The First Sunday of Advent
Advent is a complicated season.
I would even go so far as to say this is the most complicated season of the Church Year. This is because Advent presumes that we Christians have been formed in an adult faith that is prepared to celebrate an adult Christmas.
First, we have to remember that Advent isn’t a season that is focused only on the past—on preparing to celebrate the historic birth of Jesus on Christmas.
These are the days watching and waiting… first, watching and waiting not only for that “Day of the Lord”—that moment when all will be brought to completion on that last day. Even more than that, these are the days when we focus our attention on how the Lord comes to us—how the Lord is being born in and through us—here and now.
Above all, Advent is a season of hope.
These layers are the reason I love Advent… but I also have to admit that I’m feeling disheartened going into Advent this year. The reason is because I’m finding hope difficult these days… because hope is hard.
Hope is hard when we think of world events like great wars, famines, genocides, and violent authoritarianism.
And how do we hope as we think of
a mother struggling to know if/how she should keep her baby;
migrants or refugees who suddenly feel the security they thought they had slipping away;
the anguish and tears of someone we love coming to terms with their sexual orientation or who they understand themselves to be;
the victims of domestic violence or sexual abuse;
addicts living with voices in their heads screaming for another fix but terrified they might relapse;
and the fear and exhaustion of those living with cancer and chronic illness…
How do we hope?
And then I realized my problem... as I was looking toward the beginning of Advent, I found myself guilty of hoping for something.
I hope for justice. I hope for peace. I hope for equality and an end to poverty and oppression. I hope for healing and wholeness for the people that I love.
Surely these are good and worthy and Christian hopes.
But, I have also come to recognize that this isn’t Advent hoping.
That kind of hoping, however noble the desires may be, is very subjective. After all, I may recognize injustice in the world in places where others see proper order. I might be complacent and not recognize discrimination when others feel alienated and dehumanized. And I think this is why I have felt underwhelmed by the approach of Advent this year.
So many hopes for and so much disappointment. How many sermons will be preached this Sunday about what we hope for? I wonder who we're really helping with all that hoping for?
So, then, we have to ask: if Advent isn’t about hoping for, then what is it?
Advent is about hoping in.
Specifically, Advent is about hoping in the power of God and having the courage to trust that all things can be set right and that justice will prevail. Healing, wholeness and peace—inside and out—are possible. This is what Isaiah’s vision is reminding us of this evening as we hear about swords becoming plowshares and spears becoming pruning hooks with God inviting all peoples and nations to find refuge on the Lord’s mountain.
Through the Prophet, God is promising to act with and for God’s people.
This is why the words from Scripture that we hear this Sunday are so radical. All are speaking of that time of fulness when all of God’s promises will be fulfilled. But that coming “Day of the Lord” also asks something of us. And this is where we return to the Advent call to hope-filled watching and waiting.
In Isaiah, we are being told to put away instruments of violence and hatred. Paul exhorts us to put away our deeds of darkness and self-indulgence and to clothe ourselves instead in the deeds of Jesus Christ. And in the Gospel, Jesus calls out the need for alertness, attentiveness, and a way of life that allows for a change of heart.
Jesus’ call for us to live intentionally and attentively is where our Advent hoping in and our day-to-day lives intersect. Our adult-Advent becomes a season of discipleship.
This is the time we've been given and we are expected to do something with it!
And so, we wait in faith, hoping in the One who has the power and the love necessary to renew all of creation. This also means trusting that all of those obstacles to hope that I mentioned a few minutes ago are not the end of the story!
Remembering that is what frees us to hope!
So, as we enter into Advent, maybe we can all try to remember that this season isn't about me or you and what we want...what we hope for... for ourselves, or for the Church, or for the world.
Instead, this season is about what God wants for us—for all of us—and what God is bringing to birth in all of creation.
“O God who is to come, grant [us] the grace to live now, in the hour of your Advent, in such a way that [we] may merit to live in your forever” (adapted from Karl Rahner, SJ, Encounters With Silence).
Amen.
Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God,
the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ
with righteous deeds at his coming,
so that, gathered at his right hand,
they may be worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for the First Sunday of Advent
Homily prepared for the Church of St. Michael in Farmington, Minnesota
