A Season of Preparation for Promises to be Fulfilled
First in the series, “A Season of Preparation”
Rev. Jim Merritt
Trinity MCC Gainesville
November 29, 2009
Introduction:
Happy New Year, that’s right, Happy New Year, or perhaps it would be more appropriate for me to say, Happy Advent as we celebrate together this first Sunday in the new liturgical year, the first Sunday in Advent. And isn’t it just stunningly beautiful in here? Let’s take a moment to thank all those who worked to make it this way. Thank you SO much.
Today I am beginning a preaching series. I have to warn you; I love preaching series. This one is called A Season of Preparation.” Each Sunday during Advent I will bring a message under that heading like the one for today, A Season of Preparation for Promises to Be Fulfilled. I hope you’ll be here for all of them and especially for the final one on Christmas Eve, A Season of Preparation for Jesus.
Let’s look at this morning’s readings together.
Scripture:
Some of this will sound very familiar to you. Just a couple of weeks ago we worked with Mark’s version of these readings that some would call “warnings.” And as I began preparing this series I thought, “I don’t want to do this again! Why are we back here all over again so soon? And in a moment of frustration I thought, “I don’t even like lectionary cycle C anyway…I’m just going to do my own thing.” And you see where I am this morning, right where I need to be working through it. So let me share a few reminders.
During the time of Luke and Mark and when people heard Jesus say he was coming back again, they honestly thought he was coming back like tomorrow, or next week or maybe a month from now and certainly not more than 2,000 years from then. As a matter of fact by the time this Gospel of Luke was put to paper, around 80 years after the resurrection, they were beginning to wonder what was going on there. In some ways the church had begun to lose some of its intensity, some of its strong commitment, and the gospel writer needed to find ways to cause them to recommit. I want to remind you without going into all the detail that many of the people were so committed to that those being the actual end times it looked like they would be even if the people had to live in such a way to make sure the end was near. And like we experience now there were wars and rumors of wars, and strange occurrences in the weather, and tsunamis and hurricanes late in their season, and illnesses and other predicaments. And they were scared to death, worried, anxious and unable to rest most of the time. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if some of us could, as Dr. William Willimon suggests in his Christian Century article. Get free from time’s tyranny, measuring time as our ancestors did -- by the gentle passage of seasons, by sunrise and sunset, not by seconds, minutes and hours. That thought strikes a chord deep within me this week as the insanity of holiday shopping season really kicks in.
Some people now believe we’re facing the end of the world in the year 2012, based to some extent on a movie and the end of the 5,000 year Maya calendar. And I can’t even tell you how many websites have sprung up that include the numbers 2012 in them. As Peter A. Young, editor of Archaeology magazine says, “I can’t even tell you how many people are ready to shift gears and focus on the end of the world.”
I have some other ideas about it.
All people who experience oppression long for change. All people who are victimized, particularly over long periods of time, long for change. People who suffer long for change. People who are poor long for change. Most of us long for some sort of change or another. Many of us have suffered from a pervasive experience of the lack of safety. And I want to suggest to you, as Jeremiah Bartram does, that today’s gospel gives us the insight we need. Jesus is coming, not to scare us or to intimidate us but to bring us freedom and justice. Jesus is coming to bring us righteousness. Jesus is coming to bring salvation and safety for all his people. That’s what Advent is all about; a season of preparation for promises to be fulfilled; a season of salvation and safety for all God’s people. And I just love the way Luke uses over and over the name, The Son of Humankind for Jesus. This is not some far out, far off, scary Lord. This is OUR Jesus. This is the baby boy that God is about to give to us. This is the fulfillment of God’s promises wrapped up in human body. We are told to lift up our heads and to lift up our hearts and to lift up our spirits because our REDEMPTION draweth night. Not our damnation; our Redemption. Not our condemnation; our REDEMPTION. The best of God’s promises being fulfilled right before our very eyes. Can I get a witness? That’s what Advent and Christmas are all about. God’s promises being fulfilled.
Do not let your hearts be weighed down with the troubles of this world. Prepare ye the way of our God. Do not be weighed down with drunkenness and the worries of this life, so that it catch you unexpectedly. Stand strong and know that we have the strength to face all that will take place, because the Son of Humankind is coming. In a recent workshop on hieroglyphic writing, a Mayan shaman was asked what we might expect in 2012. he replied, “A new cycle will begin and we will learn to live in peace and harmony. Will it (really) happen? Who knows? Maybe if we all work at it something good will come of it.”
1The days are surely coming, says Our God, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “Yahweh, Adonai, God is our righteousness.
Conclusion:
What will happen when Jesus comes? “A new cycle will begin and we will learn to live in peace and harmony. Will it (really) happen? Who knows? Maybe if we all work at it something good will come of it.”
Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid my sisters and brothers. Jesus is coming to begin a new cycle of freedom and justice where love will reign supreme in our hearts. A season of preparation for promises to be fulfilled; is there room in our hearts for Jesus? Let us prepare and let us be ready. AMEN
