Friends,
Thanksgiving is now behind us, except for the sliced turkey and stuffing leftovers we’ll be having for lunch this week. We’ll enter the Season of Advent as of sundown Saturday, November 28, the four Sundays before Christmas. As the old song goes, “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.”
Indeed my neighbors have their Christmas decorations up, and as of now, so do we, thanks to step-son Chris and granddaughter Maddy. It’s what we do after Thanksgiving in our house. And Maddy is adventurous, she likes to climb on the roof and hang the lights from the gutters. Me? Well, not so much. But we’ll stand by to catch her in case of mishap. Soon it will be time to search for a Christmas tree. It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
Except in our worship at Peace. There we are reminded it is not Christmas. It is Advent. I think of Advent as a big orange warning sign on a super highway that reads: CAUTION! SLOW DOWN!
For example, the Bible readings for the First Sunday in Advent remind us once again of how temporary and unsettled everything really is, as if in the COVID pandemic we needed such a reminder. Isaiah 64:6 says, “We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” And In Mark 13:26-27 Jesus called the disciples to be mindful of the day when, “They will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. 27Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.” Next we’ll hear about John the Baptist and his message that we must “Prepare the Way of the Lord.” And we will hear the story of Mary and the “annunciation” from the Angel Gabriel that she would bring God’s Son into the world, and we will hear her song
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
52 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
These are unexpected voices proclaiming messages that are decidedly not Christmas like. Advent is a strange season of the church year because of the mixed messages in the Bible readings. Some speak of a time yet to come – the last day, like Jesus in Mark 13. Others speak of the time that was, when the angel came to Mary and told her that the child to be born to her would be Jesus, whom God sent to save his people from their sins. And in worship we hear and receive weekly what the mind cannot fully comprehend: that as we set apart bread and wine with the words of our Lord they become for us the very body and blood of Christ.
How to draw all this together? One way is to think about the meaning of the word “Advent.” At its root is the Latin word for come or arrive. The original of “Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel,” a favorite Advent carol, is “Veni, Veni” i.e. “Oh Come, Oh Come…” As someone put it very succinctly, in Advent we celebrate how God comes to us in history, in majesty ad in mystery.
In Advent the prayers of the people of God turn to asking God to come among us, now. But we also recognize that God has already come among us in Jesus. And we believe the promise that “He will come again to judge the living and the day.” In Advent we celebrate that God in Christ comes to his people. Christ has come in history, he will come again in majesty at the end of this age, and he comes to us in the mystery of the Holy Communion when simple bread and wine become for us the body and blood of Christ.
This is the essence of the Gospel. We do not come to God. We do not make ourselves good enough, as if climbing some ladder of righteousness and good works. Rather God comes to us. And in this Advent season God will most certainly come to us. We may not know where, or when, or how, but God will come, and by the Holy Spirit, make us ready to receive Jesus, our Emmanuel; God with us!
In Christ,
Pastor Joe Hughes