Spiritual Growth :: Sermons

Sunday, November 29, 2009.
1 Advent. The Rev. Sabeth Fitzgibbons

Nov 29 2009, 1 Advent Luke 21:25-36

“O Wisdom, O holy Word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care. Come and show your people the way to salvation.”

A beautiful prayer, and one that is about 1500 years old or more. We begin our service today and each Sunday of the season of Advent with lighting the Advent wreath and praying together some of these ancient prayers, called the O Antiphons, because each one begins with an O. The O Antiphons were written by an anonymous monk, probably, around the year 500. Traditionally they are part of evening prayer every day from December 17 through December 24, kind of like a prayer version of an Advent calendar.

They are probably familiar to you if you’ve ever sung “O Come O Come Emmanuel,” because each verse of the hymn is one of the antiphons, and we’ll be saying a couple each week as we light the Advent wreath.

Each one gives Jesus a special name or title, and it also asks Jesus to come and fulfill a prophesy from the Old Testament about the Messiah. Advent means coming and we are in the season of waiting for something to come, of preparation and anticipation. Just like our Gospel lesson today, when Jesus says, be on guard, be alert. Advent is about … waiting.

Do you like waiting? The other day I had a doctor’s appointment and the doctor was running almost an hour late, I had to wait in the waiting room for an hour. How about if that happened to you -- would that be a good thing for you, or would that drive you nuts? I was actually happy about it because I brought my knitting, ever since I took up knitting I have not minded waiting for appointments at all. But I wonder if that’s an indication of how much I don’t like waiting – that I’ve found a way to fill what could be a spacious, empty time with something to do. I can’t tell you the number of doctor’s secretaries—I have three kids, so I go to a lot of doctor appointments – who have commented on my knitting, and said, oh, I would never have the patience for that. I always want to say, no you don’t understand, I don’t have the patience for this, that’s why I’m knitting! Sometimes we’re not good at waiting. We’re impatient.

What is it that we’re waiting for? What are we on watch for, during Advent? Christmas, right? Some might even be waiting for Santa Claus. But that’s not really what Advent is about. During Advent we are reminded that Christmas actually happened, the birth of Christ happened, 2,000 years ago. We’re not waiting for that. We’re waiting for Jesus to come again. Advent looks back to Jesus’ first coming as a baby in Bethlehem, but it also looks forward to the time when God’s salvation will be fully accomplished in this world, when Jesus will come again and set everything right. That’s what we’re waiting for. And we’ve been waiting a long time.

So what do we do with this waiting, this time between the first and second coming? Jesus has come into our world as an incarnate human being, his saving work has been accomplished. And yet the world doesn’t look completely saved quite yet, there’s still hunger, still war, still injustice. What do we do, in this in-between time?

We wait, and we watch. Jesus says, "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.” Even if dissipation and drunkenness are not issues for us, still Jesus has our number when he says that the “worries of this life” distract us from seeing God approaching. When we’re busy (knitting or whatever) we can miss the signs.

Waiting, being alert and on watch, is about making space in our lives for what might happen, for what might come. It’s about making time for God, time for listening for God’s voice, whether that voice comes to us in quiet times of prayer or through really listening to, really taking time with, the people in our lives. It does take time, which we often feel is our most precious commodity, but that’s the point about not getting hooked into the “worries of this life,” lest the important moments catch us like that trap Jesus mentions, or pass us by altogether.

We’re not always patient with this waiting, and that’s one reason the O Antiphons resonate with me. Each one has that prayer for Jesus to come. Come, show us the way to salvation, come, stretch out your hand and set us free, come break down the walls for those who live in sickness and death, come Lord. It’s a prayer to God, but it’s also demanding and insistent. Come on, God, don’t you know we need you know? Come, help us find the way to peace, come, heal the sick and feed the hungry, come, do something about this messed up world we live in, come help us take care of our loved ones, heal our heartbreaks, help us. Come on, God, come now. We don’t want to wait any longer.

But if we make room for waiting, if we stop what we’re doing and be alert, as Jesus says, we might see that Jesus is already here. “Be always on the watch” he says, he is coming, you will see him, if you watch and prepare and pay attention. Watch for the signs, Jesus says, like how a sprouting leaf on a bare branch is a sign that spring is on the way. We can see signs that God is on the way when we see these prophesies from the O Antiphons being fulfilled – captives being freed, the sick being healed, the love of God being shared. Waiting is about expecting something to happen, expecting to see God acting in the world. And when we have that expectation, it changes us. It makes us alert to signs of God’s kingdom and able to help those signs along. It makes us God’s forerunners, preparing the way for God’s justice and God’s peace. It might also make us realize that God is here, waiting for us.

“O Emmanuel, king and lawgiver, desire of the nations, Savior of all people, come and set us free, Lord our God.”