Active, Prayerful Hope Begins – 3 December 2017 – First Sunday in Advent

The late, beloved Laurence Hull Stookey included in his book Calendar: Christ’s Time for the Church (Abingdon, 1996) a list entitled, “Forgetting What You Were Always Taught (or, This Book in a Nutshell).” He meant, in this list, to re-set our expectations of the calendar year, re-think what each season is about, re-orient us to deeper understandings of our life in Christ.

His list includes attention to Advent with these words in Appendix 2 (p. 158):

If you were taught this: Advent is primarily about the past expectation of the coming of Messiah. Consider instead this: Advent is primarily about the future, with the implications for the present.

Stookey’s shift in how we enter into and observe Advent may change your life and that of those with whom you worship. It’s no longer only about a baby long ago (even though it is...) but mostly about a coming time filled with hope because of the Holy One who became flesh (because that did happen).

Where will the emphasis be for your preaching this year?

While we're waiting for Christ's return at the end of time––whenever that may be––we remember his life among us. The season of Advent sharpens that sense of waiting, that expectancy, and moves believers to prepare for his coming. Unlike Lent, a time for repentance and mortification, Advent is a time to refocus our attention, a time to clear away whatever distracts us from our connection with God.

Waiting is hard. Being faithful to what and whom we love is hard, when so much distance and time separate us. But the waiting of believers is not passive. It is more than simply sitting out the passage of days and weeks.

Like John the Baptizer, we who believe have a mission: to proclaim the Lord until he comes again.

Like Mary, we believers have a responsibility: to nourish the word of God that grows daily in our hearts.

Like Joseph, we believers have a challenge: to risk everything and embrace God's command wholeheartedly.

Like Jesus, we are called to pour out our lives in God's service. –– M. D. Ridge

Mark 13:24-37

There are more questions than answers about this long discourse of Jesus. The parable material of the last five verses (vv 33-37) is the only part all lectionaries have in common: "You do not know when the master is coming, so stay awake! Be on guard! Keep a sharp lookout!"

The need to live lives according to clearly established priorities is key whether the end comes in five minutes or five decades. Christians are well warned. The hearers of the Gospel of Mark need to be ready as God's future for them unfolds. Their consolation is God's faithfulness in never abandoning the faithful ones.

Isaiah 64:1-9

The remembrance of past events and the praise of God mark this intercessory prayer. "You have hidden your face from us and have delivered us up to our guilt," writes the author. Then comes the reminder, "Still, O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter. We are the work of your hands" (Isaiah 64:6-7). In this reading two sentiments appear: A clear awareness of sinfulness and a firm assurance that God cannot abandon the faithful.

1 Corinthians 1:3-9

This prayer of thanksgiving previews the entire letter. The author is clear that the grace given to the church in Corinth comes from God. Members of the community are therefore not to consider themselves as the originators of the gifts, nor to be jealous of one another's gifts, nor to confuse God's grace with the philosophical- or class-based social status so important to the Corinthians. God calls; God gives to each as needed, and God will have the final victory in Christ Jesus. The church community is to wait in hope for his coming.

M. D. Ridge (1938-2017) was a composer of liturgical music, pastoral musician, editor, and writer for forty-five years. When she offered this reflection for in 2002, she served as music minister for the Church of the Resurrection in Portsmouth, Virginia.

Homily Service 36, no. 1 (2002): 7-16.

Being Shaped Anew – 30 November 2014 – First Sunday of Advent

The words of the commentator to Homily Service for this Sunday in 2008 are true still today. All the problems of today are the same problems. They will persist… and so will the light that we celebrate coming into the world.

Before we can see the light, we have to know the darkness.

The lessons for this day are not uplifting, nor particularly hopeful. They include community laments, acknowledgments of sin, realities of destruction, despair, and chaos, as well as a sense of God's abandonment. But these are precisely the realities (albeit in a different context) that people sitting in the pews face today, as they grapple with the housing crisis, an anemic economy, a high unemployment rate, an exploding population that the earth cannot sustain, global warming, a painful war, and uncertainties over the future. Perhaps the proclamation and recognition that God's people have repeatedly grappled with similar realities in ages past, and have emerged with their faith not only intact but strengthened, will lay the groundwork for an Advent season based in faith and hope, with the expectation that regardless of what the future brings, God is indeed with us.  . . .

            – Carol J. Noren

So why does Advent begin in the realm of the Prince of Darkness when we are eager to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Light? Why do we drape our sanctuaries with the heavy purple of twilight rather than the illuminating rose of dawn? Why do we recount prophecies of the end of the world when we want to hear tidings of the beginning of a new creation? Why do we light only one candle when we want to ignite the full brilliance of God's glory?

It is a good question. So is this: Why do we continue to dwell in the darkness of injustice and oppression when God has already shown us justice and mercy in Christ? Why do we continue to engage in the darkness of armed conflict when the Prince of Peace has already walked among us? Why do we continue to pursue the darkness of greed and power when Christ came among us as a servant and called us to lives of service? Why do we continue to embrace the darkness of pride and selfishness . . . to rest in the darkness of satisfaction when there are others around us who still struggle under a blanket of poverty? . . .

The Good News of Advent is that our darkness is not complete nor is it final, for the Light of God dwelt among us, and still does, and will again. The Good News of Advent is that even in the utter darkness of our human sinfulness, we can light a single candle and God is here.

We begin in darkness because we are people. We do not remain in darkness because we are God's people. We begin in darkness, for we are human beings. We need not curse the darkness, for we know how to light a candle. It is an Advent candle.

            – John H. Barden

The prophet Isaiah (64:1-9) reminds YHWH “we are the clay, and you are our potter…” Advent gives us space and time to be re-made by the potter as we bump up against the cheerful demands of the season while hearing the laments of the scriptures.

The season calls us to rest before we find ourselves agog with frenzy. We sing the hymns that speak of quiet, hear the words of warning, gather with the people of God, and notice the light of only one candle… then two… and three... until there are four. This is the gift of a waiting time not a busy time.

While we are being moulded into the potter’s vision, Mark’s Gospel (13:24-37) tells us that we are to Keep Awake… Watch Out… Be Prepared… because there is a birth coming that is greater than all births, and this one will change the cosmos. You don’t want to miss it.

And none of us needs to miss it because the epistle of 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 assures the church that we are “not lacking in any spiritual gift” as we wait “for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It is God who strengthens us.

Carol J. Noren is a Methodist who has served congregations in Minnesota.

John H. Barden is a Presbyterian pastor serving as Vice President for Admissions at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Texas. 

Homily Service 42, no. 1 (20 Oct 2008): 4-15.