November 29, 2009 - Advent 1, Year C (RCL)
Yesterday
I saw my first Christmas trees of the season.
The first real ones, anyway -
I know there have been artificial ones in the stores for weeks, if not months,
but yesterday I drove past them in the tree lot outside
Sts. Philip and James and at the farm stand on Landing Avenue,
and later on saw the first one tied on the top of a car
heading past the church towards Stony Brook.
Those first Christmas trees
suddenly made Christmas
seem a whole lot nearer,
and I began to worry about whether I’m going to get my international cards done in time,
and that fact that the sweater I’m knitting my nephew for Christmas sweater
is only 2 inches long so far,
and I haven’t even thought about what to get for my parents.
Until yesterday, I’d been thinking of Chirstmas
as something far in the future;
suddenly
it’s coming all too soon.
But not quite yet. Not here at church, anyway.
One of the peculiarities of being an Episcopalian,
or for that matter, a Roman Catholic, or Lutheran,
or any other of the denominations
that follow the ancient church year
is that this weekend
marks not the beginning of the Christmas season
but the beginning of Advent,
the beginning of the season
when we prepare for the coming of Christ.
And what that coming is
we get our first glimpse of
in today’s readings.
And they are about as far from Christmas
as we can imagine, especially
the gospel.
Jesus said,
“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Redemption
is drawing near.
As Christians, when we hear the language of redemption,
we tend to immediately think
of Jesus, who we’ve been taught is our redeemer.
And because we’ve been well taught,
at this time of year,
the Jesus we think of
is Jesus in the manger,
the tiny baby
whose birth was foretold by an angel,
the one who is “God with us.”
But the redemption of our gospel today
is not redemption
as we traditionally think of it at Christmas.
No Christmas trees, no or decorations or shopping,
not even a shining star and angels,
because the redemption that draws near
is not simply
the redemption of
a baby in a manger.
So if it’s not the redemption
of Jesus as a baby,
it must be
the redemption of Easter.
That’s the next great Jesus story,
and we know
that on the cross
Jesus rescued us from the consequences of sin
and in his resurrection
made certain the resurrection
of us all.
And his death was probably on his mind
when Jesus originally spoke these words reported by Luke.
He was in Jerusalem;
he’d entered in triumph just a couple of days earlier,
riding on a colt and acclaimed by the people as king;
he’d been teaching in the temple
and had carefully countered
the questions that the religious leaders threw at him to trap him,
but there was nothing he could do
about their whispered conversations
and his increasing certainty
that they were plotting his death.
But no, not even this
is the redemption that Jesus
us talking about.
Not on the cross,
not even in resurrection.
The redemption
that Jesus is talking about
is the redemption that comes
at the end of time.
It’s not something we Episcopalians
talk about too often,
in case we’re misunderstood to be fundamentalists
or pentecostals
or even old fashioned hellfire and brimstone Catholics.
Most of us would rather do without that,
settling for a kind of nebulous idea of heaven
that comes quietly and peacefully in death.
Which is why we need to hear
these words of Jesus in the gospel of Luke.
“People... will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Jesus is talking about a time that is to come, a time beyond all time
when he will return again,
return not as a baby,
or even as crucified and risen savior,
but as redeemer and judge
of all the world.
It is a time that will come not quietly,
with a gentle breeze, but with a roar like the wind yesterday morning, it will come
like a tsunami, it will come
like an earthquake, it will come
and nobody
will be able to miss it.
Christ will come
with power and glory, Christ will come
to judge the earth.
There will be judgement.
there will be judgement,
and we’re not exactly sure
what it will be like
except that all wrongs will be righted
and evil dealt with;
justice
will be done.
It’s actually
kind of frightening.
Because I don’t know about you,
but I’m not sure
that I want to know
that sort of Jesus.
I definitely don’t want to face
that sort of judge.
Because if the judge is fair
then I’m going to be
convicted.
Not because I’m particularly bad;
I don’t think I’m any worse than anyone else,
but nor can I pretend
that I’m any better.
I deal with the same things as most people do:
I get angry, and envious, and think nasty thoughts,
and occasionally tell a kind of grayish white lie,
and I’m sure that I’ve probably taken something that wasn’t mine
once or twice in my life,
and I certainly disobeyed my parents on occasions as a teenager,
and I know
that I don’t honor God
as much as I should.
I’m not innocent.
If the judge is fair,
I’ll be condemned.
So I’d really rather not know
this redemption,
I’d rather not know
this redeemer,
I’d rather not know
this Jesus.
Which is probably why
I need to hear these words of Jesus today.
It’s so easy to treat the story of Jesus
as if it’s a loaf of bread,
breaking up the story into edible pieces,
swallowing those that are easy to digest
and leaving the others
behind on the plate.
To swallow the story
of the baby in the manger,
and even the man on the cross,
and the one risen from the tomb,
and push to the side
the one about the judge.
But I need to be reminded
that our Saviour will come
to be our judge.
To reminded
that I need to take him seriously.
To be reminded...
to be reminded
that he is indeed my savior
and that nothing stands between me and his judgement,
nothing
except Jesus himself.
Jesus the judge
who will also stand
to defend me,
defend me, not because of anything I’ve done, right or wrong,
not because I’ve done anything to deserve it,
but simply because he is gracious,
because he has taken
my sin on himself,
because the only hope I have
is to trust in him.
And the advice Jesus gives, the advice he gives
for times like these,
when it’s so easy to be overwhelmed,
perhaps not just by wind and tsunamis and earthquakes
but by the events that dominate our lives,
the tensions in our families,
struggles in our finances,
our own personal griefs and sorrows,
it’s so easy to be overwhelmed.
But we are to be on guard,
to be careful,
to pay attention,
so that these things
don’t swallow us up
and lead us to forget
that our redeemer
is coming.
Our redeemer,
the one come to rescue us,
to judge us
and defend us,
and ultimately
to declare us
not guilty.
Advent
is a time to wait,
to stand watchful,
to pay attention,
not trying to escape reality
but keeping our eyes fixed on the true reality
that is to come.
Because the Christ child
will not always stay a baby.
There is always more to Christmas
for us Christians
than a manger;
we celebrate
the one who has come
and who is with us
and who will come,
and we live
waiting
for his coming.
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2009