December 2 -- First Sunday of Advent

Pray:  Oh God, cool our desires for things.  As we wander from store to store, website to website, call us back to you.  Help us trust in you during this season.  Rip open the heavens!  And come down to us.  Be among us.  Turn this violent world on its head, and give us the peace that passes all human understanding.  Help us trust your promise, and give us your breath of life.  AMEN.

I came across a great line that sums up this graphic Gospel text for today.

“Those who trust in God and live faithfully need not fear when the world collapses around them.” (Mariam J. Kamell, on Luke 21:25-36, Feasting on the Word, 2009.)

Where do you fall in that?  When the world collapses around you, will you fear?  Or will you trust in God and live faithfully?

If the world ended tomorrow, do you believe that God’s got you covered?

On this first Sunday of Advent, we are not met with nice sweet images of a gentle angel, a sweet baby, the glitter and the glitz of the shopping season, the sentimentality Christmas music in malls and airports.  Rather it’s a shock to our routine world, whether we’re loving or hating this holiday season, it can be a routine, there’s something familiar about this time of year, for it comes up every 12 months.  For some it brings up warm and joyful feelings; for others, if we’re honest, it’s a terrible time of year – missing loved ones no longer with us, feeling the pressures of purchasing, or the pressures of family, or maybe just an ailment that’s preventing you from getting into the holiday mood that everyone else appears to be in.  Wherever you are this time of year, there’s something familiar about it.  

But this text jolts us out of the familiarity and routine – be it good or bad.  Jesus coming on a cloud, nations rumbling, waves crashing, the sky falling:  these shocking images force us to think about ultimate things at the beginning of our new church year, ripping us away from the culture.  Jesus on a cloud makes me think of Jesus coming in an ambulance, to rescue you, ripping you to safety. (Emory Gillespie, "Living by the Word", The Christian Century, 11.28.12) Here at the beginning of a new year, we are met with a shock!  The paddles of hope to revive us.  Clear!  And we are made new. 

Not only do we anticipate the coming of this little child—the beginning of God-with-us, this First Sunday of Advent, we also get a glimpse of the end, here at the beginning, where God-with-us takes us home.

Let us trust in that promise, sisters and brothers in Christ: that when we stand before God in the final judgment, our God takes us home.  Do you know that to be true?  God will take you home in the end, I proclaim to you in the beginning.

I think this time of year can so easily slip into a season of pondering temporary things.  Gadgets that are cool today, but will break tomorrow, clothes that are in style, but will fade with time, toys that will run out of batteries and break.  Whether you’re thinking about getting or giving, or just longing for…this is a time where temporary things occupy much of our thought.  I don’t even want to tell you about the temporary things that I’d love to give and get. 

But this shocking text rips us from the temporary and thrusts us into the permanent, the ultimate, the end…and the new beginning.

This is a time to start anew.  This is New Year’s Day.  And God reigns eternal, not the stuff of our world.  

Let us “trust in God and live faithfully” for we “need not fear when the world collapses.”

Breathe these two challenges this week and this season:

Inhale: Trust in God

Exhale: Live faithfully

It will change everything.  Breathe these 2 when you stare at that gadget in the mall: Trust in God.  Live faithfully.  Breathe it when you read the news:  Trust in God.  Live faithfully.  Breathe it when you sit with a friend, who’s getting on your nerves: Trust in God.  Live faithfully.  Breathe it when you’re balancing your checkbook.: Trust in God.  Live faithfully.

Jesus says to us today too, not just in Luke long ago:

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth.”

Trust in God.  Live faithfully.  Even when everything goes south.  Even when disease takes over, sadness overwhelms, war breaks out, and the storms of this life come crashing upon us, God’s people—you and me—don’t give up on God because of those things, but rather, all the more, we trust in God and live faithfully.

Sometimes it takes a wakeup call.  Well, today is your wake up Gospel reading.  Today is a new day.  All the sins of the past are forgiven.  And it’s never too late to start anew.  God forgives you, and frees you to live faithfully.  And here’s the thing: Trusting is God is a gift that we were all given in our baptisms.  Trust, faith in God, we believe is a gift.  So you already have that trust in God, because whether we fear or doubt or cry or even scream or run from God, you have faith!  You already possess the ingredients to live amid this chaotic world, to boldly love and serve in this chaotic world, because God has blessed you with faith.  It is a gift in baptism.  Faith is a gift.  Open that gift that you’ve always had this season.

Oh God, may it be so this day, as we move into this new year.  Cool our desires, and calm us down.  Help us trust ever more in you and less in the machines, the weapons, the gadgets, or the empty promises of this world.  And then help us to live faithfully—breathing the breath you gave us, caring for others: the true sign of our trust in you.  The world may come crashing down any day, but with you—with us even now—we are at peace.  Thank you for ripping us from our comfortable routines and shocking us with love and eternal life.  AMEN.