This sermon was preached at the Church of the Holy Nativity, Clarendon Hills, IL on Nov. 29, 2009
+This time of year, it gets dark really early. By 3:30 in the afternoon, the sun is in clear descent and by 4:30 or 5:00 night has fallen. The sun doesn’t rise until about 6:30 in the morning. It’s a dark time. The ancient Celtic people, who lived in a similar climate, embraced the encroaching darkness. According to Celtic legend, it’s during these twilight times when the veil between this world and the next is thinnest. During the dusk of evening and the dawn of morning we glimpse that which has gone before and that which is yet to come. The Celts call this the Thin Place.
Late November/early December is a dark and quiet time, but we hardly notice, what with all the Christmas lights, the “all Christmas music all the time radio stations” and the day after Thanksgiving sales.
According to our church calendar, Advent is here. According to the calendar of commercialism, Christmas is here.
I love Advent. Not just for the destination: the birth of Jesus, but for the journey which leads us to that barn in Bethlehem. It’s a remarkable journey. But it’s one easily missed.
Although only four weeks long, a lot gets packed into Advent. We have the story of Mary—a young woman who bravely accepts this pregnancy announced by an angel and by means she doesn’t understand --her loving visit with Elizabeth, her difficult conversation with Joseph—Mary’s grace and fortitude is worthy of wonder and respect. Advent is the perfect time to reflect on Mary-- for without her we don’t have the incarnation. We must have Mary to get to Jesus, so focusing on her is a logical Advent pursuit. And it’s probably what most of us think of when we think of Advent.
But today we don’t hear the joy of Mary’s song , the wonder of her visit to Elizabeth or the courage of Joseph’s acceptance. Today we hear of a different time—a future time when the world we know ends, and a new world emerges.
For Advent is a liminal time-that time which is neither here nor there, a time of transition. We’re betwixt and between…just last week we celebrated Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords and now we’re awaiting his quiet birth.
But, as Luke tells us in today’s Gospel, we’re also betwixt and between the life of this world and that of the next.
Because, while anticipating the first coming of Jesus we must keep an eye toward the second.
Today we hear tell of the end times, the end of all things familiar, the destruction of all we know, the end to all that is. We don’t get to Silent Night easily, do we?
Jesus, in this 21st chapter of Luke is full of apocalyptic foreboding. Talk of end times is unsettling. Mark 13, Luke 21, the Book of Revelation…the apocalyptic imagery of the New Testament is hardly the thing of a babe in a manger is it?
But this end time imagery, this apocalyptic language, is an important part of the Advent story.
You see, to welcome in the new, we must shed the old.
Apocalypses are not just global events, ushering in the destruction of the entire earth. We each experience our own apocalypses…private upsets which throw our equilibrium completely off, when all we have taken for granted, all we’re comfortable with is stripped away, leaving us disoriented, vulnerable, at a loss. But without the loss, the new wouldn’t have room.
Today’s Gospel reading from Luke comes toward the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, when his own personal apocalypse is imminent.
He knows his earthly life—the first coming, begun in Bethlehem, is about to end in Jerusalem. He wants his followers then and his followers now to be prepared, prepared to live the good news in this world, while ready to move onto the next. Jesus is in a transition time, Jesus is in a thin place.
Advent is just such a place for us.
Advent is a time to tear down and to build up. A time to prepare ourselves for the first coming of Christ-a time to ready ourselves for the love of God which surpasses all understanding. A time-to shed all our preconceived notions, all our worries, all our doubts. You see, our worries, our doubts and our fears block the way of God, our worries our doubts and our fears keep us from the loving embrace of God. Advent is a time to strip ourselves of what was and what always has been, ready to receive what’s new and yet to come.
The miraculous birth of Jesus in a barn during that silent night two millennia ago was an apocalypse, an end of time. But this apocalypse isn’t all fire and brimstone, all death and destruction. This apocalypse, this end of time, comes to us in all humility, wrapped in rags with no place to lay his head.
You know, with all the lights and noise of commercial Christmas it’s amazing we don’t miss it altogether.
And that’s the point.
Advent calls us, in the midst of all this noise, to empty ourselves of all that keeps us from embracing the love of God sent to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Advent calls us to keep our feet in this world, proclaiming the Gospel and living the Good News, with an eye to the world to come, a world we will meet through the same Jesus, the Son of God born of Mary.
So as we scurry about, shopping sales, hanging lights and singing songs, let’s not forget our Advent task---to stay quiet, stay alert and be aware. For soon a child will be born, a child like none other. A child on whom all our hopes and dreams, frets and worries may be laid.
Happy Advent my friends, may your thin places show you the glory of this world and the glory of the world to come.
Amen.
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