(a sermon for St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Purcellville, VA, December 6, 2009)
Lectionary Year C (RCL), 2nd Sunday of Advent: Baruch 5:1-9; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6; Canticle 16 (Luke 1:68-79)
[May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord.]
Hey, guess what! Something wonderful is coming! Bet you can’t guess what it is! What’s coming? CHRISTMAS! Well, that wasn’t very hard to guess after all, was it?
Actually it’s pretty easy to tell when Christmas is coming, because the signs of it are literally everywhere. Christmas sale ads and Christmas specials fill the television. Stores and offices are decorated in green and red. Christmas songs are playing everywhere. Holiday parties dot the calendar. Homes are tricked out with lights and inflatable figures and the days get shorter and darker. Even on the roads, cars are driving around with trees tied on top and the toll-booth attendants are wearing Santa hats. The signs of the season are too widespread to miss!
But just in case we miss all those other signs, here in the church, we have the season of Advent (which started last Sunday) to remind us that Christmas is coming. In fact, the term “Advent” is from a Latin word that means “coming.” But Advent is much more than just the weeks we spend getting ready to celebrate Jesus’ birthday.
I found a nice description of what Advent is about on Wikipedia, which says: “the season of Advent serves as a reminder both of the original waiting that was done by the Hebrews for the birth of their Messiah as well as the waiting of Christians for the second coming of Christ.” So Advent is a two part season: while we wait for December 25th to remember Jesus birth, we’re reminded that we’re STILL waiting for Jesus to come again.
So how do we respond to that? Jesus is coming!! – what do we do?!
Well, let’s consider the readings we have today.
In the reading from Baruch, the prophet is addressing the city of Jerusalem at the time of the Babylonian exile. The city is desolate, her children - her people – have been carried off to Babylon, but the prophet reminds Jerusalem that God will lead her people home. So, we find Jerusalem waiting for God to come.
And what is she to do while she waits? The answer is in the opening lines of the reading: “Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God. Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God; put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting…. Arise, O Jerusalem, look toward the east, and see your children gathered from west and east at the word of the Holy One.”
So, what’s that mean? What’s Jerusalem called upon to do while she waits? Well first of all, she’s to remember that she’s waiting for something - something good. “The garment of sorrow and affliction,” that bad attitude that “my life is terrible, woe is me!” – that mindset needs to be taken off and got rid of. Instead, she needs to put on an attitude that reflects the glory of God. Despite her circumstances, she’s called to display God’s splendor and righteousness, even as she “looks toward the east,” expectantly watching for signs of her people’s return.
So we’re called to three things while we wait for God’s coming: we’re called to reflect His Splendor, live His Righteousness, and await His coming with Hopeful Expectation.
Superficially at least, we do a pretty darn good job of displaying splendor as we wait for December 25th. Christmas is nothing if not a splendidly beautiful celebration. We prepare by decorating our homes with the natural beauty of God’s greenery, and the created beauty of lights, and ornaments, beautifully wrapped packages, delicious food, carefully crafted music and entertainment, and well-planned gatherings of the people we love. It’s splendid and it’s glorious and it’s why everyone loves Christmas. Because we’re created in the image of God, our desire to create and live in a world filled with splendid and beautiful things is an expression of the God-image in us.
But…, the call to righteousness and the call to hopeful expectation of God’s return are often lacking in our Advent preparations. They’re certainly lacking out there in the world, but they can be lacking even in here….
So what do we do about that? How can we respond to this call to righteousness? The gospel reading from Luke shows the way. John the Baptist is “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness ‘prepare the way of the Lord.’” John’s job is to announce that the kingdom of God is near – the Messiah is coming – Jesus is coming! And as John makes his announcement, he tells the people how to respond.
John proclaims “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” That is how to prepare. That is how to put on the robe of righteousness. Repent. Be washed and purified and forgiven for your sins. When we sinners repent, God counts us among the righteous.
Repentance and forgiveness are how we “prepare the way of the Lord” in our hearts. The reading from Luke refers back to the words of the prophet Isaiah, and I love the imagery of this passage.
“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.”
Living in this world is hard on your heart. It gets wrinkled and pitted and bent out of shape; scarred, and warped, and abused. Poor heart! Between the abuse that’s inflicted on it from the outside, and the abuse we subject it to from within, our hearts are difficult terrain for Jesus to travel through, filled with highs and lows, crooked spots and rough patches. But when we prepare a way for the Lord - when we repent and are forgiven – we put on righteousness and our hearts are filled and restored, smoothed and repaired, made into a straight, level path for our Lord to travel.
In fact, the need to repent in order to prepare for the coming of Jesus is why Advent was originally a penitential season, much like Lent. That’s why the candles of our Advent wreath are purple, the color of penitence, and why some churches still use purple vestments and hangings during Advent. It’s important during this season of Advent that we repent and be forgiven in order to receive our coming Savior. That’s our call to righteousness.
And, conveniently, our reading from Philippians addresses the call to await God’s coming with Hopeful Expectation. With Christmas in our culture being what it is, it’s easy for our hopeful expectation to extend no further than the hope that Santa will bring that expensive iPhone or Wii console or diamond tennis bracelet, or that out-of-touch Aunt Gertrude won’t get you yet another “Dancing Santa” Christmas figure.
Paul’s words to the Christians in Philippi address a much larger hope and a much greater expectation than the trivial matter of what gifts will wind up under the Christmas tree. Paul says, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” And Paul’s prayer for these people is that “in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.”
Our hopeful expectation is that God will complete the good work he has started in our lives. And that He will complete it by the time Jesus Christ comes again. As we say in the Nicene Creed, Jesus “shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” We have to trust that God’s work in us will be completed by the time of Jesus’ second coming so that when we are judged, we will not be found lacking in righteousness. That is our very hope for salvation.
The question is, has God started a good work in you? If you’re here, it’s because God has drawn you here. But do you know Jesus? Have you accepted him as your Lord and Savior? Has knowing Christ changed your life? God has drawn us here to this community of Christians to hear his life-giving word, and to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. And if you’ve already accepted Jesus, then this is another chance to reaffirm that faith, to repent of the ongoing sins that plague us all, to marvel in the splendor of God’s presence.
The splendor and beauty of God that we reflect into the world with such abundance at this time of year, can only be fully enjoyed when we’re filled with the Hopeful Expectation of Jesus’ coming in glory, as our Savior – the one whose perfect Righteousness WE can receive when we confess Him as Lord -- when we repent and are forgiven.
Hey, guess what! Something wonderful is coming! JESUS is coming!
What are you going to do about it?
Amen
Thoughts and observations about life in the kingdom of God. I hope to feed your hungry soul!
