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SERMONS

The First Sunday of Advent
November 30, 2003

When I was a child Aunt Neita was one of our favorite relatives. She was my great aunt, my father's mother's sister. I suppose she must have been in her mid-sixties when I first met her. But for us she was ageless.

She lived in northern California, and rarely made the trip back to Mississippi. But when she did, her visits were memorable. Aunt Neita was indomitable. She had adventures. And when she came to visit she filled the day with wonderful stories of places she had been and things she had seen.

I remember one particular summer when she came to see us. It was a long, hot, especially boring summer. My sisters and I had pestered one another and tested my mother's patience to the breaking point.

One day we received a telegram. Aunt Neita sent telegrams. "Will be in Meridian for a visit in a few days." We were beside ourselves with excitement and anticipation. We sat at home and waited for her. We turned down opportunities to go swimming; opportunities to go to the movies; opportunities to visit friends.

We waited and we waited. And she didn't come. Finally, disappointed and even more irritable, we went back to our summertime activities.

Some time later another telegram came. "Have been detained. Will be coming soon."

Well, I had heard that before. I wasn't going to be taken in again. So when a friend invited me to go camping with him for a few days, I went. And almost missed Aunt Neita.

When I got back home she was there. And had been there for several days. Everyone had already heard about the peculiar circumstances that had detained her. But she told her stories again just for me. And the summer was saved.

The early church lived in the anticipation of the Lord's imminent return. Jesus had said he was coming back, and they expected him back soon. Their life together as a community was based on the expectation that all of history would soon be brought to an end by the coming of the Son of Man in a cloud with power and great glory.

They waited, and weeks stretched into months. They waited, and months stretched into years. They waited, and years stretched into decades. And still he didn't come.

Eventually the church, and individual Christians, had to be about the job of living in the world. Earthly matters had to be dealt with. Matters such as how the church was to govern itself; how Christians were to earn their living; how they would relate to non-Christians and to the culture in which they lived.

The decades have stretched into centuries and the centuries into millennia. And still we wait. The Lord is faithful. He said that he would return, and we believe he will.

Some Christians have looked to Holy Scripture-and to passages such as we read today-and have tried to predict when the Lord would return. And they have removed themselves from the world and waited for his arrival.

But they have been disappointed. There is distress among the nations today, as Jesus foretold. But when has there not been distress? The time is not yet fulfilled.

And some Christians have tired of waiting and have given it up. They have turned to the world with their whole hearts. They have decided to seek security and meaning and fulfillment according to the standards of the world: through the acquisition of power and wealth and possession. Waiting, they believe, is for fools.

As faithful Christians we are called to reject both extremes. We are called to live in the middle. We are called to continue to live in the world, but to realize that we cannot find our meaning in the world. We are called to remember that we are a waiting people. To remember that history is ordered according to God's will, not our own.

Advent is a yearly reminder of this truth. It is a time for us to recall who we are and who we serve. A time to remember what is truly important. A time to rethink and reorder our priorities.

It is particularly fitting that advent occurs at this time. The season between Thanksgiving and Christmas is the busiest, most hectic time of the year. It is the time when the materialism of our culture reaches its most frantic and spirit-numbing peak.

Advent reminds us that there is something more than consumption. It reminds us that life is more than parties and busyness. It reminds us that the meaning of life cannot be found in packed stores with Christmas music blaring over the loud speakers. Rather that meaning is found in the stillness of a winter's night. It is found in the weakness of a newborn infant lying helpless in a manger. The babe comes in his own time. And he is found by those who wait.

David Christian
The Chapel of the Cross
Madison, Mississippi

Zechariah 14.4-9
1 Thessalonians 3.9-13
Luke 21.25-31