Advent

Every year, as the season of Advent begins, you and I have to re-learn the meaning of Advent. As we said when we lit that first candle in the wreath, the word "advent" means "coming." We think immediately of the child of Bethlehem, and jump to the conclusion that the season of Advent is all about waiting for Christmas.

But that’s not what Advent means. Advent has to do with Christ’s second coming, not his first. It has to do with judgment, redemption, and the end of time. Advent is supposed to be a "little Lent," a season for sorting out priorities and getting our houses in order. "Watch!" the banner says. "Prepare!" "Get ready," for there’s not much time left.

Suppose you knew a tornado was about to hit your house, and you had 59 seconds to get into the storm cellar. Would you run straight for the family silver and those old bowling trophies on the mantle? Would you stop to phone your broker or cancel the morning paper? No! You’d grab your children and the family pet. You’d run for safety clinging to what matters most.

Advent is about that. It’s about what matters most.

What’s it like to live in Advent? Ask Iraqis who maneuver past bomb craters on their way to the market, or American soldiers on their third deployment in the past five years. They can tell you what matters most. Or ask the Christians who in lived first-century Rome, the ones to whom Paul writes this letter called the Epistle to the Romans. They can tell us what it’s like to live in Advent.

Advent is being thrown out of the synagogue for professing Jesus Christ as the Messiah. Advent is learning to get along with Gentiles, after you’ve spent your whole life having as little to do with them as possible. Advent is going to bed every night expecting the risen Christ to greet you in the morning with a company of angels at his heels, and waking to find that your rheumatism still hurts and your spouse is still grumpy in the morning.

One gets weary of living constantly in Advent, these early Christians will tell you. After a while, despite the promises of the gospel, the old life begins to tug. If you’re a Jewish Christian, you miss fellowship of the synagogue and the inside jokes you shared with fellow Jews. If you’re a Gentile Christian, you miss the occasional visit to the temple of Dionysus and the pleasure you used to take looking down your nose at those ridiculous Jews.

The old ways beckon. You yearn for the sureties of the past. You’ve been waiting for a long, long time – almost a generation now – and still Jesus hasn’t returned. Maybe it’s not true. Maybe he isn’t coming back. Maybe being a Christian isn’t worth it after all.

Then you get this letter from the Apostle Paul. He spends the first part of it explaining that he is not ashamed of the gospel, and you shouldn’t be, either. He warns the Jewish Christians not to fall back into legalism and the Gentile Christians to stay away from those temple prostitutes. We have died with Christ in baptism, he reminds you. Therefore we shall also be raised with him. "Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ." (Rom. 6:11)

Then, toward the end of his letter, Paul makes it clear that he knows how hard it is to live in Advent. He knows getting along with each other in this strange fellowship called "church" is no piece of cake, but he commands you to do it anyway. "Let love be genuine," he writes. "Hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another is showing honor." (Rom. 12:9)

"You know what time it is . . . for salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers." (Rom. 13:11).

Advent and salvation go together. "Salvation" is one of those words we Christians use with easy familiarity, as though it were our personal property. "Are you saved? Have you got salvation? Would you like to get some while the supply lasts?"

Paul speaks of salvation in a very different way. For him salvation is something – or someone – who, even as Paul writes, is drawing closer. Salvation for Paul is the whole of God’s actions on behalf of humankind. Salvation is God’s calling Abraham and Sarah to leave what is familiar and venture into the unknown. Salvation is God’s mighty hand setting Israel free from slavery in Egypt. Salvation is the dream of that long line of prophets from Isaiah to Martin Luther King, Jr., who ached for the day when . . .

        they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
                and their spears into pruning hooks;
                nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
                neither shall they learn war any more.

Salvation is Christ crucified and risen, a stumbling block to Jews and a folly to Gentiles.

Salvation is what comes despite our weakness, our sinfulness, and our unworthiness. Salvation is what God is doing out of love for the whole world. It’s closer now, Paul writes, than when we first believed.

Salvation is coming. Of that we can be sure, but it might not come in the way we expect. It slips up on us like – well, like a thief in the night.

That’s the image in today’s Gospel lesson. Forget Hal Lindsey and all those other phonies throughout history who have been telling us they know all about the inner workings of God’s mind. Jesus says otherwise:

A strange thief, this coming Lord. He comes not to rob us, but to give us something -- something we long for without knowing exactly how to put our longing into words. Something we really need despite all the stuff we already have. Something just beyond our grasp. Every time we gather round this Table and sing that ancient acclamation,

we invite that divine thief, that coming Christ, to bring the salvation Paul promised those first Christians, the salvation that is closer now than when we first believed.

It’s so close we can touch it, smell it, taste it in this bread and wine. It’s as near as these brothers and sisters who gather round us at this Table. Salvation is here because he’s here, although he’s also yet to come.

Already, but not yet. Here, but yet to come. Present, but still in the future. That’s the nature of God’s salvation. At this Table we can taste just enough to know how good it is, but we leave this Table still hungry for the feast that is yet to come.

Since September 11, 2001, we have grown used to hearing pundits say that 9/11 changed the world forever. In the wake of that terrible day, America has expended billions of dollars and thousands of lives trying to shape that altered world into our image. The experiment has not gone well for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that the whole effort was built on a false premise.

The future doesn’t rest on us, least of all on our efforts to make the world look like America. The future rests on God’s working out God’s purposes. That process began long before 9/11 on a hill outside Jerusalem, a hill called Calvary. Nine-eleven didn’t change the world forever. Good Friday and Easter changed the world forever.

Therefore, beloved, Get ready. Let go of what’s not worth hanging onto for another instant. Decide now what’s really important. Look up and welcome God’s salvation.