St Bartholomew’s, Ducklington | First Sunday of Advent | 01Dec24
It is the first Sunday of Advent. The beginning of the new Christian year. The seasons of the Christian year present us with key moments of our faith in stories we are familiar with – Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Trinity, Harvest, All Saints & All Souls, Christ the King. To enter into these stories is to discover the heart of our faith, each season a reminder of important elements of our spiritual journey. Over the coming year we will explore the seasons in greater depth.
Advent has the same root word as adventure. We are at the beginning of an adventure of faith. Surprisingly Advent begins with these words from Jesus spoken just before he was arrested and crucified: ‘There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.” (Luke 21: 25-26).
These words could have been written as a commentary on the way we feel today as we read the news. All doom and gloom …. climate, war, mass migration, etc, etc. We are witnesses to widening divisions in society and environmental devastation. I read this week that there are, today, conflicts in 59 countries around the world.
Conflict in distant lands come a little bit closer to us when people seeking asylum from oppressive regimes come to live in the hotel in the village. And even more vivid when a young family – Saman, Melika and Melisa – walk through this door and come to worship with us week by week. From them we learn a little of what it means to be disowned by your own parents because they choose to follow Christ. Saman will, this morning, be baptised, making a public statement of his faith which means so much more when it conflicts with cultural traditions and even family relationships.
When Jesus spoke of the nations in anguish and people fainting from terror he was in the Temple listening to the people standing round admiring the beautiful building. He was irritated at the way they were “speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, and he said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
The building was at the heart of their religious rituals – in its solid walls it represented everything they had come to rely upon. But, Jesus said, there is coming a time when it will no longer be there.
So too in our day, our institutions – of government and the church – are crumbling. We are in despair. W. B. Yeats, the Irish poet wrote, more than 100 years ago at the end of the 1st world war:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world …Jesus tells the people “when you see these things, you must flee to the mountains, the one on the housetop must not go down or enter the house to save anything, the one in the field must not turn back to get a coat. Woe to those who are pregnant … Pray that it may not be in winter!” (Mark 13).
And yet, despite the desperate times in which we live, as the sky itself seems to weep at the devastation we have brought upon the earth, this is not how it will all end. “At that time”, Jesus said, “you will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Our problem is that we find it really hard to know what time it is. Jesus once told the people crowded around him that they were pretty bad at telling the time: “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.” (Matthew 16:2-3)
I’m not sure we are any better today. Yes, we have more accurate ways of measuring time. But we are no better at reading the signs of the times.
Faced with so much doom and gloom it is easy to see the church as a sanctuary from all the hate and violence. We are tempted to shut the door for an hour on Sunday morning for a few moments of quiet. But we can’t shut it out. It is our world. We are complicite in it. It is our Father’s world. It is our children’s inheritance. So the church is not a sanctuary cut off from the world but a place where we can correct our vision, remove the cataracts from our eyes – and emerge with fresh eyes to see things in a different way.
We come here week by week to hear the kind of truth we won’t get anywhere else. This is not the end. Our anxiety and stress at the state of the world comes face to face with the promises we make every time we baptize someone into the body of Christ. Each of
us make our own decision, as Saman makes his. As we witness his baptism and renew our baptismal vows, this morning, we draw a little hope in the future.So despite the fear and anxiety around us this is not the end. This is our story. But this is so difficult to hold on to in Advent. Advent calendars are everywhere. They used to have tiny pictures of scenes from the Christmas story – shepherds, wise men and a manger behind the cardboard window that was opened day by day. Then chocolates replaced the Christmas scenes. Now it can be little pots of jam, or tiny bottles of gin. As the joke goes, at least if you choose an Advent calendar with different cheeses behind the windows you can anticipate that on Christmas Eve you will be presented with the baby cheesus.
Advent is not just a countdown to Christmas. We know the story of Christmas and yet we know that the message of the angels “Peace on Earth, goodwill to all” is not yet. Too much of Christmas and we can become spiritually near-sighted. A refractive error that makes distant objects look blurred.
As Christians we live with two horizons – like a watch that can display time in two different time zones. One horizon is immediately in front of us. The lights have been switched on in town, the shops are full of Christmas trivial, our radios are already playing the familiar Christmas songs. The other is coming towards us. For those with eyes to see – eyes set upon the promise that our redemption is near – we glimpse new vistas of what it means to experience the kingdom of God.
It is easy to be impatient. The second horizon is not yet – but it is drawing near. How long must we wait? How far away is ‘near’? Our deliverance keeps getting deferred – a bit like NHS waiting lists. Will it ever come? After 2,000 years, the dark clouds continue to gather – how long must we wait?
But wait we must. I didn’t ask for my 1st credit card – it was given to everyone with an account at the National Westminster Bank as it was called 50 years ago. I still remember its slogan: “Take the waiting out of wanting” – such a clever summary of what has become the pandemic of our economic life. We teach our children the importance of delayed gratification and here I was, given a piece of plastic that promised I could have what I wanted as soon as i wanted it.
We cannot miss Christmas – it is already all around us. But Advent is more than a foretaste of Christmas. Advent helps us with our spiritual timekeeping. So, let me close by reminding ourselves of the bi-focal prescription we need. We do not bury our head in the sand. We are honest about what is happening around us and our complicity in the devastation but we need to see more clearly how God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year.
1. We remember that, God is with us “Emmanuel”. Not just at Christmas. Remember Jesus said “I am with you to the end of the age”. So we are sustained by the promise of Jesus that the Spirit will guide us into the truth through time. The Spirit will help us know what time it is. Emmanuel was not just there and then – born in a manager in Bethlehem and crucified in Jerusalem – but is with us now, still speaking, still revealing, still surprising us.
2. We live in anticipation of the coming kingdom – we live in hope. There will be sermons preached in churches during Advent that see the present as a countdown to a future that has already been determined – the clock is ticking and we better be prepared. In contrast, spiritual timekeeping is on the lookout for the working of the Spirit here and now. And these moments are closer than we often realise. In a random act of kindness, the embrace of difference (of race or gender), reconciliation between enemies, and in a baptism that witnesses to someone confirming their faith in Christ.
So we wait … This is not idle waiting. We are holding our breath for what is coming. With our eyes open – day by day with each new dawn and each turn of the page a new visa opens up, we find new meaning in our walk with, and worship of, the God of Love.
So, this Advent, we need a little patience. Let us slow down and in the stillness wait for the kingdom that is, in these troubled times, coming amongst us.
Amen.
For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits (Marty Haugen).