Advent: God is Waiting, Too

Sermon – Church of St. Luke and the Epiphany

ADVENT 2A – Mt. 3:1-11: “Advent: God is Waiting,Too”

Lisa Helmel Thomas, M.Div.

Blessed be the holy Trinity, one God, the Parent who rouses us from slumber, the Shepherd who gathers us on the holy mountain, the Deliverer who sets us free. Amen.

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Advent. Probably my favorite season of the church year. As I get older, Lent rivals a close second, as my appreciation for the parallels between these two seasons increases.  The waiting. The attempts at suspending time just a little, within the finite bounds of our human framework. What sets Advent apart from Lent a bit is this sense of HOPE. “Open our eyes,”we pray. Hope-filled dreams have a way of shaping what we are able to see. They are like lenses that train us to interpret and to act in the present....

“In those days,” the lesson says, and so begins a dream not just about what is, but about what might be if God’s reign might indeed be drawing near. Such dreaming has already been there earlier in the story when Joseph, our first character in Matthew’s narrative, is called to imagine what righteousness will look like in the light of God’s promise (Mt. 1:18-25 — Advent 3):

““Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit......She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the LORD through the prophet: 23 “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,”

To know that promises will be kept is a way that hope is shaped.  In John the Baptist we see the beginnings of that hope.

And isnt it interesting that LAST week, Advent began with the END of Matthew’s Gospel, not Chapter one. Today, Advent 2, we are in Matthew 3, and Joseph’s promised hope you just heard won’t be read until next week. God’s time. Kairos time. It isn’t necessarily linear.

I’ve always been fascinated by KAIROS TIME and LIMINAL SPACE.  “Kairos” in Greek means “the right, critical, and opportune kind of moment,” while the opposite of kairos is “chronos “ - linear, chronological, measured time.  Kairos is the opportune moment, the right time for action.

So we always have this sort of tension between kairos and chronos. Then there is liminal space, where we find ourselves in Advent.  Liminal space is the time between the 'what was' and the 'next. ' It is a place of transition, a season of waiting, and not knowing. Liminal space is where all transformation takes place, if we learn to wait and let it form us. It is into this kind of time-warp, if you will, that John the Baptist steps in.

Here is this guy, dressed like a Bedouin — a coat of camel’s hair with a belt tied around his waist — looking not unlike the prophet Elijah, eating locusts and wild honey, crying from the margins, “Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven has come near. This is it!” The peripheral prophet, who today might be categorized as some sort of liberal evangelical.

WHAT is it? Who IS this guy?

In the meantime, the world is centered in the big city.,it is the time of Herod Antipas, a client of the oppressive Roman Empire.  The power of the current regime was concentrated in places like temples,buildings, bureaucracies, and tax collectors.

In stark contrast, John the Baptist stood at the margins. The MARGINS can come to the center, but the center could not go out to the margins.  When we read “Then the ppl of Jerusalem and ALL Judea were going out to John, and ALL the region of Jordan, and they were baptized...confessing their sins.”  “ALL” is actually hyperbole, but its effect is to emphasize John’s influence. Here was this man from the wilderness having an impact on the city. He is not only paving the way, but leading Israel through another time of transition.  No less than MOSES or Samuel, John the Baptist is a bridge between eras in Israel’s history.

Then there is this matter of repentance.  The kingdom is near, yet repentance has something to do with preparing the way for Gods entry into our lives. The CALL for repentance signals that there is something wrong and  a need for change.  Gods power is present but not unrelated to what we do. Ultimately, it directs our vision not so much to sorrow for the past,  but to look to the promise of a new beginning.

But wait. Doesn’t this call to “Repent!” reek of judgment? EVEN NOW, John says, “the ax is lying at the root of the trees, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” Yikes. 

Judgement. It brings to mind texts we wrestle with. What about the divorced spouse? The queer teen who is looking for an appropriate church or youth group? That person in Bible Study who was taught about the inerrancy of scripture and is now trying to reconcile it with their current situation?  How can they not feel judged? Are they unrepentant?  The wheat. the threshing floor, and again, the fire.  And John does say he is baptizing with water now (human), but the One who is more powerful that comes after him will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

Powerful words here. Words that clearly tell us that there is more to Advent than just sitting around waiting. Matthew makes it clear that the Kingdom of God brings about a fundamental break from the past.  Our preparation here is not primarily self-purification, but rather, that purification and redemption takes place by way of a RADICAL TRUST. A trust that Christ Himself is working to purify us and the world around us to become ‘a dwelling place fit for the Lord.’

As the Church, our rediscovery of Advent will come in small steps - as we learn the difference between Advent hymns and Christmas carols, recover ancient practices such as praying the daily lectionary, things like music, holiday lights, presents, that prepare us for Christmas joy and feasting when they finally arrive. All these things  are marked by a steady confidence that God’s Kingdom is indeed at hand.

So Gods judgement is essentially related to Gods promise— the old is passing away, in Christ the new has come. That FIRE represents both judgment AND hope.

If God loves us enough to welcome us into Christ’s family, then God loves us enough to expect something of US this Advent. — repentance in the form of radical trust.

This Advent tension remains — between kairos and chronos, repentance and judgement, the margins and power, and finally, nostalgia and memory.

Nostalgia says that Advent is all about looking back and feeling good and what used to be., but Advent tells us it is all about looking ahead. We pray/preach/teach “waiting expectantly for what is to come.”

Nostalgia is memory filtered through disproportionate emotion.  When memory is filtered through gratitude, faith begins, which leads to hope.  The ghosts who made Scrooge look back before he could look ahead had a point. Yes, we look forward only by looking back, but we do it with renewed gratitude.

Perhaps for Advent we can give up on nostalgia, but we cannot give up on memory after all, for it is in looking back with thankful hearts that our vision clears up enough to see what lies ahead.

One December afternoon … a group of parents stood in the lobby of a nursery school waiting to claim their children after the last pre-Christmas class session. As the youngsters ran from their lockers, each one carried in his hands the “surprise,” the brightly wrapped package on which he had been working diligently for weeks. One small boy, trying to run, put on his coat, and wave to his parents, all at the same time, slipped and fell. The “surprise” flew from his grasp, landed on the floor and broke with an obvious ceramic crash. The child … began to cry inconsolably. His father, trying to minimize the incident and comfort the boy, patted his head and murmured, “Now, that’s all right son. It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter at all.” But the child’s mother, somewhat wiser in this situation, swept the boy into her arms and said, “Oh, but it does matter. It matters a great deal.” And she wept with her son.

It does matter. Our Advent worship, Advent hymns, Advent expectations, and Advent comforts require the reminder that John the Baptist makes so clear. It does matter. We do matter. Perhaps the church can give up on judgment, but we cannot give up on responsibility.  

  David L. Bartlett - “It  is an exercise in false piety to come to the manger without remembering the cross.”

Lion-lamb, past-future, judgement-Redemption, death-rebirth, water-fire, Kairos-chronos....There is a LOT going on here. It looks about as busy and conflicted as the material world all around us these days. But if you burn it all away, the takeaways are trust and gratitude — our tools for repentance.  Repentance that leads to hope. Hope that will bring forth the Kingdom.  As our “stuff” decreases, God and his Kingdom will increase.

As we wait, let us remember that God is also waiting.  How shall we meet him? Amen.