First Sunday in Advent, Year C

Donna G. Joy

 Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36

Each of our readings this morning speak of a God who offers new hope and new life in the midst of dark and troubling times. Our first reading, taken from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, takes place during Judah’s exile in Babylon along with the destruction of Jerusalem. This event marked the end of the royal throne in Jerusalem and the Temple as the dwelling place of the God of the Israelites – the place where the Israelite people believed God was present. The effect on the morale and spiritual life of the people was devastating. Understood as the dwelling place for God, the temple symbolized God’s presence with the people, which means of course, that the destruction of the temple indicated a sense of God’s abandonment.

So, the context of our passage this morning is Jeremiah’s announcement of a more hopeful future, a new covenant between God and the people; a covenant that would never be broken. Here Jeremiah brings a new message to the people: God is not confined to a particular place, but is always in the midst of the People of God. In chapter 33, Jeremiah predicts the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem and the coming of a righteous king from the line of David, a symbol of the future hopes of Judah.

The promises of this morning’s reading from Jeremiah proclaim that God has not abandoned the people. Here, in the midst of devastation, fear, extreme loss and grief, the Israelite people are reminded that God is with them and about to come to them in an even more intimate way. Indeed, this reading speaks of a God who offers new hope and new life in the midst of dark and troubling times. For Christians, this gift is discovered through the person and presence of Jesus. It is Jesus who has fulfilled Jeremiah’s expectation of this gift. And, it is Jesus who promises to fulfill this expectation in the future. 

As followers of Jesus, we live in a constant state of ‘in between’ times. We live with the reality of the ‘now’ (Jesus has come, and remains with us in the here and now), while at the same time, the ‘not yet’ (Jesus will come again at which time all things will be renewed and restored) Today, as we celebrate this First Sunday in Advent – we begin a whole season that focuses on that state of waiting: (1) waiting to celebrate the coming of his birth, (2) waiting and preparing for him to come to us in new and refreshing ways through scripture, worship, each other and the world in which we live, (3) waiting and preparing for his return.

The season of Advent is a time to prepare for the coming of Jesus who is always creating something new in the midst of that which is challenging and difficult. Contrary to the culture in which we live where we are expected to fill each of our needs quickly and fully, Christians have always lived out a type of deliberate/intentional emptiness – a kind of chosen non-fulfillment – a realization that perfection is always yet to come. Richard Rohr says that this keeps the field of life wide open and especially open to grace and to a future created by God.

So, with this in mind, we turn to our Gospel reading for this morning, where initially it seems that we’ve caught Jesus in a bit of a bad mood, but soon discover that he also offers a message of hope and new life in the midst of dark and troubling times. Of course, the pinnacle of this theology occurs with new life rising from the cross, which is the source of all the new life and possibilities for which we wait and prepare. In this passage Luke portrays Jesus as looking up into the sky and seeing storm clouds gather. There are signs, strange signs that suggest things are coming to an end. He says, “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.”

 Clearly, Jesus is naming some kind of terrible, perhaps terrifying, doom and gloom. This type of text is defined as apocalyptic: that is, talk about the end times. And, certainly many would say that we – in this moment in history – are living in apocalyptic times; times in which strange images haunt our consciousness. We live with images of endings, and destruction, and death. We seem to see heavens that shift into strange configurations, along with chaotic disturbances.

We can close our eyes and relive the image of airplanes colliding with the Twin Towers, taking the lives of so many people, injuring so many others, and leaving so many to grieve. We see images of destruction connected with the reality of Global Warming. We see the faces of innocent children suffering: in places such as Africa, children suffering from such devastating things as AIDS and malnutrition; in places such as Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Iraq (to name just a few), children (as well as women and men) suffering from the effects of war; young boys being brutally recruited as child soldiers; in this part of the world, all too often, children suffering sometimes from illness, sometimes from hunger, sometimes from soul destroying bullying, and suffering all-too-often from neglect. Throughout this past century we have seen the faces of young men and women going off to war, and the faces of their families and friends when they return home injured or dead. Again, in this part of the world, we see a growing dependence on addictions: alcohol, gambling, consumerism, name your poison . . . all in an attempt to fill an even deeper void. We see the fall-out from the economic crisis, along with the lifestyles from which it was created. We see images on the news of people suffering the effects of earthquakes and tsunamis. And in our own personal lives, we know within the silence of our own hearts our own agonies, anxieties and fears – and we ache for those in our families, in our circles of friends, and our communities who suffer. In our church, we worry about a church that is so very different from the church we knew in the 1950’s – a time when churches were full and budgets were balanced.

As we have heard in this morning’s gospel: These are signs in the sun, the moon and the stars. On earth the nations are in distress and confusion because of the roaring and swelling of the sea and its waves. People are fainting from fear (anxiety disorders have never been higher) and from imagining all that’s going to happen to the world. The powers of the heavens are shaken.  Indeed, we look to the heavens in our time and see that there are signs of strange, cataclysmic events. How can we honestly look up into the heavens and not feel that the old world is breaking apart?

So, in a sense, this apocalyptic, its bad-all-over biblical language is confirmed by the news headlines we see in our world and often enough within our own personal lives today. But the good news is that Jesus does not end with this message. Jesus says more than a simple, “Its bad all over and going to get worse.” He goes on to say, “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” We need to link the word “apocalyptic” with the word, “redemption” (that is, to be freed from distress through a reconnecting with God).

We tend to think of apocalyptic in exclusively negative terms. The world is coming apart at the seams, the heavens are turning ominous and dark, and this is very, very bad news. But Jesus speaks of this as a time when all the signs suggest that “your redemption is drawing near.” The sheer terror of the moment is a sign that God is about to break through. And that is good news.

So, in the midst of all the terror of our time, we look over the horizon toward the future and what we see is Jesus, the Son of Man, reigning supreme: that is, not just the end of the world as we once knew it, but a new beginning; not just death, but also birth. Christians can be honest, even pessimistic about the terrors of our world because, even as this world as we have known it may be somehow shifting, or even drifting away, God is preparing to break into this world in new and surprising ways.

As I have already mentioned, the culture in which we live teaches us to fill our lives with a false sense of ‘peace’ and ‘well-being’ and ‘happiness’ as a way of soothing the pain and anxieties that exist in our lives and our world – that is, after all, what addictions are all about. I read recently that North Americans spend several hundred million dollars a year on scented candles, frequently marketed as “spiritual” aids. This is precisely the sort of illusion about spiritual health that the church, in Advent, refuses to promote. This season is a time to look directly into the face of darkness (our own, our church, and the world in which we live) and discover the face of God shining through it. Jesus says that in the midst of these scary, chaotic times we are to lift up our heads high and discover that by the grace of God the worst of times can be the best of times, that an apocalyptic ending is also a redemptive beginning. We need not be so tied to this world, our church and our own lives as they currently exist, because this world, our church and our own lives are not yet fully what God intends. So, we wait – we prepare - for Christ to come – that is, Christ who was, and is, and still is yet to be.

May this Season of Advent be for each of us a time to search for the coming of Jesus in Scripture and worship. Jesus comes to us through Scripture and worship – just waiting to be discovered – just waiting to empower and inform the way in which we live and serve. Opportunities for worship throughout the Season of Advent occur at St. Peter’s on Sunday and Tuesday mornings, Tuesday evenings at 7:00 and each week on Thursday evenings at 6:30 there is an opportunity to walk the Labyrinth. (More information on all of this can be found on our web site.)

May this Season of Advent also be for each of us a time to search for ways in which Jesus may come into the lives of others through each of us. I don’t mean pounding the pavement in order to convert anyone. As followers of Jesus, we are part of God’s plan to offer comfort, relief and hope to a hurting and broken world. We are channels through which God breaks into the world and feeds the hungry, finds shelter for those who are without homes, visits those who are sick and lonely, loves the unlovable, forgives those who have sinned against us, offers hope to those who live in despair… For people living with the horror of apocalyptic times, God’s grace working through us may very well be a sign of redemption (that is, freedom from their distress).

There is a wonderful short story by Leo Tolstoy that often appears in animated form during the seasons of Advent and Christmas “Where Love Is, God Is” tells the story of a cobbler who wishes to see God and hears a voice in a dream tell him, “Look out into the street tomorrow, for I shall come.” As the next day draws to a close he is disappointed that Christ did not appear. Then a vision reveals to him that Christ was with him in the old man to whom he gave tea, the poor woman and her baby to whom he gave food and warmth, and the old women to whom he taught forgiveness.

During this Season of Advent, as we recall the past event of Jesus’ coming and look forward to his coming again – let us be ready to discover him in fresh new ways in Scripture, in worship, in each other and our neighbours beyond the realm of the church, offering new hope and new life in the midst of dark and troubling times.