First Advent
Luke 21:25-36; Jeremiah 33:14-16: I Thessalonians 3:9-13
What a week! Last Sunday morning ended with everyone at the second worship service carrying hymnals and various items out of the sanctuary to prepare for the construction crew coming on Monday. It was the beginning of a week filled with acts of preparation. The warm weather that began the week was perfect for the church windows to be removed. The sanctuary heat rarely came on even though at one point the building looked like a picnic pavilion without walls. The warm fall-like days were great. But gradually the warm sun gave way to rain clouds first threatening and then with rolls of thunder breaking forth in down pours. By Thursday noon almost all the windows had been installed and our attention shifted to a different kind of preparation. There was growing anticipation that the weather was were about to change. Thursday afternoon the ComEd trucks came slowly down Riverwoods Road inspecting the power lines running through the trees. A county snowplow turned around in the church parking lot after making a dry run of a portion of his plow route. Meetings that were scheduled began to be cancelled for Friday The airlines began to announce flights being rescheduled. As students arrived home Thursday night from school they began to calculate the odds both for and against their need to do their Friday homework. Here at the church, I found the snow shovels and placed one at each church entrance. Then we found the ice melt and moved it to the doors where it might be needed. When I got home Thursday night I dusted off the snow blower, mixed some fresh fuel and then tried starting the machine that had sat silent for over 9 months. It took a little effort but I was glad to hear the motor roar to life. Friday morning did not disappoint us. The first thing I heard when I awoke was the list of school closings that covered all the schools in our community. School closings were a sure sign that the weather predictions had been correct and that a significant number of young people were smiling while their parents groaned.
Predicting the weather is never easy. But we have refined the science a bit which means that most of our preparations are well founded. We are learning how to read the signs. The interesting thing to me is that while the weather may be a disaster for some, it also brings joy and relief to others. The experiences of this past weekend give us some perspective on our gospel lesson for today. As we begin the season of Advent, the four Sundays before Christmas, our lessons are intended to lead us to consider the meaning of the anticipation and preparation we make this time of the year. The first lesson we encounter as this new church year begins is a type of writing often referred to as apocalyptic. The usual associations we have to this word "apocalyptic" are most often images like those described in the first verses of our lesson. Images of signs in the heavens, earthquakes and other natural disasters with the dominant emotion being a feeling of terror and fear. Recent movies like Armageddon and Final Impact have created pictures of world ending calamities. Other films bearing the word itself, like Apocalypse Now and the about to be released Apocalypto, create dark images of our world filled with blood and violence. The prophetic pictures of things to come associated with the word "apocalypse" are rarely pleasant pastoral images of sunshine and happiness. Yet the Greek word behind our word "apocalypse" actually means "to unveil." The beginning point for Advent, the preparation for Christmas coming, is intended to be the prophetic unveiling or revealing of God's plan for us.
The idea is that our Advent preparations are the unveiling of the signs that point to Christ's coming at the first Christmas. There seems to be the idea that we can be filled once more with anticipation for his coming. Our problem, however, is that we are no longer caught up in the anticipation of the first prophesied advent. Christ's first coming is now the past historic moment that we celebrate as Christmas. Christ has already come once. If we are to have any real feeling of anticipation about Christ's coming, it needs to be future oriented not past memory. So our lesson for today begins the Advent preparations not by looking back to the first Christmas but by looking forward to the second coming. And this is where the church and humanity always seem to shift focus. The memory of events past are veiled in romantic idealized associations of peace and tranquility while the moment we start looking to the future things begin to get rather scary. Now, for some reason, when humanity looks forward it seems we always find images that bring more terror than comfort. It must be the unexpected. The uncertainty seems to lead to worst case scenarios. The first images we hear in today's lesson are descriptions of cosmic signs and earthly distress. If these are the anticipated signs then the end is near. The one thing we have plenty of these days is earthly distress. Yesterday I received my December 1 CrisisWatch which is the monthly notice I receive by e-mail from the International Crisis Group which monitors the international community. It is one of those things a parent does when they have a child living in a third world country. Jesus had predicted distress among the nations and this past month was, according to the Crisis Group, about as distress filled as we have seen in recent time. Fourteen international situations deteriorated in November and seven conflict risk alerts were issued. Fifty-nine international situations remained unchanged while only three improved. Fourteen international situations deteriorated. We all know of the sectarian violence in Iraq. In addition, this past month violence increased dramatically in eastern Chad; major fighting erupted in south Sudan; and the situation in Somalia disintegrated toward potential all out war with the rejection of the latest draft UN Security Council Resolution. Meanwhile Lebanon became increasingly polarized threatening a complete collapse of that government and the militia forces of rival political groups took to the streets of Abidjan in Cote d'Ivoire. Additional deterioration of political stability continued in Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Burundi, Central African Republic, Colombia, Fiji, non-Kashmir India and Tonga. Distress among the nations is not in short supply. So what are we expected to do? Send in more troops, slap on an economic embargo, pass more resolutions? Our text for today is quite clear, "Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." As Pastor Chris reminded us last Sunday, the end times are not intended to be the time for Christians to cop out. To look for some type of escape like the popular non-Biblical stories of the rapture or other special faith privileged status with God. The promised vision is not judgment and condemnation but redemption. Stand up and raise your heads because something wonderful is about to happen.
Jesus turns to a parable. " Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near." Remember summer? As we only begin to enter the cold of winter the vision and promise of summer is part of what carries us through. The trees outside these windows will not always be bear. The day will come when the rich green luster of life will surround us once more. Jesus wanted us to see that the signs that we see of the end times are the promise of coming life. Be on guard, Jesus said, so that you are not worn down by the weight of dissipation and drunkenness. Be careful, Jesus said, that you not lose energy or your focus because of the worries of this life. Be alert. The world will overwhelm us if we are not careful. The beginning of advent is a time to prepare for the unexpected. To realize that plan as carefully as we might, the unexpected is what is about to break upon us. The nations of the world are but proof that we cannot control or plan for every detail. The unexpected is always breaking forth. Creative, destructive, life giving and live shortening, the world yearns for a vision of God's kingdom that will bring newness, hope and peace. Each Christmas comes to us with the promise of the unexpected. We like to make it comfortable and familiar by striving to preserve the rituals and traditions we love, but the unexpected always seems to have a way to find us out.
New windows surround us this morning. They are a fitting symbol for the beginning of the Advent season. To see the world in a new way.
Stand up and raise your heads, Jesus said. But we are not always so sure about such things. The life we live is pretty good and the future so unpredictable. Yet Advent comes again with a life giving promise if we can but embrace it. There is an Advent story I discovered told by The Rev. Sr. Rosina A. Ampah, a native of Ghana , West Africa about three women who wanted children. They had tried every means they knew to get pregnant and had no success. As a last resort, they decided to go to a charlatan, a local medicine man or healer, to see if he could help them. When they arrived and told the charlatan what brought them to his shrine, he told them that he could help them get pregnant but there was what we would call a "Catch 22" to his medicine. All the women asked him with one voice what the "Catch 22" was, and the medicine man answered that they would go mad when they gave birth so they needed to think about this decision carefully. The three women went out and thought about what they had been told and then they returned to the charlatan. Two of the women decided that, yes, they wanted the medicine. But the third woman said that there was no need for her to give birth if she was going to be crazy before the eyes of the world and her baby. So the man gave the medicine to the two women who wanted it and all three women returned to their homes. Sure enough, in due time the two women who took the medicine became pregnant and gave birth to beautiful babies. They waited several months after their infants were born waiting to lose their minds but nothing happened to them. So they went back to the charlatan and asked "when are we going to go crazy?" The charlatan asked them if they were not already crazy and they said "no". Then as they talked their children began to fuss so both women began to sway and bounce to calm the babies, they made funny noises to quiet the babes and the charlatan began to laugh. "Look at you," he said to the women. "Who is making the music you are dancing to and what are the strange cooings you make, the faces you distort and your smiles without reason. Is this not craziness?" He said. "And I tell you, with children they will make you even more crazy with each passing year. You will make such fools of yourselves in public and private." When the third woman heard this story she went back to the charlatan and said she too wanted to have a baby with such craziness but he told her it was too late. Her fear of what others might say about her, her unwillingness to risk the unexpected had prevented her from her deepest-most desire.
The advent prophecy is intended to help us look to our futures. To know that the craziness we see all around us is not the end of humanity but the beginning point of our redemption. The world is not ready for the unexpected gift of grace. The beginning of advent is about the insanity of the world versus the irrational power of God's love. We are not getting ready for Christmas to save the world. No one was ever saved by Christmas, by a baby in a manger. The miracle of God's grace is found not in a birth but a death. We are not saved by God's son coming into the world but by God's son dying for the world. The miracle of Christmas is not found in what blessings we receive but what blessings we become. As every mature Christian knows, Advent is not about getting ready to receive, it is about preparing to give. We have already received. Now comes the even more wonderful miracle of giving. So stand up, raise up your head, look out the advent windows and see the world that God is now presenting to us. Believe it or not, the summer is not that far away. You just have to read the signs.
Amen