ADVENT 1C - Zechariah 14:4-9; Psalm 50:1-6; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-31 -

3 December 2006 - A sermon preached by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

 

One Season At A Time

 

INTRODUCTION

 

I am no Scrooge. I like Christmastime.

 

I like seeing the lights on all the houses. I love the Christmas Eve services, and hearing again about the manger and the angels and shepherds, as we hear Luke 2:1-20 read once again. I love seeing how excited my children still get on Christmas Eve, and how they are about ready to bust a gut on Christmas morning. I even love when they come into our bedroom and wake Julia and me up, when I am still bleary-eyed from going to bed at 1 a.m. I love some of our Christmas traditions - listening to the Messiah, going over to our friends’ Roger and Sue’s house on Christmas Day afternoon, and how excited Sue is when I bring over some of our home-made Pepperkaca cookies.

 

But I have learned, in the past twenty years or so, to really enjoy Advent.

 

We have a tendency in our culture to want to get ahead of ourselves. We want to grow up too fast. We want to “hurry up and get to it.” The Christmas wrapping paper and gift ideas appear in some stores by September now. The Christmas songs on the radio start too soon and disappear on December 26.

 

It is as if a couple was to find out they were going to have a baby, and then the baby arrives the very next day. There may be time to get your house ready, inside and outside. There may be plenty of shopping days to find all the gifts you want to find for your loved ones. But those things don’t mean that we are really prepared for Christmas, if we don’t take time to get spiritually ready.

 

ADVENT - A season of spiritual preparation

 

Advent is a season for spiritual preparation. Coming on these four Sundays helps a great deal. Having to preach during Advent helps me to prepare for Christmas. The readings might surprise you. You may be led to think, especially on the first three Sundays of Advent, “These are our readings for today, when we are getting so close to Christmas?”

 

There is a two-pronged emphasis. One is known to most people, even most secular people. We are getting ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus. The second emphasis is quite different and missed by most people, even most Christians. We are called to think about the end of the world as we know it, and the Second Coming of Christ into our world. We hear some of that mysterious language today, from the Zechariah reading and from the lips of Jesus.

 

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars... 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.”

 

What does all this mean? I’ll tell you. I’m not sure!

 

Advent is a time of mystery, in the same way a woman pregnant for the first time enters into a profound time of mystery, in the same way that a person moving to a new part of the country or a new part of the world enters into a profound time of mystery.

 

We are invited, during these four weeks, to enter into that mystery.

 

Get your decorations put up, if you haven’t got that done already. Do it in the time frame that seems right to you.

 

Make your gifts or do your shopping for those whom you love - by all means.

 

Go to the Christmas parties that you want to go to, or even host one at your own home if you feel led to do so, inviting others to celebrate the season with you.

 

Observe those traditions that have become important to you over the years. Bake those Christmas cookies. See “The Nutcracker” or “A Christmas Carol”. Listen to your favorite Christmas albums. Go take a sleigh ride or find a place where you can skate outside. Do anything you can to surprise your children on Christmas morning.

 

Do all those things. Those are all great things to do.

 

OBSERVE ADVENT

 

My advice to you is that you also make the time to observe Advent. It is the same idea as preparing for Easter by observing Lent. Prepare for Christmas by observing Advent.

 

Come on these four Sundays. Meditate on the lessons, entering into the mystery, and avoiding the temptation to over-analyze and oversimplify what you hear. Sing the Advent hymns. Contemplate what it means to sing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”. Do whatever those things are that will foster a deeper connection with God, with others, and with yourself.

 

Consider getting up at 5 a.m. and staring at your Christmas tree or going for a walk and enjoying the light of the moon on the snow.

 

Consider whether or not cooking and serving food at the Shelter on December 24 might not be one of the more profound things you could do on Christmas Eve. And if you decide to do it, come hear the Christmas story again at 10:30 on Christmas Eve, and see if it strikes you differently.

 

Find some things to do that you know will slow you down over the next 21 days.

 

Pick up an Advent devotional in the narthex, or an old one that you have saved, and use that for your daily devotional time.

 

Go for long walks - several times a week - with a loved one or your dog, or by yourself. Even if you go by yourself, you won’t be alone.

 

Take time out at the end of each day to think about where God showed up in your day, and spend a few minutes giving thanks and praise to God before you go to sleep.

 

Get yourself a copy of Handel’s Messiah and listen to your favorite choruses while all the lights except your Christmas lights are turned off.

 

In all the hustle and bustle, take time over the next three weeks to light an Advent wreath with your family. Take some time to think about what things were like for Mary and Joseph 2,000 years ago. Think about the angels appearing to the shepherds. Think about Elizabeth getting pregnant for the first time when she had given up hope of that ever happening, and of a disbelieving Zechariah being struck mute for the entire nine months of her pregnancy. Think of what Elizabeth and Zechariah learned of God during that time. Think, even if it is just for a few minutes, of what the Second Coming of Jesus might mean for you.

 

CONCLUSION

 

Enjoy your parties, your friends, your loved ones, your traditions, your traveling - all of it. But do the spiritual preparation for Christmas, too. Do whatever you can to remember that “for everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven,” (Ecclesiastes 3:1) and that God has a purpose for you observing this season of Advent.

 

May it be a holy and mysterious and loving and joyful and life-giving time, a time filled with expectancy and surprises, a time where God shows up to you in ways that you have never experienced God showing up before.

 

‘Tis the season, yes. As you prepare for Christmas, have a blessed Advent.