November 28, 2004

First Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 2:1-5

Matthew 24:36-44

“Anticipation Celebration”

     One of the best things in life is anticipating something really good about to happen.  That’s what’s so wonderful about Advent – it’s THE season of anticipation - lighting candles, counting days (remember the calendars with the little paper doors for each day of December?).  We’re looking forward to the Big Day – Christmas!

     I know, I know, some of the Scrooges out there started complaining about Christmas music as soon as it started playing in the stores the day after Halloween.  Our kids used to complain about it even before that because Kay and I started playing Christmas music at home sometime around August!  Hey, you can never get too much of a good thing!  Maybe we’re just big kids - we still get excited about Christmas and look forward to it every year. 

     I hope you do, too.  Now that Thanksgiving is over and we’re going to start decorating the church and the lights are going up and the malls are crowded and Christmas music is starting to play on the radio, I hope you can find at least one good reason to look forward to the Big Day.

     Now, if you’re having a hard time coming up with one, may I offer one or two suggestions?  How about snow!  OK…maybe not.  How about untangling the lights and trying to vacuum pine needles out of your carpet?  OK…maybe not those either.  I know!…how about relatives coming to visit?  Hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that one. 

     Of course, the season can be about such things and they can sometimes “help make the season bright”, but truth is, behind all this, behind the hustle and bustle, there remains the reason for this season. It’s something far too many people either don’t know or have forgotten, of course, but it’s still there.  Behind it all is that simple story of a baby’s birth in Bethlehem, the Christ Child.  It may get a little lost in all the craziness of contemporary Christmas, but it endures because it is at its core, an eternal story of eternal love.  And all the hoopla in the world can’t undo it.

     Actually, I wonder if maybe the over-commercialization of Christmas is something of a twisted tribute to it.  Here we are today, immersed in an advertising blitz because this has become a make-it-or-break-it season for tens of thousands of retailers around the world.  Countless billions of dollars ride on this season every year.  It’s big business, a very big deal even for those who don’t believe in it.  Now just think about that…the story of a baby’s birth, just one baby, has this kind of impact 2,000 years after the fact! 

     Must be a pretty good story…good enough to be worth hearing again and telling again at least once a year, don’t you think?

     The reading from Matthew must have sounded a little strange this morning as we light the first Advent candle and sing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”.  It speaks of the end of time, of the Savior’s return in glory some day and how it will be something of a surprise when he comes.  But perhaps this reading will seem a little less strange if we can see it as an anticipation story, a story about looking forward to Jesus’ coming.  That’s what the word, “advent” means, after all – Christ’s coming into the world.

     In the Grass Roots number we sang, “The King of Glory Comes”.  This is what Jesus was speaking of when he told people to be watching, to “stay awake”, to live in a state of readiness, of anticipation.  Jesus will return some day in clouds of glory and his followers will be ushered into the heavenly kingdom.  The faithful will be swept up in victory and will live forever with him. 

     That day hasn’t come yet, but like people 2,000 years ago, we can look forward to it unafraid, with hope and anticipation.  It’s a salvation story after all, our salvation story, and it comes from the One who gave his life for the world, for us, for keeps.

     I think the point is, it doesn’t matter so much when that great a glorious day comes, it just matters that we live in such a way that we’re always ready for it.  Advent then, is not just a once-per-year thing for the faithful, it’s a way of life.  It’s an ever-hopeful, victorious way of life.

     We may not always feel ever-hopeful or victorious when things get us down or when we get overwhelmed.  We may look at the state of things and feel there is no hope for peace in a world of endless conflict.  We may wonder (perhaps especially around the holidays) if there can ever be peace in our own families.  But Christ’s call for his followers to live in a state of anticipation says something about the bigger picture, about looking up from today’s struggles and troubles to something bigger that is going on, playing out, coming about.  It’s about God’s purposes be filling fulfilled, God’s plan unfolding, and our place in it.

     When the prophet Isaiah spoke of a day when “swords will be hammered into plowshares”, you better believe people listening to him were saying, “Yeh, right…that’ll be the day!”  People are still saying this.  But Isaiah’s prophecy like Jesus’ prophecy is about something more than what we know and see today.  It’s about being part of that yet-unfolding story.  It’s about allowing that story, that hope, to affect the way we live today.

     You have to admit…you can sometimes catch yourself under all your grumbles, singing along with Jingle Bells…right?  You can be the biggest Scrooge in the world but when you’re here on Christmas Eve holding that little candle in your hand as Silent Night is sung, there’s that unexplainable lump in your throat and maybe even a tear in your eye.  That’s it…that’s the story bringing you in, lifting you up even today, in spite of what is going on around you.  Unaware, you can be caught by it, surprised by it and find yourself hopeful once again.  2,000 years after the fact it can still happen, thanks be to God.

     So now…one candle…“O Come, O Come Emmanuel”…and we begin to be open to it again.  We begin to listen.  We begin to get ready.

     You and I know this story, at least some of it, so in a sense, we’ve been entrusted with it.  But it’s not just our story, of course, but one for the whole people of God whether they know it or not.  They’d be better off knowing it of course, the whole world would be.   That’s where we come in.  We can share this celebration, this anticipation, this ever-hopeful eternity story.  And who knows, perhaps by our telling the story once again, a few more people will catch a glimpse of the truth and be touched by God’s eternal love.  And perhaps, a few more swords will be hammered into plowshares, too.