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Well, friends, it seems like we’ve just pushed our chairs away from the Thanksgiving table, just finished up the last sliver of pumpkin pie or spoonful of stuffing - maybe even for breakfast this morning! – and we’re plunged directly into Advent. We’ve begun a new season in the church – in fact, we’ve begun a new liturgical year – and entered into the familiar rituals and words that mark this season of waiting. The first candle on the Advent wreath is lit. We have lifted our voices in the ancient refrain: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” And have been moved by Melody’s singing of those same words: Rescue us, O God-with-us, take back our lives and hearts captured by the world’s values and the world’s ever present noise and busyness. Whether we are ready or not, Advent has arrived. Advent, from the Latin meaning “coming,” is now upon us – But there’s more than one coming in this season – There are three. First, we recall and remember the birth of Jesus of Nazareth some 2000 years ago. Jesus, Emmanuel, The Word become flesh and moved into into the neighborhood of human history. Second, Advent is the coming of the presence of God recognized in the here and now, in our daily living and sacred Scripture, and as a gathered community and in the sacraments we share. Finally, we consider the Second coming of Christ, just as Jesus promised, coming in glory and power. These three comings – past, present, and future – are lived together, as Joan Chittister writes, “one long sigh of the soul.” Advent touches the place where God lives in us, asking us to breathe, to sigh, to let go. This season invites us to pause and enter its themes, its rituals, its waiting – Not just again, but anew. Last weekend on her radio show, Speaking of Faith, Krista Tippet interviewed neuroscientist and educator Adele Diamond. Krista and Adele talked about various ways that children learn, The various ways children are taught, And the ways that the science of the brain can invite both new ways of learning and teaching. Diamond told of a young child who gave who always wrote the number 6 the wrong way, With the loop going to the left instead of the right. A traditional way of approaching this problem is to have the student write the number 6 a series of times with the correct form. However, when she went to do her homework, The young girl wrote the “6” with that loop going backward. Using some neuroscientific research, Adele invited the student to try something else: Every time you need to write a 6, She told the young girl, Put down your pencil and pick up a red pen. Then write the numeral 6. It seemed that the pause, The release of one writing implement and the grasping of another is just enough time and change for the brain to remember and to enable the student to write the number 6 with the loop going to the right. Friends, Advent is our pause, a moment of living between Thanksgiving and Christmas, when we stop and reflect. Advent is a time when we are invited to put down one way of living and worshipping and pick up another way so that we might remember that our God has come to us, our God is coming to us, and our God will come once again. It is in this pause that we hear Jesus speak in the lesson from Luke. If we came to church this morning anticipating a story of the coming of Jesus in gentle birth of a child - meek and mild – lying in a manger, then we’ve had a surprise, haven’t we? Instead, we hear the words of the adult Jesus, The adult, on-his-way-to-the-cross-Jesus, speaking in stark and startling language. Jesus’ language is apocalyptic and eschatological. Do you know how long it took me to learn to say those words? But here is what they mean: Jesus is talking about the end times, the eschaton, when he come back to reconcile all things in heaven and on earth. His apocalyptic language is the kind of language, Pastor Kate Huey says, that people speak when things are going especially bad, when folks feel persecuted and small. That was true for the people to whom Jesus spoke and for whom Luke penned his gospel. Apocalyptic language expresses hope – hope for deliverance from their situation, and hope and trust in God who is really in charge of everything. God is ready to enter the stage of human history, And so the imagery is large and dramatic: Seas will roar, waves will tumble, And the powers of heavens will shake. For the kingdom of God is at hand, And redemption is drawing near. This lesson from Luke clearly is about the third type of coming that we remember in Advent. Yet, just as Joan Chittister says, The three comings of Advent are woven together, are lived together, And so Jesus’ words also hold an invitation about how we live in the present moment: Be alert, he says. Be ready! Look for the signs of the kingdom! Stand tall and raise your heads! Raise your heads! Friends, many of us will go into the next four weeks in a kind of daze, with our heads down. We’re concentrating on what’s in front of us, And there seems to be so much in front of us! We need to keep our heads down because we’re busy making lists – and checking them twice! We’re writing cards, And baking and finding the perfect gift – And then wrapping it! And maybe even reading Scripture and composing sermons! But our heads are bent over. And if holiday preparations weren’t enough to change our posture this time of the year, Then other things certainly might: Financial worries and woes, Health concerns – for ourselves and for our country, Grief over the loss of a loved one, The war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and children living in poverty in our own community and in greater numbers just a few miles up the road. So, by the time Christmas comes Our heads are bent over, And maybe our shoulders, our spirits, even our whole bodies are bent over – exhausted, distressed, and it feels like we’ve missed something essential to this season. Into this reality – Into our reality – Jesus invites us to change our posture: Raise your heads! Raise your heads for the kingdom of God is near. And when we raise our heads, We discover that things do look a bit different, don’t they? Right here in our sanctuary, there are blue paraments on the pulpit and on the table – blue like the coming of the dawn. The candles and the cross on the table are moved slightly off the center, a reminder that our theological geography changes in Advent. We are invited to find Jesus in a different way and in a different place. And if we raise our heads a little higher, we’ll discover stars in our midst, stars made that can light our way during this season, stars that guide us in the way of hope. Hope, says one famous theologian, is the divine power that makes us alive in the world ! Sisters and brothers, We can raise our heads confidently because God has been faithful to us. We can raise our heads because God has promised us that we will not be left alone. We can raise our heads because God has promised us that justice and joy, Peace and love are on the way. How else can we glimpse these moments of grace unless we raise our heads? Raising our heads shifts our focus doesn’t it? We discover that all those things that garner our worry and attention with our heads down aren’t maybe so important after all. Raising our heads allows us to see – to really see – The faces of our families and friends, The people we live with and work with and worship with. With our heads raised, We can see the kingdom of God in the wonder and joy in the eyes of a child, the strength and wisdom in the eyes of the elders, and the curiosity and commitment in others. When we raise our heads, we see stars in the depth of darkness, the sun shining against a clear blue sky, and know that all of God’s creation is a gift to us. And when we raise our heads, We can see new possibilities for sharing our compassion, To know when and where and how we can be of service to others. Friends, May we live these Advent days with our hearts and our hopes and our heads raised high, walking tall to see anew. For the dawn is coming, Redemption is drawing near. And soon – one day very soon – we shall see the Son of Man, Emmanuel in our midst. Amen and amen. |