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Longing for a Presence Sermon by Brigid A. Boyle December 1, 2003, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill Isaiah 64:1-9 Mark 13:24-37
Advent, it has been said, has suffered from a bit of an identity crisis. Both ministers and theologians seem at a loss for what to say about Advent, for what to guide hearers to do and think during the season of four weeks just before Christmas. To be sure, we are in fierce competition with a culture that would mark our Christmas preparations with consumer spending and would mark this season with sweet sentimentality and manufactured cheer that both annoys and disappoints. But for those ordained not simply to comment on culture but to proclaim the gospel, a part of the reason that this season is so difficult to understand and interpret has to do with the fact that there is little for us to go on, biblically speaking, in the way of how early Christians "did Advent." Unlike Christmas, there is no extended narrative to give meaning to the season. Unlike Lent, there is no passion story to lead us along. So with no sequential story, save for Mary's pregnancy, to serve as guide for these four weeks ahead, we look, with most, to Old Testament texts, prophecies found in this book and that, which were the words read by those who waited for the coming God, the coming savior, during that very first advent season long years ago. With words like those found in our text from Isaiah today, "but you were angry and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed. We have all become like one who is unclean …" these texts looked forward to the coming of a savior with a distinct focus on confession and repentance, on the purification and re-ordering of one's life. Advent then, the first time around, was a penitential season of self-reflection, confession and expectant waiting for this promised savior. But, for Christians some two thousand years after his birth, after the first season of Advent, the meaning and purpose of this season seem to have changed. Rather than looking forward to something that has not yet happened, we tend to look backward, spending the Advent reiterating what has already happened, the coming of Jesus Christ into the world as a tiny babe in a manger, turning this season into a celebration of what has already taken place, our salvation in him. Of course, it is easy to look backward to the sweet story we all know of a little town of Bethlehem, where stood a lowly cattle shed, where the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head and to the truth it brings of Emmanuel, God with us. It is not hard to imagine ourselves in the shoes of those who waited for this savior to come, hearing prophetic words of lion and lamb and a little child in the lead, because we know, we believe, that the little child did come, that God has joined us in this messy thing called life. And so it is most tempting and most appealing to spend these four weeks recalling the prophecies and looking back to the graceful revelation of Emmanuel. But this backward-looking perspective, appealing though it may be, is somewhat problematic. That is so because, very obviously, it keeps us looking backward and robs Advent of its ability to provide a new and bright vision for the future. If we only look backward (this stands true for so much more than a stance of faith or even a season of the church year) we cannot see where we are going, where we ought to be going, or what God might have in store for us. But you see, Advent, if we take its meaning and purpose seriously, bids us look not only backward to his first coming, but forward to his second coming. These are the words that send chills down our collective spines, second coming. "Come, Lord Jesus!" is of course one of the oldest prayers of the Christian church. It looks toward a future in Christ's hands and with Christ's second coming. Yet, and this is the reason for the chills running down our spines, lo these last two thousand years, we have somehow narrowed that future into the theme of "last judgment," a somber and gloomy theme indeed. I think, with Jan Lochmann, of medieval theology, the medieval world view and medieval art … "To a large extent, Christian piety was dominated by contemplation of 'that day, that day of wrath …' The last judgment is vividly depicted as a final reckoning and separation, the artistic imagination usually dwelling with particular care on the well-deserved torments of those who the world's Judge sets on his left hand." With hell-fire and damnation sermons calling all to repent lest they be counted among the wolves rather than the sheep, the tares rather than the wheat, when he comes again and visions of a final rapture, how much you and I would prefer to stay in the land of stables and mangers and stars over the night sky! But, it is not that easy, and ultimately, I dare say, it is not that faithful nor does it do us any great service to keep our hearts and minds focused exclusively on what lies behind. Disturbing though, in some sense, it may be, Advent is ultimately a season for us to begin to wrap our minds around both a first and a second coming, to hold the two together as best we can, for that is where we find meaning and hope in this season. "For Christians, Christ's first coming only makes sense in light of his promise to come again …" writes Robert Cornelison, " … without a first coming, there could be no second coming; without the second coming, it becomes difficult to believe that current existence is somehow the kingdom of God … Advent not only points backward to the first coming, but forward to the second, thus providing Christians with a vision of the future and toward the future. Advent, then, is a time of expectation; it is the acknowledgment of the fact that, although God has acted decisively on our behalf in Jesus' birth, there is still much outstanding… " It is toward the future, where there is still much outstanding, then, that Advent sends us, waiting for God to complete what was begun in this babe in a manger, watching for signs that God is about to fulfill promises made in him, longing for God to be present with us in the deepest and most real of ways. The second coming, or even the "last judgment" does not mean some incalculable endless horror but rather the restoration of justice, the completion of what was begun when this Savior was born so long ago. So it is that we turn on this first Sunday of Advent, to words from Isaiah's prophecy, on one hand and to words from Mark's gospel, on the other hand. The earlier calls on God to come and make himself known to a people so desperately in need, "O that you would tear open the heavens and come down …" The latter promises that he will come yet again to a people still in need, "they will see 'the Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and great glory …'" In between the two, of course, is the birth of Jesus, the personal presence of "God with us" but also and importantly, Jurgen Moltmann suggests, "the kingdom of God with us in person." This Advent season then, each Advent season, as much or even more than it is about remembering and recalling the past, is about anticipating here and now that which has been begun by Jesus and will be completed when he comes again. And it is about being active in the time being, in this time being. But our activity cannot simply be marked by preparing ourselves and our souls for this "end time" ahead, but rather preparing, readying our world, for this end time ahead. What then does that mean for us? What does that mean for how we live and act faithfully in these days of waiting, in these days when you and I so long for God to be near, in this time when we see a glimpse of a kingdom begun in Jesus Christ and wait for its completion still? It means, I do believe, waiting, yes, but also acting and serving and working in ways that are consistent with what we know this kingdom to be about. What shape then ought our active anticipation and expectation take? The kingdom for which we wait will be a kingdom of justice and peace. For us to anticipate that is for us seek out and establish such justice and peace in all segments of all of our lives. So from the most personal relationship, be it a marriage, a friendship, a parent and a child or anything in-between, that bears the marks of inequality or disrespect, to the most political of relationships in the world order or in the economic strata of our time that compromise the rights of others, the justice of the kingdom which Advent calls us to wait upon compels us to strive for justice for all. What that means is treating all as though they matter because in God's kingdom they do. What that means is carefully counting the human costs of any society's progress, any land's economy, or any nation's policy. I need not recite the ways in which you and I fail to do these things for scolding does not suffice for proclamation, but simply to say that we have plenty to do whilst we wait for the kingdom to come. But more, the kingdom of God on which we wait, for which we long, extends to all of creation, not simply to our human lives and this our human world. As a part of the "whole community of creation" we are a part of, but not the entirety of, what will be one day made whole. This day, the creation groans as sense of faithful ecological responsibility escapes so many. I mean not simply or not only to point to those are on a fast train to "recycling hell" (myself included) for the misuse of styrofoam and those plastic bags from the supermarket, but to point to the bigger issues of how it is we take for granted this creation around us, of how it is we abuse the human and non-human parts of this community of creation, and of how much more there is to do for we who would faithfully anticipate the coming yet again of Christ. Finally, for this part of the community of creation, the church, Advent calls us, compels us, to center our life and our work on this coming kingdom. It calls to anticipate, to proclaim, and through our actions attempt to, in Moltmann's words again, "bring liberty to the oppressed, human dignity to the humiliated and justice which is their due to people without rights." It seems a simple call and a clear focus, but in these days when the church seems much more taken with wrangling with itself about who ought to be "in" and who ought to be "ought," such a call comes as great and refreshing challenge this Advent season. Such a way of looking forward toward the second coming even as we look backward toward the first this Advent season, is disturbing then, not in the sense of forecasting what it will be like when Jesus shows up. It is disturbing in the sense that it calls us out of our inaction, to action. Such a way of looking forward to the second coming even as we look backward toward the first is as much gospel as anything I know. To the point, writes Jim Kay, "if the gospel is good news, it is not because it predicts a bright, shiny future based on our morality or piety," or I would add a grim future based on our lack thereof, "The gospel is neither a cocoon that insulates us from the sufferings of this present age nor a pair of earplugs that shuts out the groaning of creation … The gospel is good news not because it predicts a future based on our good behavior or other present trends; the gospel is good news because it promises a future based on God's faithfulness to Jesus Christ." It is this promised future toward which we are called to look this Advent season, to tune our ears to hear a thrilling voice which sounds off in the distance, to lift our eyes to see the one who comes on clouds descending, to sound out our prayers that is long, expected Jesus may come again. And it is with that promised future written on our hearts, with our ears so tuned, with our eyes so lifted, and with our prayers so spoken, that we gather round this table, to "show forth the Lord's death until he comes again." May we then, as we come to this table, as we are those who long to be fed with a word of hope and as promise of nearness, as we are those who watch and wait, find this one alone who alone is our Promise, even Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen. |