Favored One -- Fourth Sunday of Advent

 Luke 1:26-45

December 19, 2021

 

            There is this amazing scene in the musical, Hamilton – there are an abundance of amazing scenes in Hamilton – but there is one in particular that I am thinking about. This is a

scene in the second half of the show and the song is “Your Obedient Servant.” Aaron Burr believes that Alexander Hamilton, this orphaned, illegitimate, nobody from nowhere has thwarted his aspirations and kept him from taking his rightful place on the world’s stage. So, Burr writes his accusations of this to Hamilton in a series of correspondence. The tone of each letter gets darker and darker, and it ends with Burr calling Hamilton out, calling him to duel, to meet him at Weehauken and dawn. But what is ironic in this song is that no matter how accusatory and dark each letter his, they always end in the same way.

            “I have the honor to be your obedient servant, A dot Burr. A dot Ham.”

            It is a very brief, but a brilliant twist, a brilliant and revealing moment of incongruity. This signature sign-off of both men sounds civil, but it is really just a thin veil over a bitter and ultimately deadly enmity. I doubt either man really felt like an “obedient servant” of the other, and even it that was customary etiquette, neither would have felt any honor in having to express it.

            Although I don’t really equate the musical Hamilton with the story of the annunciation by the angel Gabriel to Mary or the visitation between Mary and her kinswoman, Elizabeth, I can’t help but wonder if some would have seen Gabriel’s name for Mary as being just the slightest bit ironic or incongruous.

            “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”

            The reason I lift Gabriel’s proclamation to Mary as incongruous, is because no one else in her world would have probably considered her to be favored by God. She was young, really young – quite possibly no more than 13 or 14 – and although she was betrothed to Joseph, which would have been a stronger and more legal bond than our understanding of an engagement, they were not yet married. And now she is greeted by this angel who tells her that she is favored by God and that she is going to have a baby. And that this baby will be the Son of God. And this baby, this Son of the Most High, will be seated on the throne of David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob, and “of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Mary gives her consent to God’s work in her, and she does not question the truth of what Gabriel says, she only asks how it will be possible, but I wonder if there might still have been some fear in her. She believes what the angel has told her, but will others? In any other circumstance, a young, betrothed girl getting pregnant before marriage would have been potentially disastrous. It could have brought shame on her and her family, on Joseph, and this baby who was now growing inside of her. The reality was that under the tenets of the Law, this pregnancy could get Mary stoned to death. At first glance, without the benefit of knowing the rest of the story, Gabriel calling her “favored one,” seems almost cruelly ironic. How could she possibly be favored by God when she has been thrust into the strangest and scariest of situations?

            Along with telling her about her own upcoming child, Gabriel also tells Mary about Elizabeth, Mary’s relative. Elizabeth and Zechariah, like Sarah and Abraham, were old and had lived for years without children. This would have been Elizabeth’s shame to bear. She would have been seen as the barren one, as the one who had failed, who had clearly not been blessed by God. But Gabriel tells Mary that Elizabeth, even in her older age, was now six months pregnant with a son. See Mary, Gabriel tells her, what is impossible for humans is possible for God. Nothing is impossible with God, not Elizabeth having a baby in her old age, and not you being the favored one who will bring God with us into the world. Then the angel leaves her.

            Some others might have fled to their homes to think about this, stayed behind closed doors to ponder what this will mean. But Mary didn’t stay put after this life-changing, world altering announcement. Luke tells us that “she went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.”

            This would not have been like running next door or down the street or even across town. Mary was in Nazareth, and Elizabeth was in a Judean hill country. This would not have been an easy trip; more likely it was closer to an arduous journey. But Mary made it with haste. Why? Did Mary need to confirm what the angel said for herself? Did she need to see Elizabeth to know whether or not what the angel said was true, or to convince herself that she really had been visited by an angel? Did she need to see the truth of Elizabeth’s pregnancy to fully believe and reconcile with the truth that she was indeed the favored one?

            Traditional biblical scholarship does not like this answer. Mary’s faith would have been enough. There was no reason to confirm the angel’s words. Mary going to see Elizabeth was just all part of the plan.

            And maybe it was. But let’s take the scholarship out of this. Let’s look at this story of a young girl, who gets incredible, wonderful, and terrifying news. And yes, it would have been

terrifying. And she hears that her relative Elizabeth is also having a baby. Maybe she did need to confirm it for herself. Maybe Mary did need to see so that she could believe. And maybe Mary needed to be with another person who would understand what she was about to go through. Maybe Mary needed to be with Elizabeth not to confirm her faith, but to give her courage for what lay ahead.

            So, she goes with haste to see Elizabeth. And when the two women come together, before any of this news is shared between them, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps for joy at the sound of Mary’s voice. And Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit, and she cries out in a loud voice, a precursor to her son also crying out in a loud voice,

            “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

            And with these words from Elizabeth, Mary breaks into song. We know it as “The Magnificat.” Magnificat is the Latin for magnify, which is Mary’s first words. “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Brent and I sang a modern telling of it earlier in The Canticle of the Turning.”

            And indeed, Mary gets it right. Her song is about a world that has been turned upside down. It is not just that God has come to her, a poor, humble, lowly girl, a nobody from nowhere, and turned her life upside down, making her and her alone the favored one. Through her, through this baby she is now carrying, the whole world will be turned upside down. The expectations of the world will be reversed. The low will be made high. The high will be brought low. It is a song of joy, but it is also a song that should stop us in our tracks. It should make us reconsider everything we thought we believed about the world and how it works, about God and how God works.

            But let’s go back for a moment. In the midst of the Holy Spirit bringing forth prophecy and songs about reversal and God working through the lowly and poor, we have these two women. In the midst of the spiritual and the supernatural we also have the flesh and blood and bone of the mortal. These two women, one very young and one very old, are brought together not because they are related but because they are both carrying an unlikely and unexpected child. They are both wrestling with all the physical changes that come with pregnancy, with all of the fears and the hopes and excitement and yes, the terror, that comes with expecting a baby.

            Terror, because women and babies die during delivery. Even today, with all our medical advancements, giving birth can still be dangerous. Think about how dangerous and deadly it too often was in Mary and Elizabeth’s context. They probably both knew women who had died giving birth. Yes, this moment between them was filled with the Holy Spirit, but it was also a moment in the flesh. It was a powerful moment; a life-changing, world changing moment. But it was a moment found not in the spiritual realms but in the earthly ones. And therein lies its power.

            Because that is the power of the incarnation, isn’t it? That is what we are longing for, waiting for, preparing for, remembering what has already been accomplished, and waiting for it to be accomplished once more. The incarnation is not just about a spirit divorced from the flesh. The incarnation is about God entering into this messy, frail, fragile flesh of ours and through that incredible, wonderful deed pronouncing that the flesh matters. Our bodies matter. This earthly word we live matters. Creation, the physical manifestation of God in the world, matters.

            And this young girl and this older woman were not just empty vessels that the divine used. They were real people with real hopes and dreams and fears. They were frail and flawed. They were flesh and blood. But God worked through them. God worked through these two women – and it is not often in scripture that two women are the leads in a story – God worked through these two women to turn the world upside down. Mary sings that her soul magnifies God. In this young, unlikely, unexpected girl, God does something wonderful. Through her, through Mary, the world was turned, and the world is turned and the world will be turned. That is what we are waiting for. That is what we are hoping for. That is the source of our peace and our joy and, indeed, our love. God made the world turn upside down through real people, through unlikely people, through Mary, through Elizabeth, through unlikely, unexpected characters throughout scripture, through us. Mary was the favored one, but aren’t we all? Not because we have carried the baby Jesus into the world, but because God loves us. God loves us, and because God loves us, and because we are all created in God’s image, we are able to love – to love God and to love others. The world is about to turn.

            Let all of God’s favored children say, “Alleluia!”

            Amen.

           

           

           

Good News? -- Third Sunday of Advent

Luke 3:7-18

December 12, 2021

 

            About a thousand years ago now, back when I was serving in my first church as a solo pastor in upstate New York, we came to this particular Sunday in Advent and this particular passage from Luke’s gospel. I wanted to try something different, so I approached a member of the choir who was a very good sport and asked him if I could direct my opening remarks in my sermon to him. He agreed. No problem. I told him that I didn’t want to tell him what I would say, because I wanted the surprise to be genuine, but I also told him – repeatedly – that I meant nothing that I was about to say. I kept assuring him of that.

“I won’t mean it. I promise.”

He just smiled and said, “Go for it.”

In that church the choir loft and the piano were to the left of the pulpit, so I could step away from it and walk over to the choir. This gentleman sat on the side next to me, so he was easy to reach.

At the beginning of the sermon, I went over to him. I patted his arm and gave him a little side hug. Then I took a step back, turned to look at him directly, pointed my finger at him and screamed,

“SINNER!!! Sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner! You. Are. A. Sinner!”

Then, I smiled, walked back to the pulpit, and went on with my sermon. The congregation gasped, and then they laughed, and then they waited to see what I might do next. And I guarantee you, no one nodded off during that worship service, not during the sermon anyway.

I don’t remember anymore what my transition sentence was from my calling my parishioner a sinner to a relatively calm sermon, but I hope I said something like,

“Now that I’ve got your attention.”

I think this second half of this passage from Luke’s gospel would be easier to contend with if John had used that same sentence. If he had just transitioned from calling the people who flocked to him, “You brood of vipers,” to “Look, I just wanted to get your attention. Now, let me tell you about the good news in a reasonable and calm manner. Let’s continue, shall we?”

That version of John the Baptizer seems more like a character out of Downton Abbey than this strange and fiery prophet that comes out of the wilderness to preach the coming of the Messiah. But John was not just trying to get the attention of the people. And unlike me with my parishioner, he meant everything he said. When he called them, “brood of vipers,” he was speaking utterly truthfully. John meant every word he said, and if the people truly wanted to prepare for what was coming, then they needed to repent.

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Repentance from the Greek word metanoia means literally to turn around. As I said last week, repentance is about reorienting, turning back toward the Source, getting your priorities straight and in alignment with God’s priorities, not your own. Repentance is not just about saying, “I’m sorry.” And it isn’t about self-flagellation either. It is about changing your ways. It is about doing not just saying. It is about bearing fruit worthy of repentance.

And before the people could even protest that they come from a long line of good people, that they are the children of Abraham, that they have always followed the Law, that they know the commandments by heart, etc., John cuts through that line of thinking too.

“Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”

In other words, its not about your lineage, it’s about how you live. How you treat others. It is about the fruits that you bear. After hearing all this, the people ask,

“What then should we do?”

This is the pertinent question. This is the question of the year! Karoline Lewis, a professor, preacher, and contributor to WorkingPreacher.Org, suggested that this question should be the title of every preacher’s sermon this week – I had already done the bulletin or else it might have been mine – not because it makes for a pithy, cool title, but because it gets to the heart of the matter. John is preaching about repentance. John is calling them to take a long, hard look in the mirror, to be honest with themselves about their own need for repentance. John is calling them to bear fruits worthy of repentance, in other words to lead lives that embody repentance, that embody turning back to God, embody and embrace the reorienting and realigning of their lives to God. All of this begs the question, what then should we do?

First things first. If you have two coats, share your extra one with someone who does not. If you have more food than you need, share your extra with someone who doesn’t.

Tax collectors, those despised ones, who in their work collaborated with the oppressive government, those ones who contributed to the harming of their own people, heard John’s words and in their seeking baptism, asked John,

“Teacher, what should we do?”

What should you do? Collect no more money than what you are supposed to.

And soldiers also asked John, ‘What should we do?”

What should you do? Don’t extort money from people through threats and accusations. Be satisfied with the money you earn.

This sounds simple enough. Just change the way you live out your profession. Yet, think about the repercussions that will be felt if the tax collectors and the soldiers heed John’s words. If even one or two tax collectors do what John tells them to do, others will notice. And on the surface that may not be a good thing. What do you mean that tax collector is only taking what he is supposed to? If he does that and word gets around, then the rest of us will be expected to do the same. There goes our extra income! And what if the big bosses find out? They might think that we’ve been cheating them all this time as well. What if they want more money from us? What if they throw us in jail – or worse – as punishment?

And other soldiers might feel the same. If we stop threatening the people, extorting money through violence and abuse, then maybe the people will think it’s okay to revolt against us? What will we do? What will happen to us?

These answers led the people to wonder and question and speculate about John. Was he the Messiah they had been waiting for, longing for? But John seemed to know what they were thinking, he knew what was in their hearts, and he responded,

“I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Then our passage wraps up with these words, “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”

Good news? It sounds like John came to the people and said, “I’ve got good news and bad news. Lemme tell you the bad new first.” But then he never got around to telling them the good news. This One who is coming will baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. This One who is coming has his winnowing fork at the ready. You’ve called us a brood of vipers. You’ve told us to bear fruit worthy of repentance. You’ve told us to make changes in our lives that ultimately won’t just affect us but will affect entire systems. And all of this is good news?

If we read on in the next verses, Herod doesn’t seem to think John’s words are good news either. He is ticked off at John for rebuking him for his marriage to his brother’s wife, so he throws John in prison. John’s good news lands him in jail.

It’s tempting to think that none of this is good news. It feels like there is an implied “or else,” at the end of the call to repent. And maybe it is there, maybe this is all about judgment for sins, and fire and brimstone, the kind of stuff that I’ve shied away from over the course of my ministry. But John was not preaching fire and brimstone just for the sake of fire and brimstone. He wasn’t necessarily trying to scare the people into doing the right thing. He was trying to make them understand that repentance plays out in action. Repentance demands making amends. If you are truly sorry for the ways in which you have failed and fallen and sinned, then take a deep, honest look at yourself. Take a long, truthful look at how you treat other people. Then change. Don’t just say, “I’m sorry.” Do better. Be better. Live better.

So, what exactly is the good news here? Is it that we’ve been given a warning to head off the flames of fire licking at our toes? Or is it that the chance to repent is always available to us? Is it that when we hear these words from John every year, in Advent and in Lent, we are reminded that we are never cut off from both our need to repent and the opportunity to repent? Judgment in scripture and the call to repent is not about destruction, cutting down and cutting off; it is about being given another chance to turn around, to choose a different way. It is a reminder that God wants us, longs for us, to choose God, to choose life, to choose abundance, and hope, peace, and yes, joy.

This is Gaudete Sunday. In Latin, the word Gaudete is a command. It is a command to be joyful. This command seems discordant with the words we read from scripture. And do we actually need to be commanded to be joyful? Yet, in a world where everything but joy seems to reign, maybe that is exactly the command we need.

John commanded the people to repent, to bear good fruit. In doing just that, would their lives ultimately be more joyful? I think so. But in order to believe that we have to understand that joy and happiness are not the same thing. Happiness can be fleeting. Happiness can be attached to momentary pleasures. But joy and joyfulness? That runs much deeper. Joy comes from recognizing that at the beginning and at the end, God is with us. At the beginning and at the end, God’s goodness holds fast. At the beginning and at the end, God’s love and faithfulness are sure. To repent, to turn around is to turn from hopelessness to hope, from violence and war to peace, from despair to joy.

Be joyful! Hear this good news! Repent and turn back to God.

May all God’s children do just that, shouting, “Alleluia!”

Amen.

 

All Flesh Shall See -- Second Sunday of Advent

Luke 3:1-6

December 5, 2021

 

            It was December 2010, and I had to have surgery on my left foot. I was born, really and truly, with an extra bone in each foot. According to my podiatrist, that happens sometimes. And the bone in my left foot was larger than normal. This would not have been a problem except that at some point it had been broken and was starting to cause me a lot of pain. So, I was going to have surgery to remove the extra-large bone, and as it turned out, a lot of bone fragments. No wonder my foot hurt so much.

I knew that I was going to be off my feet for several weeks, and it would take some time to get to the point where I could do a lot around the house. I needed to be prepared before the surgery, so I was scrambling to cross off every task on my to-do list. This included cleaning the house from top to bottom and bottom to top.

At this time, my parents still lived in the same town as I did. On the morning of my surgery, my dad came by the house to pick up the kids and get them to school. It was 7 am when he walked in the door. My surgery was in couple of hours, and I was vacuuming as fast as I could, every surface of floor and carpet. Some of my need to vacuum was because of nervousness about the surgery, but mainly I just wanted my house to be clean before I left. My dad chuckled when he saw what I was doing.

“Just like your mother.”

Maybe it was silly to vacuum before I went to the hospital to have surgery on my foot, but I wanted to be prepared, and vacuuming was how I accomplished it. What if someone came to the house while I was at the hospital? I wanted my house to look nice. What if people came to see me after I got home from the hospital? I wanted my house to look nice. Did I want to return home from surgery to a messy house? Nope. I wanted to be prepared, and if that meant vacuuming my entire house before I went to the hospital for surgery, then so be it.

I realize that my needing to have my house clean is not exactly the same kind of preparation that John the Baptist was calling for when he left the wilderness because the word of the Lord had come to him, but perhaps there is some parallel to be found in the urgency of that preparation.

From the very first words of this passage, Luke goes out of his way to set the historical stage. One commentator pointed out that Luke was determined to set the salvific history of God precisely within the scope of human history. Seven historical, political, and religious leaders are mentioned before a word is written about John. And as this same commentator noted, probably none of them would be thrilled to know that their names would be forever mentioned in relationship to John or to what they saw as a fringe religious movement that John played a part in. Yet there they are, and John is right next to them.  

Earlier in his gospel, Luke establishes that John comes from the religious upper crust of the time on both sides of his family tree. His father, Zechariah, belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His mother, Elizabeth, descended from Aaron, the brother of Moses. I suspect that John could have followed in his father’s footsteps and been a high priest. He could have claimed his birthright as a descendant of Aaron and lived almost like royalty. Yet John clearly walked away from that life, from his heritage and birth right, because where do we find John? Where does the word of the Lord come to John? In the wilderness.

Debie Thomas in her essay on this passage for Journey with Jesus, writes that Advent is a good time for us “to remember that the Bible we read and reverence is a wilderness text.” The Israelites became a nation in their time in the wilderness. Jesus’ ministry was solidified by his time in the wilderness. The word of the Lord about God’s ongoing work in the world came to John in the wilderness. And from that same wilderness John emerges with a message to repent. Repent, or the Greek word metanoia, means to change your mind, to reorient, to turn around and go a different way. Repent, John proclaims, turn around, change your mind and reorient yourself again toward God, prepare for the coming of the Lord.

Luke has John quoting the prophet Isaiah just to make sure this point gets across.

“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

When I traveled through the Middle East many years ago now, our group rode on a lot of big busses to get from one spot on our itinerary to another. Driving through the hilly terrain, the wilderness, in Jordan caused all of us to reread the different wilderness passages. Because that’s what we were traveling through, the wilderness. Now, we were on modern roads, or at least roads that were created in the modern era. But the topography of that wilderness was mountainous, with deep valleys, sparse vegetation, and just wild nothingness for as far as the eye could see. And these roads that we traveled on followed the outline of the land. They followed the twists and the turns of the hills and mountains. At the edge of these roads, the deep valleys dropped off at steep angles below them. I learned to stop looking down when I looked out the windows of the bus, because it was far too easy to imagine that at some point our bus would lose its purchase on the twisting, turning road, and crash down into the valley below.

It would truly take a supernatural feat of engineering to fill these valleys and make level these hills and mountains. Only an act of the divine could make this level of crooked straight and this kind of rough smooth. Anyone who had glimpsed this wilderness, much less wandered in it,  would have understood the fantastical nature of these prophetic words, because the changing of that landscape was someone only accomplished by God.

While God’s ability to do this is not in question, I don’t think that a literal transformation of the landscape was the message John was trying to get across. John called the people to repent because it was the topography of their hearts and minds and lives that needed to be changed, that needed to be made level and even and smooth. What were they doing to prepare? What were they doing to make ready? What were they doing to make way for the coming of the Lord within their own lives?

Next week, John will get specific on details about what people should do in order to prepare. John will answer the peoples’ questions about what is needed for repentance. But for this week, it is enough to ponder the outcome of preparation. John does not mention individual salvation. John does not refer to eternal glory of people leaving this life and going to a heaven beyond this time and space. John the Baptizer, John the cousin of Jesus, John – who is considered by the orthodox tradition to be the last great prophet in the line of prophets – says that the preparation the people must do is so that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

All flesh shall see the salvation of God.

            If we keep reading in this chapter, we know that the salvation that will be seen is the incarnate God, God’s son, Jesus. That is who John is pointing to, the One who will baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. The salvation of God is a who, not a what. The salvation of God is embodied in the person of Jesus the Christ. John wants the people to know that what all flesh shall see is flesh and blood and bone. The people must prepare. The people must prepare their hearts and their minds. They must smooth the rough edges of their hearts. They must prepare the way within them, so that they will be able to see with their eyes and see with their hearts.

            All flesh will see. In this season of Advent, we too are called to prepare, to prepare the way of the Lord. The same urgency that pushes us to prepare our homes for the holidays, to prepare for the arrival of guests, for the giving and receiving of gifts, should also drive us to prepare ourselves, to see the salvation of God.

            Prepare the way. Prepare your hearts. Prepare for God’s new thing in our midst. Prepare for God’s coming once more. Prepare our hearts, our minds, our eyes, every aspect of ourselves to see God’s salvation. May all flesh see the salvation of the Lord.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

           

 

The Days Are Surely Coming -- First Sunday of Advent

 Luke 21:25-36

November 28, 2021

 

            In the very silly movie, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Will Ferrell plays Ricky Bobby, a successful NASCAR driver. Ricky has longed to drive fast since he was born, and he speeds his way to the top of his career, then plummets to the bottom, then finally, slowly works his way back.  

            It is a very silly movie, but there is one scene that is both funny and telling – although probably not in the way that Ferrell intended when he co-wrote the screenplay. This is a scene from when Ricky is at the top of his game. He, his gorgeous wife, his father-in-law, his two obnoxious sons, and his best friend and driving partner, Cal, are gathered around the dinner table in their beautiful home.

            In a meal that includes Dominoes Pizza, KFC, and Taco Bell, Ricky has everyone bow their heads for the grace. And he proceeds to pray to “Dear Lord Baby Jesus.” He thanks “Dear Lord Baby Jesus” for his family, for the food, for his friends. He prays to the Dear Lord Baby Jesus that his father-in-law’s leg will be healed. He continues to pray to the Baby Jesus until his wife interrupts him at one point and tells him that it’s off-putting and odd to pray to a baby. His father-in-law joins in and exclaims that Jesus was a grown man.

            “He had a beard!”

            But Ricky’s response to this was that he liked the baby Jesus best, and since he was the one praying, he was going to pray to the Jesus he liked. And he liked the Christmas Jesus best.

            Ricky Bobby liked the Christmas Jesus best. And sometimes I wonder if that isn’t the Jesus that we prefer too. I don’t think that’s a conscience preference. I certainly don’t believe that any of us would voice it in the way that Ricky Bobby did – and thank goodness for that – but when we come to this time of year it’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement about the coming of a baby, the arrival of the Christ child.

            And it is the holiday season after all. I mean I’ve been seeing Christmas displays in stores since Halloween. This is the time of year when everything in our world encourages us to shop till we drop, decorate, wrap presents, cook, bake, eat, party, etc. But according to the church year, this cyclical turning of time and season, we are now in the season of Advent. This is a time of preparation, of waiting, of watching. This is the season when we prepare for the coming of the Christ child and for the second coming of the Savior.

            So, even though it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas everywhere we go, in the church, it is Advent, the first Sunday of Advent, and on the first Sunday of Advent we read not about babies being born or silent nights, holy nights, but about the end times. We are warned by the prophets and by Jesus that the days are surely coming.

            The days are surely coming when there will be signs. There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars. There will be distress in the nations caused by the roaring of the sea. People will faint from fear and foreboding from what is coming upon the world. Because even the powers of heaven will be shaken.

            These are the signs, and you already know how to read signs. You can look at the fig tree and all the other trees, and when you see them sprout leaves you know that summer is on the way. When you see these signs, you will know that the Kingdom of God is on its way as well.

            So, Jesus tells them, don’t let your hearts be weighed down by drunkenness and the worries of this life and the dissipation that comes from dissolute living, so that you are not paying attention. This day will come upon you unexpectedly, like a trap. Be alert.

            Watch. Wait. Prepare. Read the signs. Be ready. Be alert.

            All this talk about the end, about the Kingdom of God coming unexpectedly, about the frightening signs in nature and in the world all around us, causes knots of anxiety to start forming in my stomach. So much for not letting my heart be weighed down by the worries of this world. It will be weighed down by my worries about this passage and every passage like it instead. It makes me wonder if Ricky Bobby had it a little bit right about liking the baby Jesus the best. Especially when we consider that the theme for this first Sunday of Advent is hope. On first reading none of this feels very hopeful. It’s more like doom and gloom. It’s the Biblical version of the guy standing on a busy street corner, dressed in a sandwich sign that proclaims: Beware! The end of the world is near!

            But is it?

            Is Jesus’s warnings about the end times a prophecy of doom or is it a reminder that time is not what we think it is. We want to see time as strictly linear – a beginning, a middle, and an end. But Jesus’ words about the fig tree remind us that time is cyclical. It is a circle not just a straight line. A commentator on this passage noted that the end times are really the beginning of times – of God’s new time and that we are living in the meantime – at a point somewhere between the beginning, the end, and the beginning again.

            And I realize that it is very easy to look around the world that we are inhabiting right now and believe that there are plenty of signs about the end times. There is constant unrest, nations rise up against nations, people shoot one another in shopping malls and Walmart. There is a new variant of the Corona virus, and who knows what that will mean for this ongoing pandemic?

            We live in uncertain and frightening times. It is a scary world out there and sometimes in here. And scripture seems to be confirming that, but we also read from Jeremiah, and the prophet tells us

“That the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”

And there’s that word – promise. And it is in that word that we remember where our hope truly lives. It is in God’s promise. There’s an old hymn that declares that we are standing on the promises of God. And we are. It is the promise that is the essence of our faith. It is God’s promise that brings us here and sends us out week after week, month after month, year after year. We are living in the meantime trusting in God’s promise, trusting that the past, the future, and the present are in God’s good and trustworthy hands. We trust in God’s promise and in that we find our hope.

To be honest, the world has already experienced an earth shattering, foundation shaking, cataclysmic event, and it wasn’t a pandemic. It was not wars or earthquakes or famines or any of the other events that cause suffering – and they do cause great suffering. But the greatest event, the most earth-shaking event, was the incarnation. God being born into our world, into our lives, into our mortal frames, that shook the world. That rocked this world’s foundations. That turned everything upside down. That threatened the powers and principalities. The incarnation changed everything, and we are still feeling its repercussions centuries later.

Everything was changed when a baby was born, so it only goes to figure that when Christ comes again, everything will be changed as well. God has done, is doing, and will continue to do something new – but all of God’s something new is born out of love.

I read a story just recently that another pastor posted it to a clergy page that I follow on social media. It came from a New England historical journal, and it was about the New England Dark Day on May 19, 1780. It was a day so dark that candles were needed to see, and noon looked more like midnight. The sun rose that day, but then the skies darkened. The darkness covered the land as far north as Portland, Maine and as far south as New Jersey where George Washington was fighting in the revolutionary war. He noted the dark day in his personal diary.

On that day dark clouds filled the sky. They blotted out the sun. The darkness terrified people and confused animals. The article said that hens went into roost, cattle returned home from the fields, night birds sang, and frogs peeped as though it was the middle of the night. Children were sent home from school. People left their work and flooded into taverns. People went to churches, and preachers pounded their pulpits, proclaiming that the sins of the people had brought this upon them. People thought that at last the Day of Judgment had arrived, and this was the end. Everywhere there was panic and fear and fainting with foreboding.

In Connecticut the state legislature was in session. Frightened representatives wanted to adjourn and flee home. But one man, Abraham Davenport, did not want to adjourn.

He said,

“I am against adjournment. The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for an adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.”

By midnight, the winds changed, the clouds dissipated, and the moon could be seen again. The next day, the sun rose as usual. Scientists believe that there was a raging wildfire in the Canadian forests to the north that sent clouds of thick ash. When the wind changed, it all blew away. Life went on. Abraham Davenport and the rest of legislature did not give into panic, but stayed and did their duty.

Will we stay and do our duty? Will we remain faithful even in the midst of what seems like the end times? We don’t know when the end is coming. But we trust in the promise of God that the end is really the beginning. We trust in God’s promise and in these promises we find our hope. On this first Sunday of Advent, we proclaim our hope, even though current events may make hope seem foolish and unrealistic. Still, we hope. And we give thanks for God’s new thing – then, now, and always.

Let all of God’s hopeful children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.