Homily Advent 1, Year B, Nov. 27, 2011
This morning we are here to think about hope. The hope and expectation we feel during the season of Advent each year as we await the time we celebrate the birth of the Saviour, God with us, Emmanuel.
Today’s readings may seem to have a darker tone than one might expect for a message of hope. They certainly leave themselves open to misinterpretation.
Jesus says: “In those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the power in the heavens will be shaken.” All this precedes the Son of Man coming with great power and glory.
Needless to say this vivid picture of the end times has created fear among some listeners and hearers throughout the ages.
And many times throughout human history at times when things have looked their worst, people have feared that the end times Jesus talked about were happening.
Our time may be such a time. Although there are no large scale wars right now, peace is fragile, and many nations are struggling with violence and internal conflict.
Environmental degradation, climate change, economic uncertainty, unemployment, hunger, and homelessness are issues which face not only third world countries but the affluent west.
The age of scientific progress and prosperity we thought we were moving towards in the 1950’s, has been replaced by a situation where many young people wonder what the future holds for them.
This malaise holds true for the church as well. Where in the 50’s we were building new churches and our pews were packed, we are now struggling—at least in the mainstream denominations—just to survive and refocus our mission and ministry.
So we like the writer of Isaiah in exile could: “O that thou wouldest rend the heavens and come down.”
Yet Jesus teaches us we will not know the time for the end days, the second coming of the Son of Man, the term he uses to describe himself as the Messiah foretold in Hebrew Scripture.
We have to live in hope, remembering as the early Jewish Christians did, that when the Temple of Jerusalem was demolished by the Romans, it would create an opportunity to focus on God’s intervention in the world, by sending his son Jesus to come among us, to be crucified and to rise again in glory.
As well as having hope, the season of advent is one of watchfulness.
One of the dangers we face is the opposite of watchfulness—sleep walking through life, drifting without purpose.
Instead of sleepwalking our Christian faith calls us to watch and pray, so we won’t fall into sin, to watch, so we are always open to renewal and growth in our own spiritual journeys, and also to watch for opportunities to serve God by serving our fellow human beings.
That’s why during the Advent season as we prepare for Christmas it is a chance to reflect on our many blessings, and think about opportunities to help those less fortunate.
We need to avoid getting caught up in the consumerism which marks the season—from Black Friday last week to frantic last minute shopping Christmas Eve.
Rather than the self-gratification of acquiring more material goods, Advent is marked by the words, come…as in Come Lord Jesus, wait….as in beware, keep alert for you do not know when the time will come…and remember…remember to have patience and humility.
God is faithful. That is the message from the earliest Hebrew Scripture to the Book of Revelation.
We can trust in God, who brought His divine love into the world in human form in a baby born in a manger in a humble stable in Bethlehem in a poor and unremarkable part of God’s creation.
So let us wait, let us watch and let us prepare, during this season of Advent. Come, Lord Jesus, Come.
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