Adventus

Scripture: The First Sunday of Advent, A.D. 2014 B

Sermon:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

“Come, Lord Jesus! Come!” Such is the cry of the entire Advent season.

Even the name Advent means “coming towards.” These four Sundays leading up to Christmas are the time of the year when we celebrate the King Who is coming, the King Who is on His way to us even now. We focus, of course, on the story of His birth. The Theotokos, the God-Bearer, has been chosen and has given her assent. Even now she swells with Child, with the God-made-Man inside her immaculate womb. She is the New Ark of the New Covenant, the new house of God’s presence with us here on earth.

And we experience in this season the joy that any family feels with the impending birth of a new son or sibling or nephew or cousin. The Child is here, in the deep protection of His Mother’s body, but the rest of us haven’t met Him just yet. So we talk about the baby as being “on the way”—as already but not yet—as coming to meet us while we joyfully prepare both our hearts and our homes for a King.

It is only natural that this should be our focus in Advent, for it is only in Jesus Christ that we know the fullness of our Creator, the visible Image of the invisible God. But Jesus, remember, does not come to us only in the past, in the true-and-ancient story. Jesus comes to us past, present, and future. Or, put more pithily: He comes to us in history, in mystery, and in majesty.

The same Jesus born in Bethlehem some 2,000 years back comes to us today in the promise of our Baptism, in the Word of God rightly preached and faithfully lived, and in the sacred mystery of Holy Communion. Bethlehem is, after all, the House of Bread; and Jesus announced Himself as the Bread of Life come down from Heaven. And so it is always Christmas at the Lord’s Table, when we, like Mary, become One in the Body and Blood of our Lord; when we, like Mary, are tasked by God with giving birth to Jesus in our own generation.

And then there’s the future, when the subtle and mysterious work of redemption shall be complete, and Christ will come with His angels in majesty to heal and resurrect our world. We often hear this spoken of as terrible judgment, but we must remember that the only judgment Jesus brings is the Light of absolute Truth. In the future, in the majesty of the Last Day, the shadows of sin and death shall be banished forever, and Christ shall be all in all. The question is whether the fire of God’s immediate presence shall refine us or consume us. For those who truly love and desire the Lord, everywhere we look shall be Heaven! And for those who ultimately reject the love of God, everywhere they look shall be Hell.

If you want God’s eternal love, He will give it to you freely. If you do not, He will not force it upon you—for indeed, a love that is forced ceases to be love. In this life, then, we must all ask of ourselves, What is it that I most truly desire? At the Judgment there will be only two sorts of people: those who say to God, “Your will be done!” And those to whom God shall say in sorrow, “Your will be done.” It has ever been the deep prayer of the Church that in the end, no soul would truly, eternally, separate himself from the love of Almighty God. Kyrie eleison.

Of course, the question has long been, When will this be? When will the Judgment come? When will God rend open the heavens and darken the sun and send out His messengers to gather His people from the four corners of the earth? “About that day no one knows,” Jesus tells us. But He does give to us a very powerful clue. Listen to this. “Keep awake,” He says, “for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.” Those four exact times—evening, midnight, cockcrow, dawn—play an important role in the Gospel of Mark. We will hear them again in the story of Jesus’ Crucifixion.

In Mark chapter 14, Jesus is anointed for His burial and shares with His Apostles the Last Supper, which explicitly occurs in the evening. Then He leaves to pray in the garden of Gethsemane, where He weeps and is waited upon by angels, at midnight, while the Apostles can’t seem to keep awake. Sound familiar? After this comes the episode in which Peter denies Christ not once, but three times before the cock crows. And finally, in the morning, Jesus is taken before Pilate, stripped, tortured, and led out for His Crucifixion, where the Sun is darkened and the Moon gives not its light. All this took place, as He promised, before that very generation.

What does all this mean? It means, O Christians, that while we await with joy our Lord’s return in majesty, we must realize that the Judgment of God upon our world does not hover in some uncertain, unseen future. God’s Judgment has in fact already been proclaimed to us from the Cross! And if we do not keep awake, we might miss it—miss the redemption of the world, as the Crucified God called out for all to hear, “Father, forgive them! They know not what they do!” Those who see God in the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and who so love Him that they are willing to join in bearing the rigors of His Cross, already know the infinite mercies of our God poured out for the world.

Do you fear the coming of the Lord? Do you fear the Judgment of His unveiling Truth and Light upon this darkened world? I dare say not! For here we are, decorating Christmas trees, giving away gifts, singing songs and sharing meals all in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord—all in the hope that only Jesus gives. Here we stand, preparing for the most joyous time of the year, calling out in one voice, “Come, Lord Jesus! Come! Come into our hearts and our homes! Cleanse us of sin and raise us from the grave and live with us forever in love!” For we have seen the face of God, the face of the Babe in the Manger, and the Church cries out not in fear but in faith and hope and love, “Come, Lord Jesus! Come!”

And He is even now on His way. AMEN.