Well, it’s December 17.
Which means that we are one week and one day away from Christmas. We are no longer at the beginning of the Advent season, but nor are we at its end.
Christmas is coming. But we’re not there yet.
It is interesting for us to ponder that the seasons of the church year – times such as Lent, Easter, Advent, Christmas, Pentecost, and so on – are entirely artificial constructs of our ancestors in the Christian tradition. In the same way that we do not actually know the date of Christ’s birth, or the date of his crucifixion and resurrection, the seasons that we attach to those special days emerge out of the traditions of the church rather than from any biblical or external authority. Over the course of years, and centuries, and often through the interweaving of the Christian story with pre-existing cultural practices in the various places where Christianity took root, our ancestors realized that there was spiritual value in setting aside certain times of the year to ponder specific parts of the Christian story. A feast day or holy-day to celebrate a specific story or saint could be a good thing; but to stretch a part of the story over the course of a few weeks could help to better focus the gathered community’s attention on a theme or on dimensions of the story that were worthy of more reflection than one designated day would afford. Over the course of years, other spiritual disciplines and practices became associated with those seasonal themes – such as the practice of fasting in Advent or practicing forms of self-denial in Lent in anticipation and in preparation for Christmas or Easter.
As Protestants, we are relatively late adapters of these liturgical seasons and practices. Some of our Presbyterian ancestors, for example, realized the artificiality of those traditions, and discouraged any focus on them. In previous generations, very little attention would have paid to seasons and holidays. Ideas such as Advent and Lent were not in the Bible, so why should the church embrace them at all?
But there can be a value and a wisdom in taking certain periods of the year to reflect, in a focused way, on important spiritual themes and ideas.
So what are the themes of Advent that we are supposed to be reflecting on – and what do they have to do with the biblical stories that we are invited to read this morning?
This season of the year that we call Advent is a period of time in the church year in which we are invited to explore and to ponder what it means to live with a spirit of expectation and of hope, what it means to look towards the future as a place of promises yet to be fulfilled, and of visions yet to be realized.
And the readings of Advent invite us to so, first, by taking us back into the history of Israel. We are invited to read passages from ancient prophetic texts such as today’s suggested passage from Isaiah, and ponder how our Christian ancestors discerned profound resonance between those prophetic visions and the meanings that were woven into the story of the birth and life of Jesus of Nazareth.
The prophet’s vision of a servant who would be anointed with the Spirit of the Lord, who would bring good news to the oppressed, who would bind up the brokenhearted, who would proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners – these words, which were quoted by Jesus in Luke’s Gospel, were often read by our Christian ancestors as bearing a remarkable resonance with the actions of Jesus. As a result, this invitation to look far into the past at the expectations and hopes that were created by the prophets, and then to find parallels with Jesus’ life, serves the important function of allowing these Advent readings to create a template for what it means to live in expectation and in hope, even today.
But Advent texts do not just look backward. Rather, other texts in this Advent season invite us to cast our gaze into the future as well. Some of the Advent lessons invite us to read passages about calamities and cataclysms yet to come, eschatological and seeming apocalyptic visions of judgement and doom and destruction; but they also invite us to catch glimpses of the ways that those calamitous experiences would lead toward the eventual fulfillment of this wondrous vision that Jesus called the kingdom of God – a transformed world in which the blessings of the earth will be shared with all, a redeemed creation in which pain and suffering will be no more, a new reality in which love shall reign over all, where injustice shall be no more, where kindness will shape the interactions of humanity, where the ancient prayer that the longings and intentions of God will be experienced on earth as they are in heaven.
The stories of Advent and Christmas might seem to be inviting us to look to the past – but what they are really doing is using our reflections on the past to shape our vision of the future.
But we are not there yet.
Which brings us to John the Baptist. John the Baptist is one of the central characters in the suggested readings for Advent. And he is an important character in the Gospel writers’ understanding of the meaning of Jesus’ arrival. After all, each of the four Gospel writers includes a description of John the Baptist before they begin their story of Jesus. Which is interesting for us to ponder in this season of Advent and Christmas – that is, that only one of the four Gospels (that being Luke) makes any mention of the stable in Bethlehem, or shepherds, or angels singing, or a star. Only one of the four Gospels (that being Matthew) makes any mention of the visit of the wise magi from the East. And only one Gospel (that being John) celebrates the idea of Jesus as the Word of God who was in the beginning with God and was God, and who became flesh and dwelt among us. The ways that the Gospel writers set the scene for their accounts of Jesus’ life are each distinct and unique, even though we usually tend to mash the stories all together in the songs and stories and pictures of this season.
But what is equally interesting for us to realize is that all four Gospels tell the story of John the Baptist before they tell the story of Jesus. All four Gospel writers seemed to realize that they couldn’t get to the story of Jesus without first telling the story of John.
And John’s proclamation was an interesting one. Repent and be baptized; prepare yourselves; get ready; because there is One who is coming who is more powerful than I am, there is One who is coming who will fulfill your expectations and your hopes; there is One who is coming who will be revealed to be the Holy One of God. I am not who you are waiting for. He’s on his way.
But he’s not here yet.
But in the meantime, in this time of expectation and of hope, clean up your lives, suggested John the Baptist. Repent of your mistakes and your brokenness; turn around; do what you can to try to make things right. Christ is coming, but he’s not here yet. Christmas is coming, but it’s not here yet. The kingdom of God is coming, but it’s not here yet.
But you are here. And the time is now to get ready for what is about to happen.
John’s words are worthy of our ongoing reflections. After all, Advent does not only invite us to look to the past, to what happened such a long time ago. Advent also invites us to look to the future, in expectation and in hope of the transformation of this world that we believe will happen. But Advent also invites us to look at our own lives, to look at our own priorities, to look at our own values, to look at our own brokenness, to look at our own actions, to look at the ways that we are living – and to make things right, insofar as we are able, so that we will be truly ready to recognize, and to celebrate, the coming of Christ.
Which leaves us with an interesting question. The coming of Jesus into this world was, and is, good news. But it is also challenging news. Because it challenges us to live by a different vision of how things should be, of how things are meant to be, and of how things will be when the kingdom of God is finally and fully realized.
What would be different about our lives if his kingdom was here, in its fullness?
And why aren’t we living like that now?
The challenges of those visions can, and should, serve as motivations for each and every one of us to re-order, to allow our lives to be transformed by Christ.
And that invitation to transformation is, in fact, at the heart of what Advent expectation and Advent hope is all about. In light of the fulfillment of God’s ancient promises in Jesus, and in light of the kingdom that is coming but is not yet completely here, we are invited to live differently.
Because what John the Baptist declared is just as true, today, as it was so long ago.
Jesus is coming.
He’s not here yet, but he’s on his way.
So what needs to change – in you, in me, in the church, in the world – so that we will be ready to open him with open arms?
