Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
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SERMON
surely know about that thing called the two-minute warning.
It’s
as if to say to each team:
okay, gang, the end is almost in sight.
This thing is almost over.
The fat lady is about to sing.
So if there’s anything else you need to do
that you haven’t done yet …
Anything else remaining to be pulled from your bag of tricks …
this may be your last chance.
Get yourselves in gear
for the final big push!
Well,
Advent is kind of like that.
It’s
our four-weeks warning
that Christmas is almost here.
The
final big push!
Last
chance to get done
everything we need to do,
to be prepared for Christmas.
Only,
I’m not talking about things like
shopping for presents,
decorating the tree,
rehearsing Handel’s Messiah,
baking cookies, or
cleaning
house for the in-laws’ annual visit,
although we do do all those
things.
I
don’t mean any of the outward things we do
to prepare ourselves for the holiday season.
I’m
talking about
how we prepare ourselves inwardly
for the coming of the Christ child.
And
one of the ways we can at least begin to prepare is,
quite simply, to wake up.
To
heed that two-minute warning.
To
rouse ourselves so that we can see
what needs to be done
before the crucial moment arrives.
Now
as I think about it,
it seems to me that there are three things,
three ideas,
that we need to wake up to,
each one a little different from the others.
The
first one is pretty obvious, so let’s start there:
We
need to wake up to the fact that
Christmas 2001 is just about here!
In
some ways, that’s not too difficult.
If
you’ve been out of your house at all the past few weeks,
you’ve surely seen signs of Christmas.
I
was hearing Christmas carols at the grocery store
two weeks before Halloween this year.
Even
if you never left the house,
the advertising in your newspaper,
and the TV commercials,
and the catalogs coming into your mailbox,
would have been pushing at you for weeks already.
Especially
this year,
when it seems that we’re being told that
it is a patriotic necessity to go Christmas shopping:
“Go
more deeply into debt than ever,
or you’ve let the terrorists win!”
So,
in one sense,
you could say we’ve been more than adequately forewarned
that Christmas is on the way.
But
in another sense,
all these cultural trappings of Christmas
are not at all the kind of waking up we need.
They
aren’t inviting us to prepare the way of the Lord …
they encourage us to prepare the way for Santa Claus.
Buy
this gift,
decorate with these things,
bake those goodies.
Of
course, there’s nothing necessarily wrong
with
doing all of those things.
The
only problem tends to be
that we spend all our time getting outwardly ready
for our cultural Christmas celebrations,
leaving us little or no time
to get ourselves inwardly ready for God’s appearing among us.
And
you can’t do both of those things
at the same time.
In
fact, in a lot of ways
our cultural Christmas and our Christian Christmas
are contradictions of each other.
For
example: Santa Claus doesn’t come
to the poor …
but Jesus did … and continues to do so.
We
know the differences between the two.
Advent
simply comes along to remind us:
Wake
up!
Prepare the way of the Lord.
Prepare yourself for the Lord.
So
that’s one thing we need to wake up to:
the fact that Christmas is coming, in all its forms.
But
another thing Advent reminds us is that
we need to wake up to life in general.
We
need to check and be sure that
we are awake to God in the midst of everyday life.
And
that’s not always easy,
because most of our lives are
set in comfortable routines and patterns;
so that, lots of times we can get through almost an entire day
with our brains shut off
and our bodies on autopilot.
Whether
it’s the routine at work,
or at school, or our volunteer labors,
or at home, or all of the above …
it’s awfully easy to coast through,
without giving much attention to what it is we’re doing.
I
have a sneaking suspicion
that is God almighty appeared to me
sometime when I was driving between here and home,
I honestly wouldn’t notice.
I’d
only be awake enough to watch for
those
people making lane changes without using their turn signal,
and that sort of thing.
Not
enough, probably, to recognize God
busting in on my everyday activities.
And
that’s not good!
Guess
I need to pay a little more attention
to Advent.
I
think that’s what this morning’s gospel lesson is about,
at least in part.
Participating
in the routine of life,
but remaining awake to God’s intervention and God’s call.
When
we hear this passage …
two men working in the field,
two women grinding at the mill,
one is taken and the other is left behind …
We
tend to think it’s about God’s arbitrariness –
that’s not exactly the right word –
God’s scary freedom to choose whomever God wants,
and leave behind anyone else.
When
you hear those words,
“one is taken and another is left,”
it’s hard not to picture this big hand
reaching down through the clouds,
picking up one person to take him or her off,
and virtually ignoring the other one!
But
I don’t think that’s exactly what
Jesus was getting at with this story …
I
guess, because I don’t think
that’s the kind of God Jesus taught about.
So
try for a minute to picture it a different way, instead:
Imagine
those two women at the mill, grinding …
going about their usual daily routine.
And
a figure appears in the doorway,
and says, “It’s time now. Come
with me.”
One
woman is so caught up with her wheat and grinding,
that she doesn’t see or hear or notice anything.
But
the other is awake and alert.
She detects God’s presence …
and she is ready to answer God’s call.
It’s
Advent.
No
more coasting through everyday life.
Wake
up to what is happening around you …
wake up to God’s presence in your life.
Now
tied in with that,
is a third and final thing
that Advent ought to wake us up to …
and that is the belief that Christ is coming again,
though we don’t know the day or the hour.
In
a way, it’s like the concept of the two-minute warning again,
only now, the time frame is indefinite.
Imagine
how different a football game would be
if you never knew for sure when it was going to end.
If
you knew that every play might be the last.
Advent
reminds us, warns us,
that Christ is going to come
again.
That
much is definite.
We just don’t know for sure when.
Even he doesn’t know.
Perhaps
the best way to make this real
is to think about it in a very personal sense.
If
you were seriously ill,
and knew that each day might be your last,
how would you live?
You
might last several more years,
or it might happen tomorrow.
What
might you do differently?
What might you not do at all?
Advent
reminds us,
we’re living in an in-between time.
Christ
has come.
He
will come again,
but we have no idea when.
So
we must be awake and alert at all times.
Prepared for his coming.
There’s
a story from America’s colonial days
about the day when a terrible dust storm happened
while the men of the town were in a town meeting.
The
wind kicked up …
the dust blew in …
and it got dark as night.
Some
of them were frightened:
“It might be the day of judgment.”
“Maybe we’d all better go home.”
And
the mumblings got louder,
and even though they had brought candles into the darkness,
no business was getting done.
Finally,
one of them stood up and addressed the whole group:
“Gentlemen, either this is the day of judgment, or it is not.
If it is not, we have nothing to fear.
If it is, well, then, I would like the Lord to find me here doing my
work.”
And
he sat down.
And
everyone shut up.
What
do you want God to find you doing?
Get
on and do it,
because we don’t know the day or the hour.
Wake
up!
Christmas
is coming,
and Christ is coming again.
Let
us prepare his way.
Amen.
© 2001 Julie
Adkins (e-mail: Drjadkins@aol.com)