The First Sunday of Advent

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The First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2005
Isaiah 64:1-9a, I Corinthians 1:1-9, Mark 13:24-37
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, West Valley City, UT

Thanksgiving weekend and the First Sunday of Advent: New beginnings for the new liturgical year; beginnings and remembrances. It was two years ago on the First Sunday of Advent that I came here as priest-in-charge. First Advent will always hold a special place in my heart because of you.

Advent, however, presents its own set of confusions and tensions. We come out of the lethargy of Thanksgiving afternoon to the commercial brashness of “black Friday” and non-stop shopping, to Christmas lights seemingly everywhere, and all the while Advent telling us to prepare for Christmas - but not yet. It can seem a tad confusing, at least to me.

Adding to our confusion, our readings point to the coming of Christ, not in Bethlehem but in glory. Advent is a short, vital season of the church year, to prepare us for the coming of Christ in all the ways Christ can come to us. Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas on the calendar, for Christ's return in glory, and for Christ breaking into our lives. As such I feel we need to honor Advent in its particular and peculiar way of preparation and expectancy.

That being said, I am not a believer in the “Advent Police” making sure you don't celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas prematurely. And I confess that as I wrote this sermon, on my stereo played “The Messiah,” “The Nutcracker” and assorted jazz Christmas carols. But I do want to hold out for you our liturgy during these four weeks as Advent-centered and Christ-centered, not pre-Christmas oriented.

We look for Christ in various places and various ways, especially during Advent. In Isaiah we have the awesome threat of God coming with such strength that the mountains “quake” at his coming. This is a God of power, might, and awesome renown.

Mark's Gospel points to a Christ coming when we least expect him. The “master of the house” returning from a trip and we do not know when he will show up. So we are to “keep awake” at all costs to be ready for him.

To tell you the truth, neither of these two images really worked well for me and my own sense of waiting on Christ. Then I came across a poem written by a friend of mine, Ann Fontaine, a priest in Wyoming:

A friend with a cup of tea. That is an image of Christ that I can relate to and look for. This is a Christ with whom I have a relationship, a connection, and therefore look for him with expectancy and joy, not anxiety and fear. Likewise, I have always found great comfort in the opening anthem from the Burial Office: “I myself shall see, and my eyes behold him who is my friend and not a stranger.”

If Advent is to mean anything for us, I believe it is to mean we seek Christ as that friend and not a stranger. A Christ who came to us in the most humble of circumstances and yet holds out for us the most glorious of promises, life eternally with God. A Christ who will be made known to us in the everyday pieces of our lives, even as we await the day of his coming.

The language of the propers, the scriptures, for Advent point to the coming of Christ in glory, with all of the imagery of the ancient world that is to inspire us with a sense of awe and to remind us firmly that no one knows the timing of Christ's return. But for me, we can live in the paradox of Advent today: of the now, but not yet. In our lives, here and now, Christ can come to us as a friend and not a stranger, a friend with a cup of tea as it were.

Even as we wait on Christ in any guise, we have our ministries, our callings as members of the community of faith we call the church. Our lives are in the here and now, our ministries are grounded in today, as our hope is set on the future. And we are not alone, we have one another, in community, in communion with each other for which we have much to be grateful. I echo the words of Paul in my feelings for this community at St. Stephen's: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him....”