December 2 , 2007
Advent 1, Isaiah 2:1-5
Today’s the first Sunday of Advent, which means that it’s the start of our church year. The church’s New Year’s Day. So we can beat the world by almost exactly a month in saying HAPPY NEW YEAR! But the start of the New Year for the church means something pretty different. Instead of countdowns and balloons and drunken revelry, we have candles and quiet. Instead of resolutions to exercise more and eat less chocolate, we begin to prepare our hearts and minds to welcome the Christ child.
It seems like our time, our way of being in the world, is always a little off-kilter with God’s time and God’s kingdom.Sometimes the disparity is more obvious than usual, and this season is one of those times. While Advent tells us that this is a time to slow down, to pray, to watch and wait for Jesus, everything around us is telling us that it’s time to ramp up -- to run busily from one party to the next, to get things done, to buy buy buy. Advent has turned into a sort of harried, gift-oriented pre-Christmas, rather than a season of its own.
And unfortunately, it seems like the message the world is sending about the season is coming out on top.
In the day school’s chapel this week, John asked the kids if they knew who was coming on Christmas. You can probably guess their answer: A loud, emphatic, excited “SANTA CLAUS!” The second attempt still brought mostly “Santa!”s, but a few kids threw in “Elves!” as a possibility. Only on the third try, when John asked whose birthday was coming on Christmas, did the kids mention Jesus. And it wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic.
We are out of sync with God, and it goes a lot deeper than Santa Claus.
Our Old Testament reading speaks of a time when the people “beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” It’s a vision not only of peace but of cooperation that enables great bounty for every person. Meanwhile, here we are still beating our plowshares into swords, our pruning hooks into spears. Looking out for number one. Sometimes it seems that Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward All is the furthest thing from our minds. We are nowhere near Isaiah’s beautiful image of God’s kingdom on earth.
On Monday there was an interesting article in the Post discussing the results of a recent research project. Just for fun, we’re going to replicate part of it here. Everyone take your finger and write the letter E on your forehead. Now think about which direction you wrote it in – did you draw the E so that it was legible to someone facing you, or so that it looks correct from your own internal perspective? The researchers found that people who feel powerful draw the letter E so that it looks correct from their perspective but is a mirror image from the point of view of someone facing them. And people who feel powerless are three times more likely to draw the E so that someone else can read it, rather than themselves. Apparently, once people acquire power, they tend to see things in terms of their own self-interests. Meanwhile, those without power are generally better able to see things from other people’s points of view and have greater empathy.
So in our human society, having power means thinking of ourselves first (and maybe only). As the saying goes, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” But not in God’s kingdom. The little baby born on that first Christmas showed us that the only power that matters is power from God. That kind of power doesn’t corrupt – it strengthens, emboldens, and opens us up to those around us. For Jesus, having power meant loving and caring for others, laying down his life for his friends. In his life he refused the world’s power – he didn’t want to be made king, he stood up against Satan’s temptations of authority and prestige. The power of God is entirely different than the power of earthly kings and CEOs. As Paul puts it in Second Corinthians, “The power of Christ is made perfect in weakness.”
Our world is askew from God’s kingdom in so many ways. And Advent, which in Latin means “to come,” is all about waiting for the time when we are made right again.
Another mom who witnessed the disheartening response about Santa from the day school kids defended their answer to me. She argued that on Christmas, Jesus doesn’t actually come, we just remember his birth. And so, to her, it made sense that the kids’ answer to “Who is coming on Christmas?” would be Santa Claus. And of course it’s true that the baby Jesus was born thousands of years ago and isn’t physically going to be born in a manger in Bethlehem this December 25. But Christmas is so much more than just a birthday celebration of someone who lived long ago. It’s our chance to enter the story. To encounter God made man and know that God’s being “with us” means that we are forever loved and forgiven and accepted.
And so, during Advent, we, too, are waiting for the birth of the Messiah – the child who is Emmanuel, “God with us.” The child that will lead us into freedom and forgiveness and light. We, too, are preparing for Jesus’ coming, preparing to truly welcome him into our hearts, our homes, our relationships. And we are also waiting for the second coming of our Messiah, the “unexpected hour” that Matthew’s Gospel this morning warns about.
But our Advent time of waiting is not a passive time. Instead, it is meant to be a time of preparation and anticipation and yearning. A time when we connect our own hidden longings for God to the ancient longings of the people to whom Isaiah prophesied. A time when we can see ourselves in the searching and longing of the shepherds and the magi for their Messiah and King.
Advent is also a time of hope.
On Friday night some of us gathered in this place to create Advent wreaths to bring home and help us to mark the season of Advent and deepen our understanding of Christmas. Just as we lit our first purple candle on the wreath here this morning, tonight we can go home and light that first candle on our somewhat sloppier and less symmetrical versions. Week by week, we’ll see the light of our candles growing, gradually overtaking the darkness. Until on Christmas Day our longing for that Light that came into our world on the first Christmas morning is fulfilled. That Light of Christ that still burns strong and is overcoming the darkness. And bringing our world, and our hearts, back into sync with God.
There is a story about a Rabbi who asked his students how a person could tell when the darkness ends and the day begins? After thinking for a moment, a student replied, "It’s when there is enough light to see an animal in the distance and be able to tell if it is a sheep or a goat." Then another student tried, "Darkness ends and the day begins when there is enough light to see a tree, and tell if it is a fig or an oak tree." “No,” said the Rabbi, "It is when you can look into a man's face and recognize him as your brother. For if you cannot recognize in another's face the face of your brother, the darkness has not yet begun to lift, and the light has not yet come."
And so, as Isaiah urged the people in his vision that we read this morning, let us also proclaim this Advent season, “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”
Amen.
ER