Sunday, December 10, 2017

Second Advent, 2017

II Peter 3: 8-15




I don’t know if you’ve had the chance yet to read Bishop McConnell’srecent meditation on “Waiting in Advent.” I thought it was really quite insightful—and of course from him, always beautifully written.  I’ve shared it with the St. Andrew’s Facebook page and sent a link also to our E-mail distribution list.  And by the way if you haven’t seen it yet because you haven’t “liked” the St. Andrew’s Facebook page or because your e-mail isn’t on our distribution list, please let me know and we can get you connected.  For those who don’t want to work via the digital technologies, there are paper copies as well on the credenza in Brooks Hall.  A very nice resource to add to our Advent.

Again, about all this waiting, and this morning, from 2 Peter 3

The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.  But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.  Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the Day of God?   Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.

I think a lot of what gives Advent its richness and resonance is the elegant way in which it holds in tension, in balance, the anticipation of Christmas, which is of course all around us--the annual re-telling of the story of the Birth of Jesus, with all the liturgical and cultural and social and commercial expressions built around that re-telling—and what we might call the gestational anticipation that all Christians have of the Great Day, the Great Day, when we shall see and know and experience his Second Advent,  in power and great glory, to judge all peoples according to his righteousness.  To set things right once and for all.  It’s not like we choose one Advent or the other.  We hold them both at the same time. 

These two Advents--across the range of holy time, past and future--and so profoundly connected that in some sense neither can be true and fully known without being seen clearly in reference to the other.  We remember, and as we remember we at the same time lean forward in hope, in expectation.   Insofar as we celebrate the Savior’s Birth, a time of warmth and joy.  I heard someone say the other day, “God is crazy about you.  That’s the meaning of Christmas.  God is crazy about you.  And then at the same time as we look toward the East for his arrival on the clouds to bring judgment and justice, a time of sober penitence, prayer and fasting.  Our patient preparation, in the space of God’s patience, while we come around to him, while the Holy Spirit works in us.  He is crazy about us, he loves us so much that he will give us this space of time as the Spirit works in us, so that we will be ready when he comes.

And so we go on living our lives.  Days, weeks, years, decades, and it turns out centuries.  Generations.  The fullness of the Kingdom, the Manger, the Empty Tomb, the promise of his return: already, but not yet.  And to think about how we live in Advent, these weeks in December that we as Christians set aside in a special observance, as a way of thinking about how we live our lives.   What the theologians call an “interim ethic.” Those reborn in Christ, baptized into his death, joined to his resurrection, are gradually over the course of our lives prepared here in this world for the life of the world to come.  What will he find in us, when he comes?  Every once in a while someone will say that we Christians are called to be “Easter People,” and of course the victory of his resurrection is the lens through which the whole story must be read.  But in another way, and I think in a richer way, it is right to say that we are called to be “Advent People.”  In this middle ground.  Where we don’t get it perfectly, not on this side of the Kingdom, but where we somehow do what we can to make progress, if we make progress,  just a little at a time.  The Holy Spirit working in us.  But nourished by Word and Sacrament to live and to serve him in newness of life.  Just to find an hour a day to pray, to read his Word.  Or five minutes . . . .  So our Advent is to describe how we get ready for Christmas, and this second Advent—how we get ready for the fullness of his Kingdom, when he comes again.

Like the servant who doesn’t know when his master will return.  Who has to get things ready and to keep things ready, so that all will be in order when he arrives.  Like the well-prepared virgin bridesmaids, whose lamps were filled with oil. Like the Steward who can give a good account to his Master of the Talents left in his care. 

How do we live in the meantime?  What sort of people are we to be, as Peter sets the question before us this morning.  John the Baptist seems to have a pretty clear idea, in his preaching out there by the Jordan River.  Especially in our modern lectionaries he rises up as a defining character of Advent.  Preaching baptism for repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.   What kind of person should I be? How do I live in the meantime.  To be engaged, to enjoy.  To tend my garden, care for my family, complete the work here that he has given me to do, with creativity and enthusiasm as best I can, but without trying to hold on to the things that are passing away.  What kind of church are we supposed to be?  A good question to ask and think about.  As a lot of us are.  What’s going on around St. Andrew’s right now?  What kind of direction and correction and repentance and renewal are we being called to?  Why we need Advent.  Just as the Hebrews needed those 40 years of Wilderness life to be cleansed of the vestiges of their Egyptian slavery, to be prepared to take possession of the Land of Promise.  Just as the ancient Jews needed their decades of exile in Babylon and Egypt and Persia, to come to terms with their unfaithfulness, to re-orient their lives in relationship to God. 

So, this Advent, for us.  Peter says that this space, this interval, this wilderness, this life we share, December 2017, all of it, is for us the patience of God, he’s holding back, not turning the page quite yet for the next chapter of the story, while the Spirit works in us to sort things out.  The First Advent in one hand, the Second in the other.  And certainly in the meantime to cultivate this Advent quality in our own lives.  At church, at home, at work.  Patient with one another.  Patient with ourselves.  The Eastern Orthodox call Advent a “Little Lent,” and it is a space for us like the days of Lent,  remembering the call to observance on Ash Wednesday, to the observance of a holy season, “by self examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”  A reminder to make good use of the time we have.

The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.  But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.  Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the Day of God?   Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.


Blessings again in this Advent, this New Year of our lives.  While we still have time, in this Advent, walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God.

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