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And a Little Child Shall Lead Them Romans 13:11-14, Isaiah 2:1-5, Matthew 24:36-44 Introduction to the Scriptures: Last Sunday the choir sang a moving anthem based on the text from Isaiah that Heidi is about to read. This text looks to the future with hope for a better time -- it gives us a vision of peace when nations shall learn war no more. All our texts for this first Sunday in Advent look to the future. First we will hear these words of hope and promise from the book of Isaiah. Then in our middle hymn we will sing words of Mary as she envisions that God will do through the work of the child growing within her.
The readings from Romans and Matthew urge us to get ready, prepare, be wakeful . . . Remember the song from West side story, "Something's Comin'"? Something's comin', something good I think the writers of our passages from Romans and Matthew would have liked that song. Anticipation. Hope. Waiting. Preparing. Staying Awake. These are the words for Advent season. The very word Advent means "coming." After the next two readings, our Choir will sing of our desire for Christ to come to us.
Waiting is not a popular past time in our culture today. We have our photos developed in an hour, take our clothes to Same Day Dry Cleaners, and buy food at a drive through. We pay our bills over the phone and do our banking on the internet. When an elevator takes a long to time to arrive, we give the button another series of rapid jabs. Children get impatient waiting for their parents to stop talking after church. Parents teach their children how to wait patiently. They say things like - "No, not now, you can have that when you're older." But somewhere along the line, those lessons about waiting are forgotten or not passed on to the next generation, and so impatient drivers tailgate those they think are going too slow, people with very loud whispers complain about the person up front who has an article that needs a price check, and our blood boils after pressing buttons on the phone as requested by the computerized voice on the other end only to be told that we have put on hold and that we are 26th in line. There is one of those cash stores on Main street that I drive by on my way to and from work. Until this week, I didn't really notice the neon sign that said, brightly and in large light, "No waiting." Just after wondering how they could make that claim, I thought that during Advent season, perhaps we should put a neon sign on the outside of our building that proudly proclaims, "We're waiting." As Ralph reminded us in the children's message, one of the themes of Advent is that of waiting. The readings from the prophet, the evangelist and the gospel all talk about this waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting. There are two kinds of waiting: active waiting and passive waiting. Imagine these two kinds of waiting in a scene at an airport. You're at the gate, waiting for your for flight. Over to one side of the room is a man who is waiting for the same flight, but while he is waiting he is bored so he decides to use the time to catch up one some sleep. He figures there is plenty of time before he has to board. He's waiting, but he is passively waiting. Also waiting for the plane is a little boy. He is excited about the arrival of the jet and then riding on it. He can't sit still and constantly goes to the window and looks out in all directions, he chatters to the other people waiting about the arrival of the plane, he even asks the sleepy man if he is getting on the plane too. The little boy's waiting is full expectation, excitement, waiting on tiptoe. He is anticipating that the jet will arrive at any moment. He is actively waiting. So what does it mean to actively wait for the Christ Child? Some of us have begun our active waiting this weekend with shopping and putting up our lights and wreaths and trees and those huge inflatable lawn decorations of Frosty and Santa . . . I'm just waiting to see the full nativity scene done in those floating figures (I bet they exist somewhere!) We actively wait by preparing for December 25th in sometimes frantic and anxious ways. O Holy Night is closer to O Holy Nightmare! Isn't there a better way to prepare? How many times have we said that THIS year that we are going to have less chaotic, more sane holidays and concentrate on the true meaning of Christmas? Well, it's early in the season . . . it's not too late to make good on that resolution. We have a chance starting today to prepare well and more intentionally. Last year Jeff Puhlmann-Becker told me about an experience he had with his daughter, Martha during Advent. Although Jeff couldn't be here today to tell the story himself, he wrote it down last year and gave me a copy. Here's how it reads: During the regular worship service at our church last week had several members of the congregation act out a short drama piece - the old man of experience and wisdom, the young person full of the energy of youth, the expectant and worried mother - each character offering a prayer from their perspective and anticipating the birth of Jesus. Like all of the script characters before him, the last character to offer a prayer brought an item to the altar - a manger. After the service my daughter Martha walked up to the front of the church and started looking around. She was in the choir loft, looking by the organ, even around the back trying to see if she could see behind the massive organ pipes. For those who know Martha, this will be no surprise. We always wished for an independent daughter - and we got one! Once again she was on a mission. I just didn't know what the mission was this time. She kept saying something about the baby bed. After a while I realized what she was looking for. She wanted to see the manger. It seemed like she couldn't believe that we used this as a baby bed for Jesus. Martha and I talked about the Christmas story and how Jesus' mom and dad used the manger as a bed because there were no empty beds in the hotel. While the manger wasn't great, when you put some straw in it, it was probably better than no bed, I assured her. Martha wouldn't back down. In a very authoritative voice she informed me that babies need comfortable beds and warm blankets. "We should get a real cradle and a fuzzy warm blanket for baby Jesus" she said. She talked about the family heriloom hand-made cradle full of dolls in her bedroom at home. She said this was the kind of bed baby Jesus needs - a nice, warm bed. She wanted to empty the dolls out of this cradle and put a blanket in it for Jesus. We have promised her that we - together - would put the cradle under the Christmas tree on Christmas eve so baby Jesus will be warm and comfortable. On the way home from church we talked about this. She was concerned that we used "that old bed". I told her we use the manger every year to remember where Jesus was born. She countered that if we know Jesus is coming we should get a better bed and a fuzzy blanket this time. Buried not so deep in this real life story is a message which is so obvious! From the mouth of babes - this curious and opinionated three-year-old - comes a challenge for us to think in new ways and consider how we might best prepare for Jesus. Each year we tell our children that Jesus is coming, but too often we don't do anything different or act any differently. We get the old manger out every year, even though we know Jesus is coming and "babies need comfortable beds and warm blankets". We miss the opportunity to look at each year's celebration of this birth story and consider how we might best prepare for Jesus in our lives today. The old manger - good enough in a pinch two-thousand years ago on a night when there was no room in the inn - simply is not good enough today when we know Jesus is coming. If we are truly to be prepared we need to find a better way to welcome him than the old manger. We need to open our hearts, our homes, our lives to welcome Jesus like we are expecting him. How so we prepare? Why not by taking time to communicate our best wishes and our fondest hopes to others, just as we did when as children we colored pictures and wrapped presents for our teachers, our relatives and our friends so that they would feel special at this wonderful time of the year. This Advent, give hope by showing care for those in need, give peace by turning the other cheek when provoked, give love by hugging someone who is feeling sad or tired, and give joy by being encouraging and helping someone who appears to be at the end of their rope, by showing that you care and that God cares as well. This Advent let's prepare our hearts as we would our homes for a visit from our best friend. |
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