FIRST READING Isaiah 2:1-5
1The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, 3and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. 5O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.
PSALM Psalm 122
1I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.” 2Now our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. 3Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity with itself; 4To which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, the assembly of Israel, to praise the name of the Lord. 5For there are the thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David. 6Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you. 7Peace be within your walls and quietness within your towers. 8For my brethren and companions’ sake, I pray for your prosperity. 9Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek to do you good.”
SECOND READING Romans 13:8-14
8Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. 11Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. 12The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
GOSPEL Matthew 24:36-44
36{Jesus said,} “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. 37For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. 41Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. 42Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
GET READY, SET…WAIT
Today marks the beginning of the season of Advent, a time of preparation, a time of going toward the return of the Messiah, a time of great expectation and a time of great anticipation. But exactly what is it that we anticipate? What are we being called to get ready for? What are we expecting to happen?
Should we be anticipating the end of the world, as some religious cults always do this time each year? Are we preparing our hearts and spirits to receive again the coming of the Christ child into the world? Or, are we getting ready for yet another month-long shopping spree that some have called “economic first-degree murder” – the willful and with malice aforethought, murder our bank accounts? Or maybe, we’re dreading the gain of the seven to ten pounds that the average American will gain during the season. If you’re like me and the latter is on your mind, then your daily prayers most likely include, Lord, please let me be an underachiever this year!
Or are we preparing for the suicidal traffic jams and the sudden lack of parking at the malls and shopping centers, or the general atmosphere of surliness and desperation? Who remembers a couple of years back hearing that shoppers were actually coming to blows for the right to buy a Holiday Barbie doll! Are we getting ready for the depression, the anxiety, and even the rage that accompanies the secular holiday season? If we allow ourselves to get caught up in the consumer holiday season – and who here will deny that we Americas celebrate two separate events on December 25 – then we can easily find that instead of preparing to sing “O Holy Night” we will find ourselves living out one holy nightmare.
The truth is, for those who faithfully observe the consumer Christmas, Advent is the inevitable prelude to disappointment. For the materially oriented, Christmas somehow hardly ever measures up to their fantasies. Even if they manage to have some of their Christmas wishes fulfilled, the season is over so quickly, that the need to make New Year’s resolutions to lose those added pounds, or to be more patient with all those crazies who somehow managed to get a driver’s license, bears down on them even before the decorations come down. But the Advent we celebrate in the church – the one that has nothing at all to do with the number of shopping days left until Christmas – is altogether different.
The decorating of the Chrismon tree, the placement of the poinsettias, the lighting of the first Advent candle – all these invite us to dream dreams of a better world, to allow expectant visions that have nothing to do with sugar-plum fairies dancing in our heads. Advent invites us to fill the cup of today with a full measure of tomorrow. Both the passage from Isaiah and the words from the Gospel of Matthew express the Christian hope for a different, brighter future.
When the prophet Isaiah thought about the advent of God, he envisioned a world unified in worship of God and committed to peace. Isaiah dreamed of a time when the nations and people of the world would join together in recognizing the sovereignty of God and declare, “Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that God may teach us his ways, and that we may walk in his paths.” (Isa. 2:3) In the world of Isaiah’s vision, war was a thing of the past, and the nations of the earth lived together in peace. So, what image comes to your mind when you think about Advent?
Maybe you remember a classic work of art showing the journey to Bethlehem, the nativity, or the adoration of the Christ Child. Or, maybe your traditional symbols of the season include the huge, brightly-lit tree on the White House lawn, or the one in Rockefeller Center in New York City. The truth of the matter is, the way we see Advent and Christmas determines our approach to the celebration. Is the essential work of Advent hanging decorations, or, is it more about opening our lives to the coming Christ and learning to live in peace? Will Christmas come only if we do all the right things to get ready for it? Or, is Christmas a gift from God that arrives whether we’re ready for it or not?
Even a casual reading of the Bible reveals that the Advent of God is much more about surprise than predictability, more about revelation than decoration. Now please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I think it’s good that we decorate the Chrismon tree, that we put candles in the windows and place poinsettias in the sanctuary on Christmas Eve in memory or in honor of our loved ones. But the message of Advent isn’t “Put up the decorations! but “Watch and wait! The call is to be ready; to be prepared because “the Son of Man will return at an hour when you do not expect him.” It’s for this reason that we need to hear that message again: Christmas will come whether we get ready for it or not. Christ will return whether we’re ready or not. How many times have you heard people say things like, “It can’t be Advent already – I haven’t even made out my shopping list yet!”? Or, “Christmas can’t come yet! I haven’t even brought the decorations up from the basement!” Why is it that we assume that Christmas can only come if we make all the right preparations?
The truth is, God enters our lives in the person of Jesus Christ at God’s initiative, not ours. Christ arrives in our midst not as a reward for our careful preparation for His coming, but because of the love and compassion of God. Christ comes to us whether we’re ready or not.
In today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, the disciples are talking to Jesus about the Day of the Lord. They want to know when that’s going to happen, so they can be ready for it. To help them, and us, understand, Jesus recalls the familiar story of Noah. He reminds the disciples that in the days of Noah, people were living their lives with little concern for God. They were eating and drinking and marrying and celebrating. And suddenly, in those days, the rains came. Only Noah and his family were wise enough to listen to God’s warning, to obey His commands and seek salvation. When Jesus returns, He tells His disciples, it’s going to be like that.
Life will be going on as usual, people will be doing what they normally do, buying and selling, working and playing, just doing ordinary things. Then suddenly, without warning, the Lord will return. Paul describes Jesus’ return as a “thief in the night.” (1 Thess. 5:2) When that day comes, some will be prepared, and some will not. Some will remember Jesus’ admonition to be ready, but some will be focused on the cares and distractions of this world because they have become more important to them. Those folks who have forgotten or disbelieved will be greatly disappointed on that day. The problem for the disciples, as well as for many people today, is they’re asking the wrong question.
The question Jesus wants us to be asking is, what are we supposed to do in the meanwhile, while we await His coming. The important thing for us, in this season of Advent, isn’t to concern ourselves with the when of Jesus’ return, like Christmas it will happen anyway, but what we should be focused on in the meanwhile. Too many folks today concentrate their energy on the when of Jesus’ return.
Go channel-surfing some Sunday morning before Sunday School and you’ll find at least one televangelist who will gladly tell you, in a convincing manner, that this is the time Jesus talked about in scripture, that the world is going to end any day now, and that you’d better be ready. And who knows – they might be right! But I have to wonder if these folks, who claim to speak for God, have read the warning Jesus is giving His disciples here in Matthew’s gospel. Most often what’s missing from their assertions of coming doom and gloom, is a reminder that our concentration shouldn’t be on the future, rather it should be on the present, on fulfilling the command Jesus gave in the Great Commission.
Jesus’ last instruction wasn’t a call for a passive, do-nothing kind of waiting. The Great Commission is a call to activity. We’re to go, baptize, make and teach. All these are active verbs. Jesus says to the disciples, and to us, that the way we live together in the world as Kingdom people, as Advent people, is serious business and calls for an active faith. Isaiah echoes that call. “O house of Jacob, come let us walk in the light of the Lord.” (Isa. 2:5) And like going, baptizing, making and teaching, walking isn’t passive.
Advent invites us to look to the future, but its most demanding challenge and most exciting promise comes in the announcement that the present is Kingdom time, too. The incarnation – God coming to dwell in human flesh – declares that the cup of the present is filled to overflowing with the presence of God. Whether we consider the present to be sunny and bright, fair to partly cloudy, or dismal and gloomy, God sends the Messiah to come to life in it.
Elsewhere, Matthew describes the gift of the season of Advent with a single word, my personal favorite of all the “Christmas words” – Emmanuel, God with us. Not God has been with us in the past; not God will be with us at some indeterminate time in the future; but God with us, right now, today! The message of Advent is that each moment has eternal significance, that the God of all things past and things future, is also the God of the here and now. God invites us to live in the present in expectation and awareness of the fact that eternal realities can and do break in at any moment.
And so, this morning, Advent is here; now is the time for us to consider what we’re doing as we await Jesus’ return. Are we passively waiting, focused more on the agenda of the secular holiday season, or are we “walking in the light of the Lord” busy being about the Father’s business? Jesus told us that the kingdom of God is “breaking in” which is an interesting choice of words. All of Jesus’ preaching and teaching has been aimed at helping us understand what the kingdom of God is like. Those who take seriously the kingdom of God, as Jesus teaches it, must know clearly and well that our work isn’t over just because we’ve preached “repent and believe.”
“Jesus is coming soon” isn’t the whole message. There’s so much more to the Gospel than that. Kingdom living isn’t a simple matter that can be summed up in a cliché or pious pronouncements. Advent challenges us to hear and believe the promise of Emmanuel, God with us. That challenge doesn’t call us to be so heavenly-minded that we’re no earthly good, to become so starry-eyed over the future that we overlook the present.
Advent is a reminder that God often breaks in to our lives unexpectedly. We cannot know the time or the day of our next encounter with the holy. Neither can we predict whether that meeting will be a joyful experience of forgiveness and peace, a call to repentance and responsibility, or some combination of the two. All of this is out of our control and Jesus and the kingdom will come indeed, as Luther says in the Small Catechism, without our prayer, (Lord’s Prayer 2nd petition), so that shouldn’t be our focus. Yes, we should continue to pray for Jesus’ return, but that shouldn’t be our main focus. Our call is to be ready and actively waiting. We’re called to be about the business of being a faithful servant. Our call is to watch, wait and be obedient servants of the kingdom by using the talents God has entrusted us with.
So for now, the Chrismon tree has been placed and decorated, soon the candles will be in the windows, the poinsettias will take their proper places, and the first Advent candle has been lit. And as the song says, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. But the question before us today is, are we ready for Christmas yet? I don’t think so. That’s probably why there are four Sundays in Advent.
Amen