Sermon Third Advent:
Dec. 11, 2016
- a highway there (Isaiah some more)
- ransomed of the LORD break out in song
- possible use of Magnificat
- James “be patient” til the coming of the Lord
- John the Baptist – see I’m sending my messenger ahead to prepare the way
In previous Sundays I focused on the readings from the prophet Isaiah in an attempt to hear an Advent message in a fresh light.
Isaiah has looked out at his own country and seen a leadership made impotent by rampant injustice and a failure to reflect the deeper values of the people of Israel. In spite of expecting destruction from the legacy of these leadership problems, Isaiah brings a message from God that inspires hope and expectation in a time to come.
Advent is a time of preparation for a time to come. In the Orthodox church it is a period of self-reflection and self-examination that lasts 40 days – mirroring the time of preparation in Lent. It is a time to be taken seriously. Perhaps it is a time to take time seriously.
In today’s world we have mostly lost the sense of urgency that was at the heart of Advent preparation. There is after all a sense that it is a time of preparation for Christmas. For the past 150 years or so Christmas has come to be a business model, a family gathering time, a nostalgic interlude. It was not such prior to the 19th c.
The word advent has to do with “coming”, “approach”, something off in the future that is approaching. In our morning prayer time of 2 weeks ago we read a reflection that associated the word “adventure” with “Advent.” I was startled because I hadn’t ever really recognized that before, but it’s obvious. I looked up some definitions of “adventure” and found there to be quite a variety of nuances to the word, a verb as well as a noun, but the general sense builds on a meaning of something about to happen. There are adventurers and one can “adventure” in a gamble or a risk, e.g. of one’s money. Our youngest daughter used to get excited when we were headed for a trip somewhere. She would think of it as an “adventure” (I think I may have started it, actually) but she couldn’t say the word accurately. She would say, "We’re going to go on a “venture”.
I used to just think it was cute. Now I think there was insight in her small mispronunciation. In Advent we prepare for an adventure with God made manifest (incarnated) into our lives and life of our world. We will never be able to truly encounter that “God made manifest” unless we venture forth. With courage and anticipation, like we were children on our way to a park or a picnic.
Middle English: from Old French aventure (noun), aventurer (verb), based on Latin adventurus ‘about to happen,’ from advenire ‘arrive.’
Every step of the way on that adventure, God’s message for us is to proceed with expectation, longing, waiting, preparing. It is looking forward to what we may not be able to really see with any clarity. It might be counter-intuitive, but we venture forth anyway.
Christian life built on “Already but not yet”
Our lives as faithful Christians is built on such a prophetic vantage point. It is founded on seeing something that is already accomplished but perhaps not yet visible. Already but not yet.
It is accomplished – we must continually work & prepare for the day to come. The coming days, the redemption, the crooked paths made straight, is all done through God’s work. But as Bp. Tutu reminded us a couple of weeks ago, “God has made us responsible for his reputation.”
We are his instruments. We are the ones to prepare the way for the Lord. We are God’s hands and God’s feet. We are God’s heart in a world gone cold.
In the words of the often-quoted story:
God Will Save Me (many versions of this over-quoted story)
A terrible storm came into a town and local officials sent out an emergency warning that the riverbanks would soon overflow and flood the nearby homes. They ordered everyone in the town to evacuate immediately.
A faithful Christian man heard the warning and decided to stay, saying to himself, “I will trust God and if I am in danger, then God will send a divine miracle to save me.”
The neighbors came by his house and said to him, “We’re leaving and there is room for you in our car, please come with us!” But the man declined. “I have faith that God will save me.”
As the man stood on his porch watching the water rise up the steps, a man in a canoe paddled by and called to him, “Hurry and come into my canoe, the waters are rising quickly!” But the man again said, “No thanks, God will save me.”
The floodwaters rose higher pouring water into his living room and the man had to retreat to the second floor. A police motorboat came by and saw him at the window. “We will come up and rescue you!” they shouted. But the man refused, waving them off saying, “Use your time to save someone else! I have faith that God will save me!”
The flood waters rose higher and higher and the man had to climb up to his rooftop.
A helicopter spotted him and dropped a rope ladder. A rescue officer came down the ladder and pleaded with the man, “Grab my hand and I will pull you up!” But the man STILL refused, folding his arms tightly to his body. “No thank you! God will save me!”
Shortly after, the house broke up and the floodwaters swept the man away and he drowned.
When in Heaven, the man stood before God and asked, “I put all of my faith in You. Why didn’t You come and save me?”
And God said, “Son, I sent you a warning. I sent you a car. I sent you a canoe. I sent you a motorboat. I sent you a helicopter. What more were you looking for?”
Advent is for preparing but not for Christmas – not for the birth of the Christ child (that already happened)
Advent is about preparing for the new world that has already been accomplished but not yet.
It entails continuing to do our part to usher in that day – even though it is God’s kingdom and God’s doing
The old story about waiting for God to deliver (as rescuer comes)
Gaudete Sunday (Leave out?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaudete_Sunday – this the 3rd Sunday of this Adventure we call Advent.
The day takes its common name from the Latin word Gaudete (“Rejoice”), the first word of the introit of this day’s Mass:[1]
Pink Candle
- The spirit of the Liturgy all through Advent is one of expectation and preparation for the feast of Christmas as well as for the second coming of Christ, and the penitential exercises suitable to that spirit are thus on Gaudete Sunday suspended, as were, for a while in order to symbolize that joy and gladness in the promised Redemption.[1] (Wikipedia)
- While the theme of Advent is a focus on the coming of Jesus in three ways: His first, His present and His final Advent,[2]
Isaiah: His deliverance of God’s message, good news,
Isaiah:
- blind shall see etc.
- they shall see the glory of the Lord
- desert shall bloom
- the ransomed of the Lord shall return
Collapse of ½ the country
- Sennacherib knocking on Jerus’ gates
- Isaiah’s word helped Hezekiah to strike a bargain with Sennacherib
- bought 100 years of semi-independence
setting Hezekiah (next chapter) – will he be the one to save Israel?
text anticipates a coming time of harmony
cp. Is 40.3 & Mal 3.1 preparing the way
Isaiah message is a vision looking out at some kind of new day
Isaiah spoke God’s message of a coming time of peace and redemption, crooked ways made straight, for his own time. He looked out at the Assyrian Sennacherib’s threat to Israel and he saw in it not so much the approaching doom that it anticipated. Rather he saw God’s redemption being fulfilled.
In much the same way, John the Baptist looked at the trying times of Herod’s court and the self-destructive ways of the people of his time and he didn’t so much see the doom – a doom that was surely coming. He saw God’s redemption being made manifest, being incarnated, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
And so it is that we are challenged by God’s word in our own day. We may look around us and see the evil, self-destructive forces, agents of God’s judgment on our world. But the prophetic word for us is to see instead the victory of hope and love.
We can hear an echo of that tri-partite redemption of time in the “proclamation of faith” in our Eucharistic Prayer “A”.
Christ has come. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
Matthew: today’s reading
In today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew, we hear about debates and wonderings at the time of Jesus. Who was the one to come? Who was the expected one?
The people lived in such a power-packed Advent time. They were filled with expectation for some new thing to be done by God in their midst.
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
Jesus told the crowds about John that he was the one that Isaiah had talked about so many centuries before.
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’
Jesus told the people that the prophetic word was that we must prepare the way for God’s redemption which was on its way.
Is he the one? i.e. Hezekiah? John Bapt?
No! this is not the one. They are all agents of God’s work. But you my people are to be agents of God’s redemption, God’s love and hope for the world.
That is Isaiah’s task as a prophet, an agent of God’s word.
It is is ours as well.
Benedictus Dominus identification
I have for a long time identified with the closing words of the Benedictus Dominus – the canticle for Morning Prayer. They are from the gospel according to Luke, but echo the words of Isaiah and the later prophet Malachi.
You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
to give his people knowledge of salvation
by the forgiveness of their sins.
In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
It reminds me daily that God’s word, the prophetic word, for me is that if people are going to encounter God’s love or hope in my particular day and circumstances – I am the one who is going to have to help facilitate that. I am the one preparing the way for the Lord.
Namaste is a Hindu greeting. It is often accompanied by a slight bow with hands held together. The word itself means something like, “I recognize the divine in you.”
It seems to me a form of the prayer from the Benedictus. If I recognize the divine in you, then perhaps you will be able to reciprocate. And together we will have done our part in preparing the way of the Lord.
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