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St. George's Episcopal Church Roseburg, Oregon Advent 1 27 November 2005 Go To St. George's Home Page

Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37
The Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 74 th General Convention of the ECUSA

“But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. “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. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake--for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” (Mark 13:24-37)

Time, Time, Time
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop, Rector

     Does anyone have the time? Almost all of us wear a watch. We are possessed by time. Beginning with simple observations of the seasons, and the later development of the sun dial, human beings around the world have marked the passage of the hours. As my old friend Chuck Walling once said, “I guess ever since God divided the darkness from the light on the first day of creation, we have been consumed by time.”[1] And with advances in technology came new and better ways to accurately measure time; from the sun dial to the hour glass, to huge gear-driven mechanisms like Big Ben in London, to the atomic clock that measures time down to the nanosecond.

     I collect clocks. In our house we have a grandfather clock, a grandmother clock, two mantle clocks (but only one mantle!), three bed side alarm clocks, three kitchen clocks, and clocks on all the electronic devices. I carry a Palm Pilot™ that tells me the time of day, and when my appointments are (when I remember to set it). I wear a watch that automatically tells me the time anywhere in the world at the touch of a button. At my former church, we had a clock on the wall that was synchronized to the naval atomic clock in Washington, D.C. – and we seldom started services on time there either!

     Over the course of time, several systems have been developed to mark the passage of the years. The Jewish calendar is based on the lunar cycle. The Chinese follow a twelve-year cycle of years, with each year in the cycle represented by an animal. In western civilization we had the Julian calendar which was replaced by the Gregorian calendar. The passage of our money is also measured by the tax year and the fiscal year.

     Our memories mark the times of our lives in other ways. We have sad times and happy times; scary times and good times. Most of us don’t have enough time, and we develop anxieties about that. My friend Chuck once said, “time flies when we’re having fun, but of course, the older we get, time flies whether we have fun or not!” Being young, I’ll just have to take his word on that.

     Today marks the beginning of a new year in the life of the church. It is the first day of the new Church year. We begin the 2006 year in 2005 because our church calendar is based by the fixed date of December 25 and the movable date of Easter. Both Easter and Christmas are dates Christians remember as times when the experience of God touched humanity in specific and wonderful ways. In the early centuries of the Church, some time was set aside to prepare spiritually for these most holy of days. Four weeks of preparation for Christmas Day comprise the first four weeks of the ecclesiastical year. And we acknowledge the first day of this season of preparation by lighting the first candle on the Advent wreath.

     Advent is the season when we anticipate the coming of Jesus, the incarnation of God in the world. I love this time of year and this season in the church. It is as if time itself is pregnant, waiting to give birth to something new. But the Gospel lesson today does not emphasize that new beginning, with a babe in a manger. It rather speaks to another beginning – a time when early Jewish Christians looked for Jesus to return to judge the world.

     During the end of the last church year, we read apocalyptic stories from the Gospel of Matthew. Apocalyptic language was popular literature during the first century – especially among certain Jewish sects, one of which might have been highly influential on Jesus. Apocalyptic writing taught that someday time itself would end, and that the end would be immediately preceded by a great cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil. The forces of good would eventually triumph over evil, and the division between heaven and earth would pass away. The Son of Man will come in clouds with great power and glory to judge the world.

     The Gospel of Mark, from which we read our gospel lessons during year B of the three-year liturgical cycle, was written at or just after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E. To the Markan community it must have seemed like everything they knew was coming to an end. The people in that community were the children of those who had likely walked with Jesus’ and heard his own apocalyptic preaching about the end times. And watching God’s temple pulled down, the city torched, and then a pagan temple erected in place of the Temple must have seemed to them like the end was immediate. We hear echoes of the nearness of the end of time in today’s gospel reading, as well as in the thirteenth chapter of Mark.

     But the end didn’t come. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke and John, written 25 to 55 or so years later than Mark’s reflect the awareness that the end time is coming some while “later.” And we still wait – like the peasant who came to the Rabbi after the village of Anatevka had been destroyed by the Russians during the pogrom and asked, “Rabbi, we have been waiting so long. Wouldn’t this be a good time for God to come?” To which the Rabbi replied, “Well, we’ll just have to wait for him someplace else.”

     Advent is a special season that allows us to anticipate Jesus’ return at the end of time – whenever that will be – as well as when he came into this world and walked among us. Advent is a different season than Lent. Lent is a time for repentance and a change of direction. Advent is a time to re-focus our attention on Jesus and our connection with God.

     Waiting in anticipation is not easy. It is never easy to wait, and it becomes harder and harder to remember the mystery of the incarnation when we are bombarded earlier and earlier each year by our consumerist culture that encourages us to do more, to buy more; to stay busy day after day all through the season (which now seems to begin in August), until we are so exhausted that coming to church on Christmas eve and Christmas day to celebrate the nativity of our Lord are burdens instead of joyful. We forget (or don’t care) that the season of Christmas is twelve days long, as so on the twenty sixth, we toss the tree our the front door and put the decorations away. The toys we got for our children and grandchildren sit idly while they watch TV shows with commercials that offer even more fulfillment for another $29.99.

     So what do we do? First, we need to remember that while waiting for Jesus’ return, we are not to be passive. We are not to sit by whining about how unfair life is, or that life would be so much better if God’s reign came tomorrow. The gospels all speak to a life of action and doing for others in the here and now. Like John the Baptizer, we have a duty to figure out who Jesus is for us, and to boldly proclaim that when we can. Like Mary, we have a responsibility to nourish the divine within us and to care for it when it gives birth in the form of action or deed for others. Like Joseph, we need to discern the path God has for us, and to follow it – even if it goes in the face of cultural or even church values. Like the Magi, we are compelled to seek and respond to the divine even when it appears in the most unlikely of places.

     It is through our actions that we re-create the incarnation every day of our lives. That is because what we do and why we do it are what allow God’s presence to enter the world.

     Advent is a time to intentionally reconnect with the divine as we prepare for the season of Christmas. It is a time to intentionally remember that God came into our world as a human baby to live and suffer with us out of his love for us. During his life among us, Jesus intentionally acted in such giving and unselfish ways that the lives of his followers were sufficiently transformed that they were willing to risk everything to spread the good news.

     Jesus’ followers were not transformed over night. They spent three years or more discerning and aligning themselves with God. That was their advent. It takes time to prepare for an encounter with the divine. Our four week preparation time before Christmas is barely long enough. But it is a time set aside in the church calendar to clear the mind and heart and to let Jesus come in.

     Use this time to reflect and discern God’s presence and action in the world and in your life. Maybe what you hear will be hard. Maybe it will be something that confuses you. But live into it anyway. Just stay with it like Jesus’ first followers did, and be patient.

     And God will come.

     God will come.

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Isaiah 64:1-9

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence -- as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil-- to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed. We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.

Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19

1 Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel,
you who lead Joseph like a flock!
You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth

2 before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh.
Stir up your might,
and come to save us!

3 Restore us, O God;
let your face shine, that we may be saved.

4 O LORD God of hosts,
how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?

5 You have fed them with the bread of tears,
and given them tears to drink in full measure.

6 You make us the scorn of our neighbors;
our enemies laugh among themselves.

7 Restore us, O God of hosts;
let your face shine, that we may be saved.

19 But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand,
the one whom you made strong for yourself.

18 Then we will never turn back from you;
give us life, and we will call on your name.

19 Restore us, O LORD God of hosts;
let your face shine, that we may be saved.

1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind-- just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you-- so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Mark 13:24-37

“But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. “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. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake--for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

The Collect of the Day

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

[1] I am indebted to The Rev. Charles Walling for inspiration. This sermon borrows from his sermon given on December 1, 2002.

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Copyright © 2005, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
23 November 2005

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