A sermon for the First Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2023
Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York
But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
We live in a time when it feels like everything is shaken, nothing is stable. For several years, there has been political tumult in our country, with accelerating hate and disrespect. In the middle of that we had a great pandemic that prevented people from seeing one another and getting together as they had been doing. It disrupted institutions and patterns of life, not the least church attendance. Coming back to worship in person has been difficult for all churches, but especially for those, who like Trinity had already grown smaller and whose congregations were older and already found it difficult to get out and to the church. And the shaking of the foundations has become literal with the bricks and beams of our parish hall threatening to collapse. And now, for almost two months we have a terrible situation in Israel and Gaza, with terrible destruction and loss of life. Disturbing signs, seen in the times, in the world, perhaps even in the heavens.
And so we begin this season of Advent when the church fervently awaits the appearance of the Messiah and awaits God’s final judgement. We long for a resolution and the coming of peace, stability, and hopefulness. People imagine dramatic images of God’s final judgement—the Second Coming of Christ, as some call it. Many of those images mirror the violence, fear, and uncertainty that are out in the world: dramatic disruptions, violent punishment of the wicked, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. The judgement of God is indeed coming and, indeed, it will vindicate God’s children. However, here’s how our Collect for the First Sunday of Advent describes it:
“… give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal …”
Book of Common Prayer, Collect for the First Sunday of Advent
Christ came among us in great humility. In less than a month, we know his first appearance will be as a baby born to poor parents, in circumstances even less comfortable and safe than most people had in those days. And nowhere in his subsequent life was Jesus wealthy or powerful, or in any position to make laws, or oppose armies, or do any of the dramatic things we want to see happen when we’re upset and angry at the bad guys. God comes among us with great humility, and thereby, we are saved.
In Advent we are waiting. We are waiting not just for the party at the end of the month or even for the baby in the manger. We are waiting for God’s judgement, when the God of Hosts will restore his people, when the poor and the oppressed will be saved. Jesus is both our judge and our companion. St. Paul says in today’s lesson: “You are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is not in any counterpart to the hatefulness and ugliness of this world that Christ is found; it isn’t in the violence and power that we see people seeking to use to solve their problems nowadays. Rather St. Paul continues: “He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is in God’s love, strengthening us to the end, that keeps us diligent during this season of Advent.
During these different seasons of the church year we talk about and focus on different things, different aspects of the Gospel and Christian life. But it doesn’t matter what season of the church year we are currently in: the Gospel and Christian life are true and have been true at all times.
We have much to be thankful for here at Trinity, including the long and faithful ministries of so many here in this place. Such as Wendell Roberts, who spent four decades as rector here, healing souls and standing up for this community, for the many children who have been baptized here and brought up as Christians. Then, there are our own children who go out in the world, carrying the faithfulness and love of the community who gather here in the church and online; truly those children and grandchildren are a blessing to the world. These things, our people, are all witnesses to the power of the humility of God come among us in Jesus. And in Advent we join in the expectation that God will come as loving and merciful judge—eliminating the fear and violence that shakes this world and bringing the abundance of generosity and humility.
“I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind—just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you.”
1 Corinthians 1:4-6
We await the judgement of God this Advent. And what we mean by that is God’s vindication of God’s love. In our waiting we are not panicked or hysterical or apprehensive, but alert, enriched in the knowledge of God’s love, of which we speak and which leads us, always, to live in the love of God by doing good for others.
Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.
Mark 13:35-37
Observations 