that Christ is at the center of this celebration. But there’s another message for the church at Advent that is just as important and twice as forgotten. Because Advent isn’t just about leading in to the birth of Christ; it wouldn’t make much sense if that was all we were “expecting.” Christ was born over 2000 years ago, and as we are reminded as we gather today at the table, God is already with us. Yet we still prepare. We’re still waiting for something which Christ has yet promised to us. Jeremiah’s words hint at this promise, that Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety, and Jesus’ entire ministry points to a greater Kingdom that He will bring in.
This is what Advent is about for us today as a church - the fact that we live in a time that is “already and not yet.” We prepare ourselves for the celebration of Christmas, for the birth of the King, for God’s physical presence made known among us. But we also look with joyful anticipation for the day when Christ returns. This is the time when the church has the opportunity to be little children themselves, where we recognize our own yearning and our own impatient questions: “How many more days till Christ comes? How many more days until we see the Kingdom? Where’s the Advent calendar that shows us how much longer we have till the real big celebration?” It’s the question the church has asked since the days of the disciples - throughout the Gospels, Jesus keeps preaching that the Kingdom is at hand. In Luke’s Gospel today, we even hear Jesus telling the disciples that “this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.” And yet, like the early church before us, we see each new generation come into being and wonder: when will these things take place? We’re anxious for the day to come - we don’t want to wait anymore.
And yet that is what Advent reminds us we must do. It’s fitting that the first candle we light is the candle of Hope, because that’s what we’re constantly called to do. Jesus tells his disciples to “Be on your guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.” We’re called to be a people of hope, to live in a time when all the signs are pointing to the kingdom. I don’t think it’s just happenstance that Jesus gave signs to his disciples that seem to be relatively commonplace these days - nations were struggling with one another even as Jesus told his disciples these signs. Natural disasters shake areas around the world and make us question whether this was what Jesus meant when he said that these signs would mean that the Kingdom was at hand. The problem is that we can’t go around using our Bibles as crystal balls, trying to work out some kind of secret code that shows us that Jesus will be coming soon because this leader, this conflict, or that earthquake just happened. As people of hope, these readings are meant, not as a kind of “secret code” that we just need to decipher so that we can sit back and rest confidently knowing that we’ve read the signs correctly, but as an encouragement that, even when we see these things happening around us, we know that they are a reminder to us to continue in hope, to remember that the Kingdom of Christ is coming, that Christ has the final victory, and that we are called to proclaim this message of hope even more strongly during this season.
So as we go through this Advent season and look eagerly toward Christmas, let us make this time a time of hopeful preparation. Let us live as people of Hope and take this time of Advent to reflect, to clear our hearts of the distractions of the season, and to dedicate ourselves to living lives in hopeful expectation, not just of the birth of a savior, but of the day when he will come again to reign in his rightful Kingdom. To God be the Glory. Amen.
Jeremiah 33:14-16; Luke 21:25-36
The Days are Surely Coming
As we come into the season of Advent, we enter into a time in the life of the church that is unlike any other. It’s a time of excitement, a time of anticipation, of waiting and preparation. It’s a time where we look forward with joy because we know that now, there are only four weeks until Christmas. And everywhere we turn during the next several weeks, there’ll be no way of escaping that sense of eager Yuletide expectancy. Christmas music has appeared on many of our radio stations, the Salmons light display is up at the fairgrounds again, and stores are trying to maintain the Black Friday surge as long as they can with Christmas sales and specials to help out those people who still haven’t found all the gifts they’ve been looking for. People are putting lights out on their trees and houses, plugging in the inflatable decorations, and setting up other illuminated displays of holiday cheer while Christmas trees have finally started popping up in people’s front windows. For some, this becomes the perfect season to brush off that “ugly Christmas sweater” to wear to their friends’ parties and contests.
But if you really want a reminder of the kind of fanatical yearning that this season brings about, just look around the neighborhood at all the different kids throughout the next four weeks. Parents turn into broken records: “No, you can’t have this right now - you don’t know what you’re getting for Christmas!” Children pore over the latest department store catalogs with meticulous care to make sure that they haven’t overlooked a single thing to put into their Christmas list for Santa, then wait in line to spend that one crucial minute on Santa’s lap in which they can convey their list to the man himself as quickly and carefully as possible in the hopes that Jolly Old St. Nick will bring them their hearts’ desires. Kids gather eagerly around the Advent calendar on the fridge, counting out the number of days and waiting with excitement to open one more window that brings them one step closer to the big celebration. And at least five times a day, parents hear their children ask the question they have come to dread: “How many more days till Christmas?”
This time of year is a time of high hopes, both for children and adults alike. And yet, amidst all this time of expectation and waiting, it’s easy to get distracted and to lose sight of what makes the Advent season so important. We can get distracted by the glitz and the glamour of the holidays and lose ourselves in visions of sugarplums to the point that the Savior takes second fiddle to Santa Claus. We hearken to the angels as they proclaim their message of “Peace on Earth,” but so often we fail to show goodwill to our fellow men and women. Our hopes become misplaced as we think more on our Christmas lists than on the King of Kings who was laid in a lowly manger.
And yet that’s only a part of the message we need to hear! It’s good for us to spend these four weeks dwelling in Jeremiah’s words from today’s reading, confident in the knowledge that Jesus is that “righteous branch” that has come from David. We need to find ways to be continually grounded in the knowledge that Christ is at the center of this celebration. But there’s another message for the church at Advent that is just as important and twice as forgotten. Because Advent isn’t just about leading in to the birth of Christ; it wouldn’t make much sense if that was all we were “expecting.” Christ was born over 2000 years ago, and as we are reminded as we gather today at the table, God is already with us. Yet we still prepare. We’re still waiting for something which Christ has yet promised to us. Jeremiah’s words hint at this promise, that Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety, and Jesus’ entire ministry points to a greater Kingdom that He will bring in.
This is what Advent is about for us today as a church - the fact that we live in a time that is “already and not yet.” We prepare ourselves for the celebration of Christmas, for the birth of the King, for God’s physical presence made known among us. But we also look with joyful anticipation for the day when Christ returns. This is the time when the church has the opportunity to be little children themselves, where we recognize our own yearning and our own impatient questions: “How many more days till Christ comes? How many more days until we see the Kingdom? Where’s the Advent calendar that shows us how much longer we have till the real big celebration?” It’s the question the church has asked since the days of the disciples - throughout the Gospels, Jesus keeps preaching that the Kingdom is at hand. In Luke’s Gospel today, we even hear Jesus telling the disciples that “this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.” And yet, like the early church before us, we see each new generation come into being and wonder: when will these things take place? We’re anxious for the day to come - we don’t want to wait anymore.
And yet that is what Advent reminds us we must do. It’s fitting that the first candle we light is the candle of Hope, because that’s what we’re constantly called to do. Jesus tells his disciples to “Be on your guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.” We’re called to be a people of hope, to live in a time when all the signs are pointing to the kingdom. I don’t think it’s just happenstance that Jesus gave signs to his disciples that seem to be relatively commonplace these days - nations were struggling with one another even as Jesus told his disciples these signs. Natural disasters shake areas around the world and make us question whether this was what Jesus meant when he said that these signs would mean that the Kingdom was at hand. The problem is that we can’t go around using our Bibles as crystal balls, trying to work out some kind of secret code that shows us that Jesus will be coming soon because this leader, this conflict, or that earthquake just happened. As people of hope, these readings are meant, not as a kind of “secret code” that we just need to decipher so that we can sit back and rest confidently knowing that we’ve read the signs correctly, but as an encouragement that, even when we see these things happening around us, we know that they are a reminder to us to continue in hope, to remember that the Kingdom of Christ is coming, that Christ has the final victory, and that we are called to proclaim this message of hope even more strongly during this season.
So as we go through this Advent season and look eagerly toward Christmas, let us make this time a time of hopeful preparation. Let us live as people of Hope and take this time of Advent to reflect, to clear our hearts of the distractions of the season, and to dedicate ourselves to living lives in hopeful expectation, not just of the birth of a savior, but of the day when he will come again to reign in his rightful Kingdom. To God be the Glory. Amen.
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