Advent Sunday

Advent Sunday

Isaiah 2: 1-5. In this well-known piece Isaiah look forward to a future time when people will recognise the Lordship of the one true God, follow his ways and peace will reign in the whole world.

Romans 13: 11-14. Paul says that as time goes on we obviously are nearer the time Isaiah is looking forward to, so as the first-fruits of the new Christian revelation of the truth of God it is incumbent on Christians to embody the ways and morals of God to become signs of this coming Kingdom. The way of God is revealed and modelled of course on the life and way of Jesus Christ

Matthew 24: 36-44. When that final consummation happens no one knows – not even Jesus – only the Father in heaven. But make no mistake when it does happen it will probably take us all by surprise. Jesus counsels us to stay spiritually alert and active in God’s service until that day comes and not get weary of following the way of Jesus in-between times.

Advent is a period of watching and waiting in anticipation of something wonderful that is going to happen.

But watching and waiting for what? The birth of Jesus? Eagerly watching and waiting for something that already happened 2019 years ago surely can’t be the whole story can it?

The content of Advent is certainly linked to the first Advent of Jesus in Bethlehem two Millenia ago but as our Advent readings make clear today, what the church has been looking forward to ever since has been the final wonderful consummation of all things.

What Christians are looking forward to is summed up in our best known and widely used prayer. In the Lord’s prayer we pray;

“Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”.

That is the primary Christian content of Advent, allied to and dependent on the first Christmas certainly, but deals with the end-game, the wonderful climax to the chain of events that started with the incarnation of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem all those years ago.

Obviously, this makes little commercial sense so in our secularised world Advent has been conflated to simply looking forward to the commercial celebration of Jesus’ birth, so it is our duty in the churches to re-kindle the sense of expectation and longing for the time when the Father’s kingdom has come, is established, and all sin and twistedness, corruption, graft and injustice, are dealt with and consigned to the dustbin.

This heightened sense of longing also induces feelings of sorrow for the state of the world as it actually is now, when we consider what we are looking forward to.

That is why the liturgical colour of Advent is purple, signifying penitence. In looking forward to and craving the glorious promises of God to be fulfilled we can’t escape the reality of how things are in the world at the present time.

The dominant motif of Advent is light shining in the darkness. This is also a Christmas motif of course. What we are waiting, hoping and praying for is the fulfilment of what started in Bethlehem.

The light shining in the darkness from the crib in Bethlehem we want to see suffusing the entire world, bringing righteousness, judgement, peace and salvation to all things.

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”

Paul is clear in Romans that he wants the future to inspire our present.

“NOW is the moment for us to awake from sleep” he writes.

Be the change we want to see in the world by emulating Christ in our lives. “Put on Christ” is how he phrases it.  

Not through fear of what might happen to us if we don’t, but because we cannot help but be formed, and our characters moulded by that future promise.

And what we pray for is also a promise.

But here’s the thing. No-one has any idea when that promise will be fulfilled. Not even Jesus himself knows as he states plainly in Matthew’s gospel today. The only one who knows is our Father in heaven.

It is futile, again as the Bible says, to try and predict or deduce from events how or when the final things will take place.

There have been plenty of millenialists, as they are called, down through history, who have predicted the end of the world. There are some, like the Jehovah’s witnesses who have predicted the end of the world 20 times in the last century. They have something in common with every millenialist who has ever lived. They are have all been proved absolutely wrong.

No-one knows when the end will come, which is true both of our own end and the end of history.

Which is why Jesus instructs us to keep ourselves in a state of spiritual readiness for whenever that time comes. That sets us apart from a society that goes on as if nothing is ever going to happen, and He uses the analogy of Noah, building an ark, something people all around him must have been very amused by, while they went about their business.

“Stay awake and spiritually alert” says Jesus. Keep praying for the promise to became reality and for that promise to be made real in our own lives.

Yes, Advent is a time of waiting and watching and anticipation. For Christmas yes, but far more for what that first Christmas ushered in, the promise of God’s acknowledged rule in and through all things;

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.