Reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”

In this last week of Advent, as we enter into our final days of preparation for the Christmas season and the celebration of Christ’s birth, we hear the angel’s greeting to Mary. We hear of the promise of the birth to come.

What are we listening for in these final days, then? What have we opened our ears to in these last moments of Advent, as Christmas rushes headlong towards us?

What do we have left on our “to do” lists? Do we have all of the decorations up and the gifts bought? Are the pictures taken, cards mailed, and family contacted? What more is there yet to do to be ready?

I think of all the sounds that are particular to Advent and December: the bells, the songs, the carols, of course. But I also think of the whisper that tells you the difference between rain falling, and snow. The way you can tell when the snowplow is going by, which is somehow a different sound than the usual cars or garbage trucks.

If we could open our ears to the world around us and hear God through the voice of the angel Gabriel, what greeting would we hear? What would we expect to hear? “Greetings, child of God!” or do we look down on ourselves in our image of God’s eyes, and expect something a little less cheery, “Hello, child.”

Perhaps we are indeed hearing God’s voice, coming closer and closer as Christmas approaches, through all the different sounds of the season. The voices of the angels singing out in the carols on the radio, the greetings of family and friends reminding us of the joys of the season, these voices remind us of the love of God, who delights to be in relationship with us.

And perhaps also we can hear the voice of God in the whisper of the falling snow and the rush of the working snow plows. Perhaps we can open our ears to the quiet ways that God calls out to us, calls us into the world that is always changing, forming and re-forming around us in every moment, calling us into relationship with God and God’s beautiful, holy creation.

After all, Christmas is when we celebrate God becoming a truly physical part of that creation.

And it’s coming soon!

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

Reflection for the Third Sunday of Advent

“Rejoice always,

pray without ceasing,

give thanks in all circumstances;

this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Amen.

This Sunday the children and youth of our congregations will be working together to present their Christmas pageant. This year’s pageant tells the Christmas story through the eyes of a candymaker, telling a mythological story of how the candy cane came about: the white candy to remind us of Christ’s purity, the stripes to remind of how he suffered, the cane shape to remind us of the Good Shepherd, and the hardness to remind us that Christ is our Rock. These children have been working hard to prepare to present this pageant. They have practiced on Sunday afternoons, and are ready to share what they have learned.

As our Advent season passes the halfway point, what have we learned? What have we heard, seen, encountered? What have these two-plus weeks taught us about waiting, about looking forward, about what is to come?

In our readings for Advent we hear the call of John the Baptist, we hear Isaiah’s promises about the coming Messiah. We hear promise and hope and expectation.

From Paul, our second reading, which is quoted above, we hear more about how to prepare, and it is all simple, beautiful stuff.

Rejoice, always.

Rejoicing isn’t always easy. It isn’t always easy to take the breath, the time, in the midst of “to do” lists and shopping and cleaning and preparing. It isn’t always easy to stop and rejoice. And yet, that’s not what we’re being asked. Rejoice, always. Not, “stop and rejoice,” but “rejoice, always.” In all you do, be joyful. Again, not always easy, but not something we have to see as disconnected from everything else we do.

Pray without ceasing.

Hear again the continual nature of this call. “Pray without ceasing,” Paul urges us. In all we do, during all we do, in the midst and breath and moments of all we do, pray.

Give thanks in all circumstances.

Another one that we can easily come up with excuses for not doing, and yet isn’t so difficult after all. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Not so difficult.

This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

It is the will of God that we be in relationship with God. After all, that’s what rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks all have in common. God just wants to love us, that we may love God, and love each other.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Reflection for the Second Sunday of Advent

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way;

the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight,’”

As we enter into this second week of Advent the sense of the season is truly beginning to dawn upon us. The stores are now in full bloom with their colors and sales and enticements. The streets begin to glow with holiday lights, and plan for travel, cooking, and celebrating no longer seem far off.

And yet, it is only the second week. There is still more road to travel, there are still more stories to be heard, more candles to be lit. Last week we celebrated our freedom in how we prepare for the Christmas season. This week, we hear from John the Baptist, announcing the way of the Lord, telling the people how to prepare:

“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

We like it when there are messengers. Though the adage “don’t shoot the messenger” exists for a reason (John ended up beheaded, remember?), we do actually like to know what is going to happen next. We like to have a “heads up,” a little time to prepare for whatever big news or event is coming towards us.

So, John prepared the people, baptizing them in the waters of the Jordan, calling for repentance and making the way ready for the One who was to come.

What do we do, then, to prepare in this season?

Perhaps, in a spirit of baptismal waters, we wash our houses, doing extra cleaning and preparation for the holidays. Or perhaps we take up additional spiritual practices, similar to the tradition of “giving up” something in Lent. Or perhaps we are so overwhelmed by the secular world’s demands on our pre-Christmas time that the idea of doing anything to prepare ourselves personally for the coming of Christ, of which we do not know the day or hour, just seems like one more thing on the list that isn’t going to get done.

It’s okay.

Read Isaiah’s proclamation again: “See, I am sending my messenger…who will prepare your way.” It’s not actually up to us to prepare. God prepare us. We have already been washed in the font, we have already been fed at the table, we have already been loved and named and claimed.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

Reflection for the First Sunday of Advent

“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.”

Happy New Year! We are beginning the new liturgical year with this beautiful Advent season of four weeks of preparing for Christ.

In this time, in these weeks, it can be difficult to connect with Jesus’ declaration that “about that day or hour no one knows.” Everything is scheduled for us today. Doctor’s appointments, meetings, holidays, travel plans. Everything in our lives has a day, a time, an hour.

And yet, in this Advent season, we are celebrating the unknown of Christ’s return. We are, indeed, counting down the days and hours until Christmas, our celebrations and holiday plans, marking the birth of Christ in Bethlehem.

But we are also celebrating the promised return of Christ, the day and hour of which we do not know, cannot know.

So we keep awake. We keep alert. We continue in our prayers, we continue in our love of God, and we continuing in caring for God’s world.

Martin Luther, when asked what he would do if he knew the world was ending tomorrow, said that he would plant an apple tree. So what do we do to prepare for an unknown event? This is not a call to panic and do nothing, but a call for preparedness, a call for love, a call for continuing to be in the world, but not passively.

We are called into the world. We are called into being in the world, loving the world.

How then, in this Advent season, as we remember the final preparations for Jesus’ coming as a baby in Bethlehem, can we prepare also for the return of the king?

I have no answers for you, but invite you in this season to look around, to look at your neighbors and at the need in the world, and to respond with joy and hope and love.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.