The First Sunday of Advent

Sermon

The First Sunday of Advent

3 December 2023

The Reverend Dr James Gardom 

Isaiah 64.1-9 Longing for the revelation of God. (sections of the Advent Prose)

1 Corinthians 1.3-9 “you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed”

Mark 13.24-37. Waiting and watching

Welcome to Advent 2023.

For Christians, Advent is an exercise in trying to see clearly. To see our world and to see our hearts.

We all know that it is surprisingly hard to see clearly, to see in proportion, and to see with Christian eyes what is going on around us.

We very easily get bogged down in the detail of our lives, and anything from our aches and pains, to our tax return can form a little bubble around us, so that we scarcely think of anything else. We are very easily beguiled by the glamour and the self-promotion of the powerful and the influential, so that we think that they are what is really going on in the world the main focus of God’s purposes, God’s presence, God’s anger. In dark times, we can be obsessed by the possibility and wisdom of keeping ourselves separate and safe, the hope that we can build a little castle in our lives or in our countries, a safe place within which we can continue with what we think is normal.

But Advent leads to Christmas. We shall end Advent with the story of the coming of the Christ child, God made flesh, of Revelations to shepherds, and weird men from the East, with Jerusalem in turmoil, with the slaughter of children, with the flight to refuge in Egypt.

So in Advent, we need to do some preparation to see things as they are. To see things as God sees them. To see with Advent eyes. We get settled in our ways of thinking, and I think this may be one of the reasons why the Advent lectionary up such a healthy dose of apocalyptic.

24 ‘But in those days, after that suffering,
the sun will be darkened,
   and the moon will not give its light,
25 and the stars will be falling from heaven,
   and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
26Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in clouds” with great power and glory. 27Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

I am not sure that its value lies in its detail, so much as in its perspective.  Apocalyptic tells us that History contains the hidden purposes of God.  It tells us that the things of this world, and the things that we assume are permanent, constitutive, inevitable, are only the briefest of human phenomena, and in God’s good time they will change. What do we find when we try to look at the world as it is, try to look at it with God’s eyes, with Advent eyes?

The first thing we find is something in our hearts, because Advent is an experience of Longing. The Advent collect, the Advent Prose, the Advent hymns, Wachet Auf. These all express a deep longing, visceral and compelling.

In part this longing is based on memories that go very deep. I remember at the age of 8 seeing David, a blind tenor, singing the Advent Prose from an enormous Braille hymn book. The concentration and the longing on his face have stayed with me to this day. To some extent the longing of Advent is that childhood longing for Christmas, for having once again what was good last year, for presents, for family, for warmth. But as we grow older the sense of longing at Advent must  also grow. We are longing for the coming of the Prince of Peace. We are longing for the vindication and completion of God’s purposes. In a world of Herods and high priests and Pontius Pilates, of fickle crowds and corrupt courts, we are longing for justice, for peace, for God. We need to use Advent to see with Advent eyes, with God’s eyes, so that can see the Nativity not as a cute sweet story, but as the judgement, the pivot of the world, the beginning of the end.

So what are we longing for, and how should that longing affect us?

It is nothing new, and it is nothing strange, but we are apt to forget. The Advent we are longing for is captured in the most familiar of our prayers, probably the one we first learnt, and probably the one we have said most often.

In Latin it reads: Pater Noster, qui es in Coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regnum tuum. The Latin is a help for once – Adveniat Regnum tuum is “Your Kingdom Come”. We could almost say “Advent your Kingdom” At any rate, “Adveniat” reminds us that Advent is about longing and preparing for the coming of God’s Kingdom.

And what is this Kingdom for which we are longing? “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”.

This phrase is not about something different from “your Kingdom Come.” It simply tells us what the Advent, the coming of God’s kingdom means, God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven.  And it is not just about passive longing. Whatever we pray we also will and must do. A remarkable Nigerian Pastor once said to me “Until the return of Christ, the purpose of the Church is to build the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.” He worked in Kyiv, creating a notable ministry among drug addicts, alcoholics, prisoners and their families.

So,  Welcome to Advent 2023.

We are waiting, we are longing with a childlike longing and with an adult longing. Both kinds of longing are powered by the music, the stories, the customs, the readings, the meditations, the smells, the sounds of Advent. Rejoice in them.  The child in us longs for the coming of the Christ child, and that is good and right. The adult in us longs for the coming of God’s Kingdom, that is an active longing, a longing with action.

Wait, watch, work.

If we do so, then whenever Christ comes and however Christ comes we will be ready to greet him. Greet him in the Christ child. Greet him in a world of need. Be greeted by him at the end of time