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Advent II • 4 December 2011 Isaiah 40:1-11 Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
Every year Advent comes around. While most people are getting busier and increasingly preoccupied with Christmas, members of the Christian clergy are getting irritated because they typically have little success convincing the members of their flocks that Advent should be a time of contemplation and quiet preparation for the coming of Christ.
The clergy are right, of course. Being right, however, doesn’t necessarily make one popular or persuasive. My colleagues and I tell you to slow down and smell the bayberries, but our advice doesn’t get your errands done or bring you to the end of your shopping list. We can congratulate ourselves that our Christmas trees remain undecorated until Christmas Eve, but we cannot expect you to congratulate us for our self-discipline and restraint.
There is something to be said for waiting until Christmas Eve to decorate the tree and waiting until almost Christmas Eve to buy the tree in the first place. Though a non-practicing Episcopalian, my mother was quite the traditionalist and always insisted we wait. We typically bought our tree on December 21st or 22nd or even on the 23rd and often paid half-price! Most years we even managed to find handsome trees, though now and then we had to make do with odd-looking conifers that appeared to survivors of botanical neglect.
Talking up the opportunity to save money on a Christmas tree will not help that much to convince you to postpone thoughts of Christmas and concentrate on Advent contemplation. I may be more persuasive if I remind you that Advent contemplation offers you the opportunity to catch your spiritual, emotional, and perhaps even physical breath.
If you arm yourselves with some of the better theological arguments for adopting a practice of waiting for Christ in quiet contemplation, you may be able to persuade yourself and even a family member to make one less trip to the mall. You may be able to talk yourself into postponing an open house until January or February, a time when you and your neighbors might appreciate a party in the bleak mid-winter that much more.
The Bible and legions of Biblical commentators and theologians can offer you many sound theological arguments for waiting until Christmas Eve for Christmas and focusing instead on Advent over the next three weeks. One argument emerges from today’s reading from the Second Letter of Peter.
Peter reminds us that God is not and has not been slow to respond to the needs and aspirations of human beings. Peter says:
Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.
Our perception of time—so different from God’s—and our human tendency to be impatient are responsible for leading us to believe God is taking forever to attend to the woes of our world. God is not taking forever.
The two thousand or so years that have elapsed since Jesus Christ brought us good news are for God the equivalent of a weekend, according to Peter. Peter argues that God is being patient with us, waiting for us to “get our act together” so that we will be truly ready when Jesus returns.
Peter repeats Jesus’ own warnings that we will not know when God in Christ is ready to return and wind up the messy affairs of our tired old world. Instead God will come “like a thief” to rescue humanity and move our spirits along to “new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.”
We have the impatient yearnings and the power to rush ourselves along into the Christmas season and the Christmas celebrations we hope will lighten winter’s darkness. Yet we cannot hurry the saving grace of God any more than our ancestors could hasten the coming of their longed-for Messiah.
The old Israel waited many centuries for that Messiah, while Israel’s leaders ignored or murdered the prophets who tried in vain to warn the people that God expects his children to lead sober and righteous lives.
When we consider Peter’s words, we realize our impatience will not take us swiftly where we long to go. We may find it impossible to avoid being swept along by our current culture to a premature and anti-climactic Christmas celebration. That harried trip, however, need not derail our Advent journey.
With a little effort, we can take refuge in this church and its parish community from the “madding crowd.” We can insist on a more patient and peaceful progress through the next three weeks. Yes, Emmanuel had a “Christmas” Bazaar last month, but it was actually a “Be better prepared for Christmas” Bazaar and in any event, we are now back on the proper Advent path. A week from today we will bring back a traditional Advent service of lessons and carols. On that occasion we will steep ourselves in words and music that remind us we are in a season of contemplation and preparation.
We still have time to contemplate, to slow down, and to calm down, so we can listen to Peter and heed his advice for this precious and under-appreciated season:
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.
Amen.
The Reverend Daniel LaRue Gross |