Monday, December 03, 2018

Sermon from Luke 21:25-36 for December 2


So…

Advent has arrived, yippee! Kind of…

For many, Advent seems like it should a time of great joy.

But the reality is for most, it’s a time of great stress!

Advent is all about the ninety million things we need to do to get ready for Christmas. Hey Sue, lets rehab the kitchen just to make it crazier!

This is the time of year the furnace dies or the washer and or drier, or in the church’s case, the copier!

It’s just all about more. More shopping, more planning, more baking, more cleaning, more on top of everything else to the point that is all exhausting!

Advent, the time of preparation before the arrival of the Christ child on Christmas, is supposed to be a time of introspection and preparation of our hearts, but we have made it a time of preparation of everything but…

Because as always, we get it backwards, running around trying to figure out where the elf on the shelf has hidden itself since last year. Baking cookies, wrapping presents, trying without success to figure out what to get people who have everything and need nothing, until we drop over whipped from all the Advent Joy.

Years ago, when Father Gibney was the pastor at the Holy Name Church here in Otisville, he and I talked about the two churches going caroling together. And he told me that we couldn’t sing Christmas carols, only Advent carols.

I only know two Advent songs and we are singing them today! Then what?

Well, he said, Advent is a time of preparation for the baby’s coming, and for the Coming of Christ the King and the end of time. Advent is the time we think about the two comings, the two arrivals of Jesus. It is not a time to celebrate Christ’s birth!

We do that during what is known as the twelve days of Christmas, from Christmas Day until Epiphany, January 6th, the day we remember the arrival of the Magi who visited Jesus and his mother at home, bringing them gifts fit not for an infant, but for an adult king: gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.

During Advent we are to think about the baby Jesus and King Jesus and get our lives and hearts together. We are not supposed to be exhausting ourselves over all the other stuff. We are supposed to be getting recharged.

So, of course, we ignored Father Gibney and sang Christmas Carols, because we are much more comfortable thinking about the baby boy in the manger, than a King come in power and glory!
We are more comfortable with our accumulated Christmas hoopla, than with sitting quiet and thinking about what we should be doing to please the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

 Of course, no matter what we do, the King is coming, Jesus reminds us!

The baby Jesus is here he seems to say to his disciples and us. He, Jesus, is an adult, one who will soon die on a cross. But the King is still coming, and knowing that, we are to get busy, not decorating tree, but preparing the Kingdom.

Jesus’ description of the great tribulations that overtake the faithful is not intended to make us faint of heart, but rather to stir us to faithful action.

We are part of the generation that is given the task of making disciples and sharing the good news of the kingdom with the world, and in particular, with those who are suffering the world’s ravages, whether they be man-made or natural disasters.

We are part of the generation that started with Jesus’ death and resurrection, with Pentecost, and with the destruction of Jerusalem. There was no going back. And we, disciples like those original listeners to Jesus, still have the same calling, the same marching orders, the same tasks.

We are to be reaching out and inviting others to follow Jesus, not so much because time is short and the end is near, but because our time is short, and our ends are near!

Did you hear what I just said?

Crazy, isn’t it. But’s true. I have no idea when the end of time will come, no matter what the Left Behind books and movies suggest. No one does. Jesus made that abundantly clear.

But…

We are to be reaching out and inviting others to follow Jesus, not so much because Jesus arrival is immanent, but because their time is short, as is ours, and our ends are near!

We all know how much time we have, and it is much less than it was yesterday, or last week, or last Christmas. It might be forty years. Or it might be forty hours. You and I don’t know. But what we do know is that what we have been called to do isn’t done and so now, today, we need to get to it.

So, who do you need to go and find and say, “I’m sorry!” to?

Who do you need to invite back into your life?

Who haven’t you shared your crazy love of Jesus with?

Who do you need to ask to go with you to drop off a fruit basket, or a box of food, or to go to Carolina or Florida and rehab a house with you?

Who haven’t you invited to worship, because you know they wouldn’t be comfortable here, and what should we do to make them comfortable here because there are a whole lot more people like them than not?

And why haven’t you decided that with the limited time you have left, that you are going to make growing the Kingdom of God a priority, because the King of that Kingdom has made you a priority since the beginning of time?

It’s Advent. In twenty-three days we celebrate Christmas. Time is short.

Amen.

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