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1 Advent C
Zechariah 14:4-9
Distress Among Nations “Jesus
said, ‘There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, If ever we were experiencing distress among nations, it is now. As we become aware of it, distress among nations has a trickle-down effect on almost every facet of our lives. Their distress becomes our stress. Some religious pundits are expecting that at any moment the Prince of Peace will – to quote our collect for today, “come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead.” For us this should be good news. The Prince of Peace is coming. Get ready. Today is the First Sunday in Advent. The mood has shifted to that of somber judgment. Here comes the “refiner’s fire” we heard about in the performance of Handel’s Messiah last Monday night. We are called upon to see Jesus in the fresh light of the dawn of a new Church year. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus calls himself the “Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” This is reminiscent of last week’s reading from the Prophet Daniel, who “saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven.” In Daniel’s vision, to this One was given “dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.” Today’s reading from Zechariah echoes this same theme. The message of Advent is this: Get ready. Put your house in order. Be aware of the possibility of judgment in order to understand mercy. Clean out the old to make room for the new. We do this twice a year – in Advent and in Lent. Is this the source of our traditions of “fall housecleaning” and “spring housecleaning?” This should be one of those times of year that Hope House or the Habitat Store will fill up with furniture, clothes and books that we would like to pass along to others. Sometimes it is refreshing just to get a little extra space with no expectation of what will fill that space. Advent is like that. We never know what God has in store for us, but now is the time to start making room for it. In reading our scriptures for today we can almost feel the ground moving under our feet. Some kind of seismic, tectonic shifting starts with the beginning of Advent. So, if Jesus is coming with power and great glory, it would be a good idea to look forward to it with joy, fear and trepidation. This is how we could welcome our Lord Jesus afresh, putting the past behind us. Each year as we do this, we should be opening up more places in our hearts to make room for him. Each year we need this period of Advent to get ready for the Christmas surprise: Jesus comes as a tiny fragile infant, dependent upon human parents for warmth and nurture. But when he comes again, he will come with power and great glory, bringing all the holy ones (saints and angels) with him. Advent takes these two themes and weaves them together into a present moment in which nostalgia sets in and hope explodes. So, how do we get ready for the coming of Jesus Christ? How do we make room for him to come into our hearts afresh? This is the time for a little introspection. Advent is the time to put away pettiness and jealousy and put on the love of God. Advent is the time to look over our lives for the past year and decide how we will change them for the better in the coming year. We don’t have to wait until January 1 to make such resolutions. Advent is the beginning of the Church’s New Year. We can start now to make our own contributions to peace in our time and to lessen the distress among nations. Every generation has experienced distress among nations, or within its own nation. This is really nothing new to anyone with even the slightest interest in history. Wars have been going on somewhere in the world since time immemorial. In our own time, they simply seem to be happening with increasing frequency and with increasing intensity. They are getting too close to home. This past week I was reading the works of George Herbert, an Anglican Priest whose years were 1593-1633. During his short life his home country of England was in a constant religious and political upheaval. George Herbert experienced the reign of James I (who gave the world the King James Bible) and part of the reign of Charles I, who tried to keep peace among Roman Catholics, High-Church Anglicans, and Puritans. After the death of George Herbert, King Charles I was illegally executed during the English Civil War. I think of Charles as a martyr because he died upholding the Church as he had received and understood it. The stress of the conflicts of his time drove George Herbert to seek a more peaceful life as a “Country Parson.” His works have encouraged many an Episcopal Priest to keep preaching through the church year with inspired zeal. His poems are a treasure trove because he has written on almost every topic about which we need to preach. Our Hymnal 1982 (no. 487) contains my favorite poem by George Herbert. I like to think he was welcoming Jesus to come as an infant or as the Lord of Glory: Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life; Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength; Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart: In our own day and time, as we are aware of the seismic shift that is going on in the realms of politics, economics, and religion, our anchor is the love of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. With each new Advent we can settle more deeply into that love. We can do the things that make for peace. Jesus should not have to do all the work by himself. We can clean out the old to make room for the new. We can cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, and be ready for Jesus to fill our hearts with his love and presence. If we focus on God’s love, perhaps the distress among nations will not steal our Christmas joy. Amen.
On the grounds of Honey Creek
The Rev. Linda McCloud, Pastor |
