A Sermon for the first Sunday of Advent
December 3, 2006
Pastor Laura Gentry
Luke 21:25-36
"There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." Then he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. "Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." (New Revised Standard Version)
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
You can’t fool us. We can read the signs. We know when something is about to happen, like when the sky gets really overcast and we know it is going to rain. Around here, people don’t always signal when they’re going to make a turn with their car. But we can read the signs. We see their head turn right and we know they are about to turn right. There’s no fooling us.
And this time of year, we can tell what’s happening, too. The volume of catalogs we receive quadruples—nearly topping our mailboxes, Main Street is lit with wreathes, and you can’t find a parking spot at the mall. Do you suppose Christmas is coming? Yep, we can read the signs.
Here at church, our Christmas tree shows up, along with our Advent wreath, announcing the beginning of the new church year and the Advent season. Advent means “arrival” and we use this season to prepare ourselves to celebrate the nativity, the first arrival of Christ and to prepare our hearts for his second arrival.
The scripture lesson for today urge us to be alert for this Advent. We see the signs, so we ought to keep awake for Christ’s coming. For when he comes again, our creeds remind us, he will judge the world. We will each be judged. So “being alert” is sort of like preparing for a final exam—the final exam of our whole lives.
How do we prepare? It’s pretty daunting, isn’t it? Because we have to be mindful not only about those wrong things we have done, but also of all the good things we should have done but never got around to. If we take an honest look at our lives, we see that we’re in pretty bad standing for the final exam—that our best preparations have been feeble at best. We are caged by our own unworthiness. Not a very cheery way to start the new church year, is it?
But wait! That’s not the end of the story. At Advent time, we celebrate Christ’s first coming in order to prepare for his second. And how did he come the first time? He came as a vulnerable little baby—just like us. He came gently, quietly. He came to be with us, to walk with us and love us back to life. He came not to condemn the world, but to redeem the world. He came to pass the final exam for us. It is freedom he offers.
Rev. A.J. Gordon was the pastor of the Clarendon Baptist Church in Boston, Massachusetts. One day, he met a young boy in front of the sanctuary carrying an old, rusty cage in which several birds fluttered about. Gordon asked, "Son, where did you get those birds?" The boy replied, "I trapped them out in the field." "What are you going to do with them?" he questioned. "I'm going to play with them, and then I don’t know, maybe I'll just feed them to an old cat we have at home."
When Gordon offered to buy them, the lad exclaimed, "Mister, you don't want them. They're just little old wild birds and can't sing very well." Gordon replied, "I'll give you $2 for the cage and the birds." "Okay, it's a deal, but you're making a bad bargain." The exchange was made and the boy went away whistling, happy with his shiny coins. Gordon walked around to the back of the church, opened the door of the small wire coop, and let the struggling creatures soar into the sky.
The next Sunday he took the empty cage into the pulpit and used it to illustrate his sermon about Christ's Advent, his coming to seek and to save the lost—paying for them with His own precious blood. "That boy told me the birds were not songsters," said Gordon, "but when I released them and they winged their way heavenward, it seemed to me they were singing, 'Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed!'"
This story illustrates the power of what God has done for us in Christ. We celebrate that Christmas is not about judgment, but about redemption. Jesus comes to heal and to forgive us—to set us free. So as we see the signs that his second coming could be at any time, we need not panic. No, in Luke’s gospel, Jesus says to us: “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Yes, this is an exciting time! Our redemption is drawing near.
What does this mean for us? How ought we to live in light of the fact that Christ’s Advent is near? Jesus instructs us: "Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.”
Now think for a moment, about the people in your life. Are their hearts weighed down? We live in such a heart-weighed-down world that I’m willing to bet you know a lot of people whose hearts are weighed down with worries of this life both great and small. If you take a close look at your own heart, I’ll bet you’ll notice some weighing-down happening there, too. What’s with that? Why is worry and hurt so widespread when our redemption is so near?
It is because we do not see it. We only see the troubles immediately before us rather than the gift of Christ’s redemption just beyond that. Back to the cage metaphor: it reminds me of the hamster, Eunice, who I used to own. She was single-minded of purpose—to escape. She would sit in the corner and chew on the bars of her cage all day. Eunice was so fixated upon this that when I would come along and open the door, she wouldn’t even notice and would go right on chewing on the bars just inches from the open door. It seems to me that’s exactly what God sees when God peers into our lives. Christ has set us free, but we do not believe it is really for us. We do not believe that we are worthy of such amazing love,. We are afraid of such wonderful freedom. We choose our cages instead. How this must grieve the heart of our God who loves us so—a God who spared nothing to win our freedom!
Today marks the beginning of Advent. And the message of this season is the song of those wild birds: Redeemed! We need to get used to the fact that we’ve been redeemed, my friends. We need to practice living like it is really true. We need to learn to sing the song of freedom every single day of our lives. We are invited to live immersed in grace so that the worries of life cannot weigh us down and the uncertainty of the future cannot scare us. The bottom line is that we must throw out our cages! Christ has conquered them.
So yes, Christ is coming! We see the signs. We know it. But it is nothing to be troubled about. It is incredibly good news. Today, we are invited by the God of love to lift up our heads with hope in joyful anticipation. Our freedom is here. Amen.
© Laura E. Gentry 2006
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