Isaiah 2:1-5
http://bible.oremus.org/browser.cgi?passage=isaiah+2%3A1-5
Romans 11:13-16
http://bible.oremus.org/browser.cgi?passage=romans+11%3A13-16
Matthew 24:36-44
http://bible.oremus.org/browser.cgi?passage=matthew+24%3A36-44
Well, the paraments have been changed to blue, we’re singing Advent hymns, we’ve got the Haugen liturgy, so… it must be Advent, those four weeks leading up to Christmas, the time when we wonder what exactly Advent is, and what it has to do with Christmas.
You see, Advent is one of those church holidays that, unlike Easter or Christmas, isn’t highly hyped by the culture around us. Which means that we don’t get commercials for Advent shopping, we don’t have any Advent-themed toys or decorations, and we don’t have traditional Advent baking. So, generally speaking, we tend not to be all that clear on what exactly Advent is all about.
Well, Advent is about waiting. It’s about the time before something happens. And in our case, Advent is about waiting for Christmas. During Advent we get ready to celebrate baby Jesus being born in a crummy stable in Bethlehem. We celebrate God’s gift to the world – Emmanuel – God-with-us. We celebrate, in the midst of the darkness of winter and in the midst of the chaos of our lives, that God has brought light into that darkness. We look at what God did two thousand years ago and we celebrate it.
But Advent is not just about looking to the past. Although that’s usually how we look at it, Advent is also about looking to the future. Advent is one of those times in the church year, along with Lent, when we’re a little bit schizophrenic. We honour what has happened in the past, but we also look to what it going to happen in the future. And in Advent what we look forward to is Jesus Christ coming – again. Jesus Christ coming a second time.
In the Bible we hear about this time in a number of different ways – the Day of the Lord, the Day of Judgement. In Isaiah, we hear that “in days to come. . . the Lord 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 lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” In Romans, we hear that “salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.” And in Matthew, we hear that “therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming.”
Advent is about waiting for this great and wonderful day, when Christ will come again, and the world will be changed.
But HOW do we wait? This is all big stuff, after all. This is huge. We don’t just sit around twiddling our thumbs, there is some significance to our waiting. Some tension. How do we wait? What is our mood?
Well, we should probably be happy. After all, according to Isaiah, some pretty cool things are going to happen – war will end, people will learn ways of creating rather than destroying, peace will be a reality.
But then we have Matthew’s reading for today and our happiness is gone and instead we are left with ANXIETY. For one thing, we don’t know WHEN this day is going to happen. Jesus describes it as a thief in the night, and says that even he himself doesn’t know when this is going to be. So there’s a little anxiety around that.
And then there’s the question of WHAT exactly is going to happen. Some people are going to be taken and some are going to be left, but we don’t know WHO. We don’t even know what’s going to happen to those who are taken and those who are left. If you’ve noticed, Jesus doesn’t actually tell us what happens to each group, so we don’t even know if we want to be one of the ones taken or one of the ones left.
All of our anxiety over this coming day comes because we don’t know what is going to happen to US.
My husband and I flew to the States last week for American Thanksgiving, and let me tell you, just getting there was a mess. First off, we get to the airport, ninety minutes early, like good travellers, and there is a HUGE line at the check-in counter. So the minute we arrived, we were a little nervous. But, we made it through the line okay, it took us half an hour, and we get up to the counter, and the airline people can’t find my booking! Okay, so our anxiety level goes up a little. We know we have the booking number, and they’re fairly convinced that I’m in there, but they just can’t find the booking itself. But, twenty minutes later, they find it, and we’re on our way to security.
Well, we get over to the security line, and it turns out that it winds all the way through the security area, out the door and halfway through the terminal! Oh, man, talk about anxiety. At this point, we’re pretty worried about making the flight, we’re wondering if we should call the people meeting us to tell them we’ll be on the next plane, we’re anxious. But, another thirty minutes and we’ve made it up to the x-ray machine. So, if you’ve been keeping track, that’s eighty minutes gone out of our ninety minute window, and we know the plane is already boarding. But that’s okay, we’ll whip through security and get there one time.
But, what do you know, I’ve been “selected for a random security screening!” Woo hoo! Obviously, there’s nothing you can do about that, so, I take off my shoes and they pat me down and then we’re running down the hallway towards the plane. It’s a classic movie moment – we burst onto the plane, they shut the doors behind, we grab out seats, and take off. We made it, but it was an anxious ninety minutes. When is the plane going to leave, will we be on it, will we be left behind?
But here’s the thing, here’s what we should have remembered while we were standing in lines and running from place to place, our hearts racing the whole time. We had tickets. We were checked in. The plane wasn’t going to leave without us, they knew we were coming, and they would wait. We didn’t need to be anxious about the waiting or about the uncertainty as long as we had our boarding passes.
Well, when it comes to ADVENT and waiting for Christ to come again. . . we don’t need to be anxious because we have our tickets and we are checked in. You see, when you were baptized, you received, in the form of a cross on your forehear, your boarding pass for the flight. Jesus himself checked you in and picked your seat. The Holy Spirit is the one ushering you through the security gate. And because of that, because of your cross-shaped boarding pass, you can be SURE that you will get on the plane. You may spend your waiting time stuck behind obstacles or standing in line. You may spend it running down the hallway from one place to the next, BUT
You will be not be forgotten, or abandoned, or left behind. When the DAY comes - the Day of the Lord, the Day of Judgement, the Day of Christ – you will be with Christ and Christ with you. So enjoy these next four weeks, enjoy the time between now and Christmas, enjoy the waiting that’s going on. The Lord is coming, and all things are good. And so we say, in joyful anticipation, Come Lord Jesus, Come. Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment