Today at OPC we rang in the (liturgical) new year by observing the first Sunday of Advent, and I praught the sermon. Read below, if it suits your fancy! Shout out to Mom and Dad who came to Decatur for the occasion, and fed me lots of good food while they were here. :)
For more Advent reflections from members of the OPC family, keep an eye on the OPC blog. There you'll find new posts each day during the season (these are the electronic versions of a paper devotional book put together by some lovely church members).
Sidenote: This sermon will make a lot more sense if you read the Scripture for the day first. Crack open a Bible (or click this handy dandy link) to Matthew 24: 36-44.
Love,
Allison.
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| OPC's Advent worship series |
The Waiting Game
We wait...for all sorts of things. We wait for the arrival of visitors. We wait for new babies to be born. We wait in Atlanta traffic. We wait for water to boil and grass to grow. We wait on car repairs, loads of laundry, and grades to be returned. We wait to hear back about job offers. We wait to hear if a sick or injured loved one will be okay. We wait for wedding dates, and changes of seasons.
For many of these events we prepare and prepare. We cook, we fill up the gas tank, we visit the doctor and load up the washing machine. We fill out applications, we study, and we move the cold weather clothes from the back of the closet to the front. We do all the preparations we can but, for many of these things, after that it’s just a waiting game.
We are waiting, here. The changed color of the fabric around our sanctuary even signals that something is different! Something is coming! Maybe the sales and decorations that have inundated just about every store out there are trying to tell us it’s already Christmas. But there is still waiting to do. It’s not here yet.
The part of Matthew that we heard this morning comes toward the end of this Gospel, some time after the birth stories we’re used to hearing around this time of year, It also comes after many of the accounts of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Only a few chapters remain after this text before Matthew’s account of Jesus’ death and resurrection. So why are we reading it now? With this talk about waiting it seems like we’re maybe getting a little ahead of ourselves, to be thinking about a passage that describes something in the later part of Jesus’ ministry. After all...according to the church calendar Jesus hasn’t even been born yet!
But (maybe much to our dismay) waiting is not a one time thing. We have waited in the past, we will wait in the future. We wait right now. This first Sunday of Advent we begin the annual season in which we wait, to celebrate Jesus’ birth. And our text for this morning reminds us that Jesus’ birth was and will be about a whole lot more than a newborn baby in a manger.
Waiting for Jesus to be born means waiting for everything that Christ came to do.
There’s a lot of talk about what will be, in this morning’s words from Matthew. “So will be the coming of the Son of Man.” “Two will be in the field.” “One will be taken.” The present tense verbs, on the other hand, are few, and their message is relatively simple. “You do know know.” “Be ready.”
We don’t know when Jesus will return. No one does, according to Matthew, except for God -- “neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son.” So we wait.
And of course, it would be awfully hard for Jesus to return, if he hadn’t been born in the first place. Advent matters. We know the date on which we will celebrate Jesus’ birth. And many of us, I would imagine, have already begun preparations and decorations for that occasion. I would also imagine, though, that Advent contained a great deal of uncertainty for the people who experienced it the first time around.
Mary, having been visited by an angel, knew she was carrying a precious and important child. She was told this child would go on to rule an everlasting kingdom. But she still had to wait. For nine-ish months, we might guess, Mary waited for Jesus to be born. She had to wait for room in the inn -- which turned out to be room in a stable. Mary and Joseph in all likelihood had to wait through the judgement of others -- those that would have questioned Mary’s pregnancy since she and Joseph were not yet married. They had to wait for Jesus to grow up and grow into his role as the Messiah. (After all, Jesus was a young adult before he began the bulk of what we read about earthly ministry.) Mary and Joseph and Jesus’ followers had to wait while he was hanging on the cross, and they had to wait for his resurrection. And according to Matthew we must wait for Christ’s return.
To experience each of these moments in Jesus’ life must have involved an incredible amount of uncertainty. I would venture a guess that the words of certain uncertainty we find in Matthew fit well into much of Christ’s journey on earth. “You do not know.”
The trick here, I think, is to become comfortable not knowing. To be okay waiting. Author Barbara Brown Taylor has a book coming out next year called Learning to Walk In the Dark, and I had the good fortune to hear her speak on the topic earlier this Fall over at Emory. She didn’t so much address the dark as specifically tragic events in life, but more so the times when we just aren’t sure what’s next. The times when, maybe, you can see a hand a couple inches in front of your face, but not much further than that. In that space we need to learn to be more comfortable. It’s no easy task, but instead of rushing to find the nearest flashlight, maybe it could do us some good to be okay taking a few deep breaths in the dark. After all, to Abraham, stars were a sign from God of his many descendants, and to the Magi a star was the compass by which they found Jesus. You can’t see stars unless you stand still in the dark and take a second to look up.
Waiting is not an unusual thing in Jesus’ story. But Advent is when it all starts. Advent is the waiting game. The one that sets in to motion all of the other waiting games to come. And I want to make sure to mention that I don’t use the expression “it’s a waiting game” to trivialize these events, at all. I use it because games require action.
Here’s the thing. Waiting, especially in this case, is not the same thing as sitting still. In this morning’s text Jesus paints a picture of what it might be like when he returns. During this waiting for Jesus’ coming, there are workers in the field and women grinding meal. The idea isn’t, I don’t think, to say “you don’t know when Jesus is coming, so sit still and wait.”
Uncertainty abounds, but as Matthew says: “you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” So more likely it’s “You don’t know. Wait. But be ready.”
So what does it mean to take part in this active waiting? What does it mean to be ready. It might be easier to first guess what being ready is not.
I saw a picture of a bumper sticker once that read “Jesus is coming! Look busy!” I suspect this phrase was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but either way I don’t think simply busy work is quite what this waiting should be. I’m also pretty sure that it doesn’t involve rushing straight on to Christmas.
What I think waiting is is making time to sit in the dark. Maybe not always the darkness of painful experiences, although those are very much a reality for some, but the also sitting in the darkness of uncertainty. Because it is in this darkness that we’ll eventually see the star of Christ, lighting the way. While we wait in the dark we can be watchful, always looking.
And while we wait, we will prepare.
Some of you who come to Sunday school may remember a few weeks ago, when we talked about the Passover and the Israelites’ subsequent Exodus from Egypt. In case you’ve forgotten, and those of you who weren’t there, we talked and read about the time leading up to the Exodus -- the time the Israelites spent waiting, and preparing, to leave Egypt. The Israelites received instructions on how to protect their families during what we now call the Passover -- by spreading sheeps’ blood on their doorposts, the angel of Lord would know to go past their houses. They also received instructions on how to eat the Seder meal that is still observed by many Jewish communities. Here’s part of these instructions, in the Lord’s words to Moses: “This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. This is the passover of the Lord.” Sandals on feet and staffs in hands -- they’re supposed to be ready to go. Although the Israelites were waiting -- for the angel of the Lord to pass, for their eventual journey out of Egypt -- there were things they needed to do to get ready. To be ready, at a moment’s notice. I don’t think many people would sit around with shoes on and a walking stick in hand, if they weren’t expecting something to happen.
Friends, something is about to happen. Now Advent is not the Exodus. Our waiting to celebrate the birth of Jesus is not the same as a people preparing to leave captivity and a country they had called home for quite some time. However, we too, like the Israelites, are called to be watchful and ready.
This season of Advent that we enter today requires some preparation. Waiting requires some preparation. And so we light candles and we will hang greens. Probably most of us will prepare our living spaces in addition to our worship spaces. And through this preparation our waiting can, in turn prepare our hearts for the celebration of the birth of our Lord.
Waiting is confusing. Waiting is intriguing and exciting and frustrating. Waiting is hard. Waiting is holy.
Advent is bigger than four weeks in December. Advent is more than lighting candles and hanging greens.
Waiting for Jesus to be born means waiting for everything that Christ came to do.
So as we enter this season of preparation, let us remember to be awake, to be watchful, and to be ready.
Amen.
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