Advent's Invitation Zechariah 14:4-9, 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13, Luke 21:25-31 November 30, 2003, Year C 1st Advent The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi It's been at least a month since I have seen hummingbirds hovering around our feeder. Recently during Diane and my morning walk, a flock of Canadian geese passed overhead on their way to a warmer climate. Our trees almost bare have buried our yard with a four inch leaf deposit that will feed next spring's new growth. Thanksgiving has come and gone, as has another dismal football season. Store fronts are brightly decorated with Christmas decorations. These changes of nature and our cultural activities along with our readings today all serve as signs that we are in the most ignored, the most misunderstood, the most avoided season of our Church year: Advent and its keen sense of expectation - expectation for the first and second coming of Jesus. How is it that we lose this first season of our Church year? It gets ignored in the secular rush of commercialism, having just a glimpse of Thanksgiving between the marketing blitz of Halloween which is really just a warm-up for the Holy Grail of each year's marketing extravaganza: Christmas, the annual event that determines which manufacturers and retailers survive and which disappear into oblivion. We misunderstand Advent as concerning the coming of Christmas and the celebration of the birth of the infant Jesus. But the season of Advent invites Christians not only to look forward to Christmas, but also to awaken in each soul and each Christian community the seed of hope that longs for God's redemption of the world. It is a time of expectation, of looking forward to the ultimate triumph of God, when God will redeem all creation and make all things new. And so, it is this we ignore - ignore it because we Episcopalians see ourselves above those riding around with bumper stickers that read, "When the rapture comes, this vehicle will be empty." We don't want to be mistaken for one of those raving fundamentalistic millennialists who obsess about the end of the world. We also avoid it because it creates anxiety by forcing us to look at the end of the world as we know it and at our mortality. We prefer instead to rush to get all our shopping done by December 25 and to limit our spiritual insights to images of gathering around the manger with Mary and Joseph to gaze upon the meek, gentle, infant Jesus. However, our faith will not let us off so easy. Consider what we say each week as we gather: From the Nicene Creed: He (Jesus) will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end." and from the eucharistic blessing: "Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again." Are these just words; do we mean what we say; or do we even know what we say? We whisper our prayers for the kingdom so that God can't quite hear them. "Thy kingdom come," we pray, and hope it won't. "Thy kingdom come," we pray, "but not right away." We live in the already and the not yet - the time between Jesus' birth as an infant and his second coming. What Christianity offers us that nothing else can - not other religions, not the ways of the world - is that anxiety and anticipation go hand in hand. The Gospels do not promise us life without pain or anxiety. The Good News we celebrate is not certainty but sure and certain hope in the face of anxiety. When the world we have created falls apart, when the gods we have allowed to control our lives fail, when all seems unknown, chaotic, and devastating, Advent promises us that there is still light at the end of the dark tunnel that sometimes engulfs us. Advent offers an opportunity to become more fully aware of this time of the already and the not yet; an opportunity to stop pretending that everything is just fine within our hearts, that we are believers with open souls and no problems; an opportunity to live as people who expect God to be near, and to anticipate God is doing something new in our lives. Advent invites us to see the worries in our lives as possibilities. We are to look anew on the people and situations that trouble us as signs of God's near and living presence, to look at the dark skies and the dark places as moments of waiting and anticipating God's nearness. Advent is an invitation to make room in the inn of your soul, to allow the nearness of God to break through your anxieties, through your distractions of out-of-control destructive work, spending habits, alcohol consumption, depression, television escapism, or whatever your avoidance mechanism may be. Advent reminds us that when our own life is sweet, we can look around the world to lives that aren't sweet, and we can raise our heads and our hopes for those lives. We can weep with those who weep and hope with those who hope. We can look across the world, and across the room, and across the pew. Advent reminds us that painful relationships can be made whole, not by our will or power, but by God's. For it is God who chooses, through Christ, to draw near to us. This means that you and I can look anew at the painful situations and offer them to God because God has promised to be near, and these situations might indeed be a moment of redemption, a moment when we will be made whole. Advent can either be a blur of commercial extravagance and religious activities or a restorative pause. We can either busy ourselves with preparations, or we can devote ourselves to taking a broad view of the promise of Messiah fulfilled through the birth of Christ with its far-reaching implications for humanity. We can mean it when we say Christ has come; Christ is risen; Christ will come again; or we can cross our fingers and just mouth the words. But, if we listen to the messages of Advent, we will hear we are charged to be alert and to pray, and we will know that the kingdom of God is near. Anxiety and anticipation do go together. They are two reactions to a life under pressure. But one sees only darkness and despair. The other sees light and hope. What do you look forward to this Christmas? What do you dread this holiday season? Why? As we prepare our hearts and minds for the coming of Christ Jesus in a new way this Advent, choose one area in your life that makes you anxious. How can faith turn your anxiety in this area into anticipation? How can God give you hope? When Jesus pointed to his second coming, he realized there would be anxiety. But he wanted anticipation. He wanted his people to stand tall and raise their heads. He wanted them to have hope. Know that God wants to transform and make new even the most impossible situations in our lives. Today's Gospel reminds us that for each of us there will be a day when there is no tomorrow. It invites us to look and see Christ Jesus in those around us who have caused us heartache and pain. As God draws near we are given the strength to see others in a new way. And truly then, the world as we know it will pass away, and all things will be made new. The invitation comes, the door opens, the word is spoken, and it is time.