2nd December 2007ADVENT SUNDAY
Fr Julian Browning
Isaiah 2 : 1 – 5 ; Romans 13 : 11 – 14 ; Matthew 24 : 36 - 44
The night is far gone, the day is near. Romans 13:12.
No, at an unexpected hour, He walks towards us. Salvation is personified. This is how it's going to be.
I must warn you - and if you have been paying attention to the
readings you will note that I am using Advent language right from the
start – I must warn you that I am a revolutionary. And almost an
anarchist as Christmas approaches. Down with shopping. Down with fake
winter wonderlands. Down with being told to enjoy my meal. When Peter
Ustinov was told to have a nice day, he answered, Thank you, but I have
other plans. We revolutionaries have other plans in Advent. We
expect disruption to the human ruling power, and we hope for a new
ordering of the world to the glory of God, the Second Coming of the Son
of Man. That's why I like Advent, which begins today. Just as big
business starts to crank the Christmas machine, just as the first card
wishing us Happy Holidays arrives, just as we start to fret about it
all, the Church slaps down this outrageous season of Advent, in
imperial purple, with really scary warnings about judgement, and the
last days, and the coming of the Son of Man in glory at the end of the
world. Most people can't take it any more. For one thing we are most
reluctant to be judged, because God's judgement will reveal the truth
about ourselves. God's judgement would replace our judgement, and we
don't want that. Up and down the country my fellow clergy who are
possibly not revolutionaries but worthy collaborators with the State,
will be telling their dozing congregations that all this apocalyptic
end of the world stuff was very much of its time, because Jesus was
expected back soon then, and the real purpose of Advent today is to get
ready for Christmas. I see their point. How can you tell nice families
going off on holiday to remember, as St.Matthew encourages us today,
what happened to those who didn't manage to get into Noah's Ark?
The four weeks of Advent are not so much a preparation for Christmas,
as a preparation for our lives as Christians. We are to live in the
hope of God's promises being fulfilled on earth. We have no special
insight into the future. There is no special knowledge about the end of
the world, no code to be broken, a sort of reading of the tea leaves of
Scripture to find out when the Son of Man is going to appear. Jesus
said, the Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed. The
whole point is that we do not know. We have nothing more than a
promise. We don't know how God's fulfilment is going to be expressed
– so we call it the Second Coming, the end of all things. This is
as unknown to us as our own future. We get that wrong, don't we? This
rehash of the Noah story in today's Gospel makes just this point. Those
who didn't get into the boat are not written off as hopelessly sinful,
as they are Genesis. They just assumed that business as usual would go
on for ever. Like us they repeated the same activities over and over
again, and they gave themselves no time to consider the future, or
maybe they just couldn't face it. Half asleep, probably. Noah didn't
know either, but at least he had one ear open for a word from God and
built himself a boat. End of story, not for him, but for the others.
So in Advent the Church, and that's us remember, is waiting not for
Christmas, which we know is going to happen and how and when, but for
the Second Advent, the coming of the Son of Man, date unknown. The two
events are of course connected; together they display, to those with
eyes to see, Eternity piercing Time. Actually the date is irrelevant to
us. You do not know on what day your Lord is coming. It's like
salvation, we don't make it happen, or put it in the diary, it is
something which happens to us. The Second Advent, the coming of the Son
of Man, is like someone walking towards us. That is what is going to
happen, and we had better be awake when it does. All the time we
thought we were seeking Him, God, the one who would put everything
right. No, at an unexpected hour, He walks towards us. Salvation is
personified. This is how it's going to be. It is as natural as an
unexpected meeting. This is the best we can do, and the best St Paul
can do, to explain to ourselves and others what it is to be a
Christian. Now is the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation
is nearer to us now than when we became believers.
Because I am a revolutionary, can Isuggest something unthinkable
and truly shocking? It would have been better today if we had started
with the Gospel, proceeded to the Epistle, and ended with the Old
Testament Lesson. The random deaths evoked in the Gospel are somewhat
softened by the wonderful vision of God's peace revealed to Isaiah. On
the first Sunday of the year, a day for resolve, a day for a new start,
a day for trying again, we hear of the nations of the world streaming
towards the mountain of the Lord, to learn his justice. Isaiah is our
reading matter in Advent. Almost any chapter will do, just find a Bible
and open it (that's the difficult bit) and read some Isaiah (that's the
easy lovely bit). That is the way, the reading meditation way, we can
do what Isaiah envisions, going up to the mountain of the Lord, that he
may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. Advent is a
serious time, but it's not doom and gloom. The God who walks with us
now, the God who walks towards us now, is the God who judges the
nations and brings peace and goodwill. And that does begin to sound
like Christmas.