Advent Communion Sermon

Preached at Knox Church Sunday Evening 4 December 2011

Readings:  Isaiah 40:6-9; Mark 1:1-8

What does it mean to live in these Advent Days?  What does it mean wait for the Christ?

I want to attempt to answer this question from four different settings – each may give a glimpse, which in turn, may help us expand into our own experiences, those words we sang in the first hymn: 

We wait for you, we long for you to come

O Jesus Christ, bring Christmas to our home[1]

 “The most wonderful news”, they told me “she’s coming home for Christmas!”   Last Sunday her parents received a phone call out of the blue – after ten years of being away on her great overseas experience, their daughter made a rather impetuous decision – she walked into a travel agent’s office last Saturday, and came out with a ticket in her hand.  After ten years of contact only via email, phone and the occasional letter, they’re going to see her again!   It’s been a long time – they missed out on her 21^st birthday – and her 30^th – she didn’t manage to come back for her grand-father’s funeral – there’s been much that has happened in the family –but she’s coming home in two weeks – they knew she would come home sometime – but, she’ll be there in time for this Christmas!   They’ve been waiting a long time for this moment – but now, the waiting time is almost over.  These next two weeks of waiting has a focused purpose and requires preparation – much preparation.  Her room will need to be cleared out – it’s collected quite a lot of junk over these past ten years …. favourite meals to be prepared …. perhaps a party for her friends …. maybe new curtains – definitely a spring-clean is in order.  And overriding everything is the great joy of the good news: She’s coming home!

What makes such an experience good news?  The love between parents and child?  The absence and promise of a return that has been carried for ten years?  The memories of the past – the good times and the more difficult?  The hopes for a shared future?  Memories and hopes coming together to offer possibility for unknown futures?   And what about the thoughts and fears that underlie the good news – how will she have changed? Will she fit in after all this time?  Good news, but, perhaps, with just hint of anxiety.

We wait for you, we long for you to come

O Jesus Christ, bring Christmas to our home

They had been living in Babylon for half a century – in exile – away from home.  Some of those who came into captivity had died – many others were born there.  Fifty years is a long time to live in a foreign country.  You get used to it – it becomes a bit like home – even if you are abused and discriminated against – even when you have to work hard and long.   It might not have been home, but they were settled.  And then, after all these years, the prophet Isaiah says, this empire has only a short period left of its existence.  It’s time to return to the land, to the temple to the city. It’s time to go home – to return to Jerusalem.  What activity such a suggestion must have engendered - hope and new possibilities were on offer – a ‘new exodus’ – a new chance. 

Would there have been arguments about whether or not to return?  Would some be happier to remain?  How would the new generation feel – a generation settled, perhaps well off, living in a fertile and cultured country?  What would it like to be uprooted – transported back to a rocky and barren landscape – to a city wrecked and taken over by others?  What would be the chance to make a living back in the dream-home country? 

Were they willing to trust God to do a new thing – even if their hopes aren’t realized?

We wait for you, we long for you to come

O Jesus Christ, bring Christmas to our home

Their life situation was pretty awful – that community out of which Mark’s gospel came.  Jerusalem overwhelmed, the city starved out, the temple destroyed.   The people’s only hope that the end of the world might be coming soon.    Listen to the story, the Gospel writer proclaims – listen to the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  At the beginning – no stories of baby Jesus, no stories of stars or angels, shepherds or magi – just the good news of Jesus Christ – announced by John – repent, you can be forgiven – Jesus Christ the son of God is coming and you will receive the Holy Spirit.   The spine-tingling words of Godspell and Handel’s Messiah linger:  Prepare ye the way of the Lord - The waiting is over – the one who has been promised for ages, is now about to enter the stage of history.  Every valley will be exalted – the glory of the Lord shall be revealed – and all people shall see it together – and he shall feed his flock like a shepherd.    Do we hear the longing and the yearning behind the promise?  And, even as we hear the longing for what might be, can we glimpse the shadows - catching the undertones of anxiety?  That which has been longed for requires change – change of attitude, change of life experience, change that may not be quite what we had hoped for, even as they yearned.

We know the end of that story too – in Mark’s gospel it ends with death and fear – and only a whisper of resurrection.  Who would have thought that a book commencing “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the son of God” would take us not only through the miracles of life in all its abundance but also take us through the dark valleys of the shadow of death?

We wait for you, we long for you to come

O Jesus Christ, bring Christmas to our home

He’d left home twenty years ago – stormed off on his motor bike – the smell of burning rubber and the echoes of hurtful hateful words lingering, hanging there in the air between his stunned parents.  But now, for the first time in 20 years he was back in the neighbourhood.  He’d parked his motor bike just around the corner from that home where so many bitter words had been exchanged.  Thirty-six years old, and he was frightened to put his head around the corner.   “Dear Mum and Dad” – he’d written tentatively – “I’m older now – and wiser – I’m sorry.  If you can find it in your hearts to forgive me – if you would have me back – even just for a visit - I’ll drive past next Wednesday – and if you’re willing to have me home, just hang a white handkerchief outside my old bedroom window.”  Wednesday had come – and there he was, hiding behind the corner, petrified, not sure what he would do if he wasn’t welcome – and yet only half expecting they would want him in the house.  Eventually he got up the courage, peered around the corner, looking at the place that had been his teenage home – wondering, would there be a white handkerchief at the window.  The sight that greeted him was unmistakable – white sheets, white towels, white tablecloths billowed from every window.

We wait for you, we long for you to come

O Jesus Christ, bring Christmas to our home

My friends, white tablecloths are in abundance in this church this evening – they billow not from the windows, but from every pew and from the table – letting us know that this is a two-way waiting: not only do we wait for Christ, but Christ waits for us – arms outstretched in welcome – longing for us to experience wholeness and healing.   May it be that we are willing to respond – to be loved, to be received, to be transformed so that Christ does indeed bring Christmas to our home this year. 

Come now, Lord Jesus, enter our Christmas[2]

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[1] Shirley Murray

[2] Shirley Murray