LAKE JAMES

NORTH CAROLINA

Second Sunday of Advent + 12/9/07 + St. Paul’s, Lake James, N. C.

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Early last week, while driving in my car, I heard an announcer on a radio station boast that, from then until Christmas, his station would play only “Christmas” music. A few minutes of listening was enough to discover that, for them, “Christmas” music meant such songs as “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” “I saw Mama Kissing Santa Claus” and, only very occasionally, something like “Silent Night.”

The shopping areas are all bedecked with Christmas finery, and Christmas cards are already arriving in homes. It’s no wonder that children are crying out “I can hardly wait till Christmas!” We adults may express our excitement in slightly different terms, but we can certainly identify with that sense of expectation which children verbalize so enthusiastically. But for Anglicans, this isn’t Christmas, it’s Advent! “Advent” which literally means “a coming.” For at least 15 centuries, and probably even longer than that, the Church has observed this special season so that Christians could truly prepare to celebrate the birth of our Savior, as well as consider that Christ will come again at the consummation of all things. The focus of Advent is on preparing, repentance, and waiting.

Think about some very important event which is going to happen in your family or with close friends. It could be a marriage or the birth of a baby, it could be the scheduled release from a hospital for someone who survived a life-threatening illness. Whatever it would be, knowing that that happy event was coming, there would be many preparations to be made so that, when the great day came, it could be celebrated and appreciated as it should be.

These Blue Vestments say this is a special time of year, and lighting candles on the Advent Wreath indicate how near we are to Christmas. We wait and we prepare. But at the same time as we anticipate celebrating the birth of Jesus, and look forward to being with others, to the exchange of gifts, to a tree decorated in splendor, we can’t help looking at our own society here at home, at our growing difficulties in providing real health insurance for so many who need it, at the absence of sufficient facilities to care for the poor, the handicapped, the sick, the elderly, and the mentally ill, at what seems to be an increasing gap between races and cultures, at the rising problem of homelessness, and the growing menace of drug abuse. Does our future look safe, assured, or secure?

In the Hebrew Scriptures this morning, we heard Isaiah’s great hymn of promise, his poetic description of what is often called “The Peaceable Kingdom.” It sounds wonderful – but much too good to be true – a description of a society in which everyone cooperates, in which all enmities and rivalries are no more, in which there is absolutely no hurting or destroying. But did you know that Isaiah wrote that beautiful vision at a very low point in the history of the Jews 700 years before the birth of Christ? Israel, the Northern Kingdom had fallen in defeat and the Assyrians were marching on the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Old “taken-for-granted” truths were being shown to be false, cherished values were being discarded. The belief that God would simply not let His people be conquered was obviously in jeopardy, and fear was emerging as the dominant emotion everywhere. It was in the midst of that, that Isaiah wrote that hymn of promise – a hymn in which we can see the early outline of what the Church later identified as being the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. In that great hymn we can also see the roots out of which grew the New Testament promise – the promise which the Church has enshrined so beautifully and meaningfully in this season of Advent. Can we hear some of the same threatening sounds and see the same threatening clouds as confronted the People of God in Isaiah’s day?

Can anyone be a realistic person today and not wonder about a possible nuclear holocaust set off not only by a rival world power but by a small nation with a sense of inferiority or by some fanatical religious or political terrorist group, destroying civilization as we know it? Well, what are you or I to do about that? What can we do?

When one looks at the huge problems which face our civilization, we may feel insignificant and even powerless to make any difference. St. Paul reminds his spiritual children that God is still in charge, no matter what we see happening around us! For us as Christians in the early part of the 21^st century, Paul’s words can provide the reassurance, the key to how we are to react and what we are to do. If God is still in charge, then His promise that His grace would be sufficient for us matters. It means that as we, whether as individuals, as parish communities, or as larger groups face the problems of the world around us, ranging from the spiritual to the material, we can make a difference.

On an individual basis, think of whether there may be situations in your life where your actions, your witness as a Christian might make all the difference. It might be working to end an estrangement and the restoration of a loving relationship. It might take the form of visiting someone who is alone and desperately lonely. As a parish, it certainly means worshiping God, teaching the Faith, and reaching out in Christian witness to the wider community around us.

A beautiful and beloved Advent hymn is “O come, O come, Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel.” Another is “Come, thou long-expected Jesus, come and set thy people free! From our fears and sins, release us…” In a wonderful little book entitled “Dear Pastor,” there are letters written by small children to their priest. One says simply “Dear Father, please say a prayer for our Little League football team. We need God’s help or a new quarterback! (signed) Alexander.” Alexander knows what he needs, what about us? So many Christians, unfortunately, have little or no sense of needing to be ransomed or freed, no awareness of how much we need to rely on God’s grace if we are to be Christ’s sons and daughters in the world today.

So, we have Advent – a time of waiting and preparing, a time to focus on what we need and what we need to be doing, both to welcome the birth of Jesus at Christmas and at His Coming Again whenever that will be.

The late Father Henri Nouwen wrote these perceptive words with which I close this sermon: “The seeds of national and international peace are already mysteriously sown in the soil of our own pain and in the suffering of the poor. We can trust those seeds, like the mustard seeds of the gospel that grow and produce large shrubs. As long as we imagine and live as if there is no peace in sight, and that it all depends on us to make it come about, we are on the road to self- destruction. But when we trust that the God of love has already given the peace we are searching for, we will see this peace breaking through the broken soil of our human condition and we will be able to let it grow fast and even heal the maladies of our time. With this trust in our hearts, we will be able to hear the words ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.’”

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Reverend Alfred T. K. Zadig, Sr.

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