Sermon for the
First Sunday of Advent
December 2, 2007
Isaiah 2:1–5
Psalm 122
Romans 13:11–14
Matthew 24:36–44
Year A
I.N.I. (In the name of Jesus)
Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!
Welcome to Advent, a season worth keeping. With me [left hand on chest, right hand up], promise that you will do what you can to quell the clatter from TV Specials like Shrek the Halls, and temper the flat-out shopping spree at the mall and on the web. Do what you can to eliminate any obligations that really don’t help make room for the light of God. When you are here, with me [left hand on chest, right hand up] promise that you will find space and time to breathe, to quiet yourselves, and to pray, watch, and wait in hope. Be attentive to the ways we look for the coming of Christ.
When I was a young cosmopolitan living in Minneapolis, within miles of downtown and the IDS Building where I worked nights as a night operator and proof reader for a law firm, I rode the bus everywhere.
I took it to school, hopping on near my apartment at Third Avenue, then transferring downtown, passing by the University of Minnesota into St. Paul, and disembarking at Como Avenue.
Now when you first try mass transit, it’s a bit of a challenge and you have to watch what you’re doing. But once you’ve gotten the hang of it, it becomes mundane, and the scenery around you becomes muted. In my case, on the red city busses in the Twin Cities, while riders got on and off, I was immersed in the finer points of theological education.
So, one day I’m blithely swaying to the turns of bus route while puzzling through Christology, then occasionally glance up at the oncoming passengers. As the bus made its way merrily toward the next stop, one oncoming patron, a bearded and spectacled man made his way to the back to stand and hold the rail. Somehow, my eyes were drawn to his body suddenly making jerking movements, with his eyes rolling toward the back of his head. No longer was I simply a commuter on my way to school passing the time, now time was of the essence to get someone medical attention. I got the ear of the driver and soon the attention of others on the bus, while EMT’s were summoned. In their assessment of the trauma on mass transit, the man I noticed in distress now stopped his movement, and was covered with sweat. He was told he just had a grand mal seizure!
In that ride on the bus, what was an everyday experience became an urgent time to pay attention.
This is what God’s holy Word announces to us who have entered this season of watching and waiting. We are invited, cajoled, and urged us to live on our tiptoes and to pay attention to what God is doing in the world!
As I wrote in December’s Clarion newsletter, Isaiah is the poet laureate of all the prophets. As soon as the words from Isaiah spill out, it is as if I am pulled out of my life which was previously before set on cruise control, and redirected instead to something fantastic, today to the emerging and ascending holy city of Jerusalem, the paradigm for peace.
In the message from Isaiah, it is as if not just a cadre of leaders but the entire population of the earth inhabitants is invited to a peace summit. Any pessimism that has been expressed about Israeli settlements or festering poverty in Gaza is put on a shelf, any whiff of violence between Palestinians and Israelis is snuffed out, and in their place is a breath of fresh air. Not Secretary Rice, nor the Arab League, nor the United Nations, God will be arbiter and mediator. Land will no longer be fought for, but tilled and kept, and shared.
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.”
“Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.”
Oh, that it would be so. Wouldn’t a new Jerusalem be grand? Can we include this vision in our watching and waiting?
There and here, in our own city, wherever we live, Advent is offered as a time that is ripe, expecting, hopeful. It is a time to be grounded in Christ’s coming. It is a time to be awake, eyes wide open, a time Paul says to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The attention brought in Jesus’ words to his disciples about twin peasants going about their work while one is taken does not describe what erroneously is called the rapture. There is no biblical warrant for being snatched up and leaving poor slobs behind, like the bumper sticker “if I’m not in my car, I’ve been raptured.” Jesus’ description of the day that is coming where no one knows is however intended to get our attention just like the man who seized on the bus got mine.
We are not to be lulled into the grind of everyday life, or the craziness of this season, but instead to seek God in all things. Yes, in time God will take our cares and our woes. Yes, in time God will lift us out of despair and grief.
Yet the invitation is not to bless apathy as if all things will work out in the end. The invitation is to taste the here and now as a place and a time for God to take hold and root and break apart whatever keeps us fearful or hateful.
Will you come to our little mountain and put aside whatever troubles you? Will you open your eyes while you open your hands and mouth to receive the Christ who, broken in bread and poured out in wine, is offered to forgive your sins and becomes a new thing in you? Will you be open to how Christ can be offered to others, as you put on the Lord Christ and share the hope that is in you?
Welcome to Advent, where the unexpected is expected, and our deepest longings and desires are expressed, and in the end, in the fullness of time, [left hand on chest, right up], we are met by God.
Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus.
I.N.I.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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