This is the day that the Lord has made – let us rejoice and be glad in it!
In the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Happy Second Sunday in Advent!!!
Now I see some of you looking at me with … lets call it… mild amusement:
Because truly, this doesn’t sound much like a proclamation. It doesn’t really have the same emotional quality that we feel reverberate in our hearts with the ringing of the Easter bells and the lighting of the candles on Holy Saturday. And the proclamation that “Jesus Christ is risen today!”
It also doesn’t feel like being surrounded by the hushed singing voices that remember the words to silent night so clearly it is almost as if they have been etched into our very beings. “For unto us a Child has been born, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Those feel like proclamations to me!
Advent is different. It isn’t an event, it’s a journey – and like all journeys, they are as unique as each one of us.
So I wonder what Advent feels like for you this year?
I would bet it will be different from what you felt last year, subtly perhaps, or perhaps not so subtle… Because you are not the same as you were last year – none of us are the same as we were last year. Between then and now has been an entire year of life, of experiences – of joys, sorrows, new births, deaths, losses, excitements – a year filled with living!
I wonder now what is it like to be back here in this place?
Or here for the first time exploring… anticipating - What does the birth of this Christ child mean for me?
Our common tradition tells us that advent is the time we prepare for the great celebration of Christmas. We prepare to hear again the birth story with all the unlikely and sometimes dubious characters - the shepherds and wisemen, families, and innkeepers, and the great star leading to the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.
All this is coming. But its not here yet. We have to wait for it.
I wonder if waiting is as hard for you as it is for me!
Because I am an impatient person. I have a tendency to speak too quickly. I don’t like line ups. In fact, if I’m truly honest… I never used to like surprises at all. Waiting for Christmas was horrible! I wouldn’t consider myself a very theologically advanced kid, I knew Christmas had something to do with Jesus, and wasn’t all about presents, but on the other hand… as a kid… for me… it was all about presents. So it may not surprise you to know, that as a kid, I’d go looking for them.
This would usually start around the end of November. I would come home on the bus from school, before either of my parents were home from work, and I’d begin to casually look around.
Peeking into closets, under beds, sofa’s – even the high shelves that I needed a chair to see on top of.
Then there were the more obscure places, like the little room in the basement that had the freezer in it or the crawl space under the house where all the electrical wires and plumbing were – I was not to be deterred by the fact that it had a sand floor!
Nothing was safe from my prying eyes!
My mom never caught on – she never knew this is what I did. But slowly I came to a realization. I was losing the joy of Christmas. I knew what I would find as I unwrapped the gifts that were given in so much love. I had stolen away my own joy through my impatience. I had focussed on the end instead of the anticipation. I had given up the experience, because I just wanted to know.
It’s so tempting to rush into the Christmas story – to take the cue from society around us
We live in an instant, on demand sort of a world – a place that has had Christmas decorations in the stores since September!
A secular society that make this one day such a huge event.
As much as instinct tells us to rush it, to get there - we’re not there yet.
The manger is empty, yet God is still with us, just as the cross is empty, but Christ is among us still. These are the wonderful tensions that as Christians our traditions and common story hold together. And we continue this tension, anticipating the future, yet living in the present.
Christmas is coming – but it isn’t today. Today, is the Lords day - Let’s rejoice in our story, this Second Sunday of Advent.
Because today we hear the proclamation that someone BIG is coming – someone who is going to turn the world on it’s head.
John tells us that it is someone much more important than he is. Someone so important he doesn’t feel worthy to carry his sandals. And sandals were the humblest part of a persons clothing - good custom would dictate that anyone entering a home would have their sandals taken off and have their feet washed by the lowliest servant.
So here, John is calling himself lower than the lowliest servant in God’s household.
We hear the Gospel writer recalling the words of the prophet Isaiah, and proclaiming that John the Baptist, in his strange clothing, and his bizarre diet IS:
“the voice of one crying out in the wilderness –
prepare the way of the Lord.
Make his path straight.”
But to whom is he making this proclamation?
What is this wilderness he is speaking of?
Preparation is not a passive activity – just ask anyone preparing a Christmas dinner for 12. It is part anticipation and part action.
It is about understanding what is to come and taking an active role in the future, through living today.
This voice in the wilderness of our lives is crying out that we repent from our actions and turn away from the things in our lives that drive us from the love of God and from the love of each other.
John is blunt. Start living now, don’t rely on our ancestral roots, but prepare our path – don’t leave it to chance, live it into existence, leave behind the things that pull us off the path of who we are in God.
(Pause)
So I’d say that today is vitally important.
It is as important as Christmas.
It is as important as Easter.
It is as important as yesterday and tomorrow, it is none of these and all of these.
So today we celebrate today.
Because sometimes in the waiting, in the anticipation, we put off living.
Sneaking a peek at my presents ruined the surprise. But it didn’t change the story. Those were still my presents – it just changed my experience. Jumping ahead to the wonders of Christmas, doesn’t change the story. Christ was born, he lived, and laughed and taught and died and was raised to new life. It changes our experience and bends our paths - we can miss out on the journey to manger, to the cross and beyond.
Advent isn’t simply an event to be celebrated, it is a stony path full of twists and turns that the voice who cries out in the wilderness calls us to make straight, calls us to understand and calls us to rejoice in.
This Advent, its my hope that we can each make time in our busy lives to try to straighten our path.
To wonder our way out of our own personal wildernesses and hear that voice calling us to new birth, calling us to new life - TODAY.
After all… this is the day that the Lord has made – let us rejoice and be glad in it!
Amen.
