November 30, 2008 Message

1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 3:24-37 “A Season of Waiting, A Season of Hope”


What would people say if asked this weekend, “What time of year is it?” Would they say, “Fall." "Winter.“ Or would they say, “Thanksgiving, the time of year to be thankful.” Or, “It’s Christmas, the time to shop and all the stuff that goes with the season.” Would anyone say it is Advent? It seems more and more we rush right by Thanksgiving and hurdle over Advent on the way to Christmas, with hardly a pause to give thanks, to settle in after a large dinner and enjoy the day before jumping right into Christmas. After all, we can be thankful anytime. And why have a season where the whole point is waiting? That’s no fun! But still, this is Advent – and this is the season of waiting.

Walmart Shopping Death By Robert D. Mcfadden & Angela Macropoulos New York Times, 11 28/08
The throng of Wal-Mart shoppers had been building all night, filling sidewalks and stretching across a vast parking lot at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, N.Y. At 3:30 a.m., the Nassau County police had to be called in for crowd control, and an officer with a bullhorn pleaded for order.
Tension grew as the 5 a.m. opening neared. Someone taped up a crude poster: “Blitz Line Starts Here.”
By 4:55, with no police officers in sight, the crowd of more than 2,000 had become a rabble, and could be held back no longer. Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault. Six to 10 workers inside tried to push back, but it was hopeless.
Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One 34 year old worker, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him. Others who had stood alongside this man trying to hold the doors were also hurled back and run over, witnesses said.
Some workers who saw what was happening fought their way through the surge to get to the man, but he had been fatally injured, the police said. Emergency workers tried to revive the temporary worker hired for the holiday season, at the scene, but he was pronounced dead an hour later at Franklin Hospital Medical Center in Valley Stream.
Four other people, including a 28-year-old woman who was described as eight months pregnant, were treated at the hospital for minor injuries.

Maybe now is a good time for Advent for all of us.

Paul writes to the church at Corinth, telling them he is thankful for them – and their discipleship as they wait for the revealing of Jesus Christ. God has strengthened them through their sharing of the good news. They are blessed (v. 7), but (as he says later), they tend to dwell on the excitement of the present rather than looking forward to “the revealing of ... Christ,” Jesus coming again. God is “faithful” (v. 9): he will not abandon what he has begun – the time will come. The early church was an Advent people, who were about waiting for the coming of their Lord once again.

And in Mark Jesus answers his disciples question about the coming of the Son of Man when the Temple is destroyed – when will it be? Basically what Jesus says is: when what you have counted on all this time crumbles, when things appear to be the darkest, and everything is falling in on you, the Son of Man will come from heaven and draw his people to him.

Jesus tells Peter, James, John and Andrew, “You’re going to have days like this, all of you. You’ll know, just like when you see a fig tree sprout leaves you know summer can’t be far away. And when it happens, and it will, I will be there with you.” Then he adds, you aren’t going to know when all this is going to happen. Only God knows that. Wait, it will happen. Don’t give up hope. Watch, the Son of God IS coming.

Perhaps like the Advent people of the Exile, who expressed their frustration after years and years uprooted from their “promised land,” we long for God to come into our lives in a tangible way. We want signs of some sort or another. Where is the manna? Where is the pillar of cloud or fire? Where are the plagues? We want God to shake things up a bit, let us know God’s still around.
And like the people of the exile, we are sort of tired of waiting. Maybe we have even given up on God. Concerning our prayers, maybe it’s even like James Brenneman, president of Goshen College, writes: “We have felt nothing, seen nothing, sensed nothing for a long time.” So, what’s the point of “keeping in touch” any more? Brenneman says when you reach the point of “throwing in the towel” or the unhappiness is too heavy to bear and you beg God do something – you have entered Advent.

When all you have is hope – you have entered Advent. And you wait. You wait until “the powers in the heavens will be shaken.” You wait for God to do something because there is nothing you or anyone else can do.

Advent is a season of hope, but it does not begin there. The season begins with hopelessness. This is the context in which the people of God are truly ready to hear a message of grace and new beginnings. When all other options are closed, when we have exhausted our personal resources, and when we have found all our idols wanting, we are ready to receive the newness only the Lord can create. We are ready to receive Jesus as our hope.

Churches even avoid singing Christmas carols during Advent and change the paraments to Purple, a color of remorse (or repentance), as reminders that we are broken people, all of us - to be molded anew by the Master’s hands from what we have become into what we are to become. Both act to remind us to resist “the powers" of commercialism and materialism that can get in the way of their watchfulness for the coming of the Son of Man.

Advent is not so much ABOUT Christ coming, or WHEN Christ comes again, or HOW it’s all going to happen. There is no literal timetable or calendar that one can mark step by step. We are all, Jesus says, like servants whose master has gone on a journey. We have no idea when he is coming back. The only thing we do know about the timing is that when we think we know then for certain it will not be then.

In truth, the Son of Man is always at the door.

Advent is about the fact that Christ has come, and will come, time and time again, as God with us, our Savior. Advent happens every time we come to the Lord’s Table. The Advent of God happens every time we repent, turn form our sins, and seek God’s forgiveness. It is a season when God becomes our Savior - even when we wait in hope.

Advent is about waiting and about watching - waiting by not knowing when, watching by living as Jesus lived, loving as Jesus loved. And Advent is about hope.