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| Advent brings blue. |
A Advent 1 – December 1, 2013
Texts: Matthew 24:36-44
Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas
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Happy New Year! As I’ve noted the
last couple of weeks - today, we begin a new church year – we are entering into
what is known as Year A. This church calendar is followed by churches of many
denominations all over the world, and so it is one way in which we are
connected to other Christians. For this next year, we will remember the birth,
life, death, and resurrection of Christ mostly from the perspective of the
Gospel of Matthew.
The season of Advent is made up of
the four weeks leading us to Christmas. Advent is a season of marking time – we
light more candles each week – some of us have Advent calendars – even in the
making of our Jesse Tree ornaments – we mark time through this month until the
celebration of Christmas and remembering the birth of Christ, our Lord.
The hymn we will sing each week as
we light our Advent wreath is the ancient hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” –
“Emmanuel” being the Hebrew word for “God with us.” We will sing this hymn
again and again in Advent to help us remember that Christ has come to earth once,
and to remind us that he will come again. Advent, then, invites us to
preparation – to making ourselves ready through our faithfulness and our hope.
Last spring, I preached about some
birds that had built a nest in one of our hanging plants on our back porch. In
thinking about this Advent idea of preparation, I was thinking about the work
that goes into preparing a nest – these birds know what they’re doing as they
weave twigs together, incorporating other materials as needed.
One of the things I found in this
particular nest was a single, beautiful bright blue thread woven throughout the
nest – woven between the twigs like a decorative element. I’ve thought about
that nest many times this past week, and about the bright blue thread. If the
nest is like our daily lives – made up of many pieces, each piece with a
purpose – then what does that bright blue thread represent?
To me, it is the weaving of
faithful living into each day – the constant remembering that as Christian
people, Christ goes with us always, winding around with us, even when things
get tangled or messy.
“There is so much that can distract
us from the life of faith, from service to neighbor, from recognizing God in
our midst.”[1] We
live in a time of great distraction, and the distractions only seem to increase
this month as we plunge headlong into our holiday schedules. What shopping do I
need to do? What cookies do I need to bake? Who’s coming for dinner? Where did
I hide that Christmas present I bought in July?
And just where on earth is Jesus
supposed to fit into all this, anyway?
The good news is that Jesus is
already there. He’s in the crowded mall, he’s with the grumpy sales clerk, he’s
in the upturned faces of children looking around at colorful lights and big
candy canes and all the stuff crammed onto shelves. He’s in all these places,
and so many more, because he is with us.
And then we are what Luther called the “little Christs,” out in the world: in
our workplaces, our schools, our shopping, our driving and walking, our
conversations with neighbors and our emails to friends. Emmanuel – God is with
us.
And yet Advent is also a season in
which we look forward to the return of Christ at an unexpected hour. As I said
a couple of weeks ago: we don’t know when. In spite of all those who would try
to give us a date, we don’t know when.
All the more reason for us to live
our lives with that thread of faithfulness woven throughout. Those birds that
make their nests – they don’t wait until the last minute to cram some twigs
together. They work faithfully hour upon hour, day after day until the nest is
complete. Jesus says in today’s gospel lesson that we, too, should be ready.
What does it look like for us to
“be ready”? I don’t believe it looks like perfect behavior 100% of the time –
remember, those birds nests are sometimes quite messy and tangled – and so are
our lives. But if faithfulness is wound throughout our lives, then also is
hope.
Martin Luther said this about hope:
“Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.”
Think about that. Everything we do,
we do by hope. We water our lawns with the hope that they will live. We
lovingly raise our children with the hope that they will themselves be loving.
We work, we eat and drink, we care for others, we offer prayers – all of these
things, done in hope.
I would say that one of the biggest
enemies of hope is fear. If hope sets our hearts soaring, then fear makes our
hearts crash into the ground. If hope lights a candle for us, then fear marches
up to that candle and blows it out. We may do everything with hope, as Luther
said, but right as our hopeful tasks are done, there stands fear, ready to
unwork the hopeful work we have just completed.
But we are not called to live our
lives in fear. We are not called to live our lives in fear.
Let me ask you to think for a
second or two about what your fears are – what are they?
And then think about your fears in
this way – where can hope be found, instead of fear? If you fear the darkness,
where can hope light the way? If you fear the unknown, where can hope offer
guidance? Going forward from today – not just in this service, in this room, in
this building, but going forward – when you think about your fears, then weave
hope around them – and then remember
that we are called to live lives of hope.
Welcome to the season of Advent –
the season that will constantly set hope before us – will constantly call us to
remember that Jesus Christ is our great hope – “in him, we live and move and
have our being.”[2]
Amen.
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