TRANSFORMING OUR ADVENT EXPERIENCE

Transcription

1 Matthew 3:1-12 December 8, 2013 TRANSFORMING OUR ADVENT EXPERIENCE If you ve never gotten sad or lonely during this time of the year; if you never before thought that something was missing from your holiday celebration; or if you have never gotten so stressed out in the days leading up to Christmas that you ended up getting irritated and arguing and bickering with the people you love most, then you might want to lean back in your pew, close your eyes and take a nap for the next few minutes because this sermon probably isn t for you. My message this morning is more for those who have a sort of love-hate relationship with this wonderful, dreadful, aggravating, joyful and uplifting season of Advent. I begin by saying that, for better or for worse, John the Baptist is a living symbol of these days before Christmas. Yes, that itchy-camel-haircoat wearing, locusts and wild honey eating, fire-and-brimstone preaching, insult-hurling, repentance demanding John the Baptist is the guy who leads the way during this season of preparation and readiness. I think I can safely say that if John was around today, he wouldn t be at the top of most people s Christmas party invitation list well, unless they wanted their guests to leave early. Can t you picture the Baptist standing beside the hors d oeuvre table, dipping his locusts in the ranch dressing, dumping out the spiked punch and then calling all the other party goers a bunch of snakes and telling them they needed to repent or face the dire consequences. Yeah, he can be a real party pooper, that crazy guy John. But, in spite of his quirks and his eccentricities, John the Baptist had the best of intentions. He saw where people s lives were going wrong and he wanted them to change and make their lives right. He saw people getting tangled up in all kinds of bad habits and hurtful ways, and he called on them to break out of their destructive patterns and turn their lives around. He saw people in a state of unpreparedness they simply weren t ready for God to come into their lives and he wanted to shake them awake and tell them they d better get going because God was on the move, and God s boy the Messiah was right around the corner. John, you see, was the megaphone, a voice crying in the wilderness, saying, Straighten out your lives and make way for the Christ!

2 2 Today, despite his loud and brash cries for people to repent, the Baptist s voice can get drowned out on a cacophony of holiday noise and confusion, such as Christmas carols blaring from department store loudspeakers, children clamoring for the latest, hot new toys and electronics, and customers griping and complaining and pushing and shoving in the checkout lines. Maybe some people think that s a good thing to not have to hear John shouting his warning to prepare ourselves for God. I mean, who needs such a sour-puss hanging around, bringing people down with his harsh, blunt message? We d rather revel in the bright colored lights and the over the top Christmas tunes, and wave to Santa Claus on his throne at the Mall when he s not busy keeping nervous little youngsters from tumbling down off his lap. Nothing personal, John, my Baptist man, but you re not really someone I m thrilled to see as I try to get ready for Christmas. What I just said may well be true; but we can still learn something from John the Baptist about how to transform our Advent experience from one of aggravation to adoration; from exhaustion to exultation, because, ultimately, when we hear John s announcement and warning about the coming of Christ, it moves us to reflect on what s truly important and what s not all that important about this season. It causes us to ask, Do I have my priorities in life straight? Are the activities I m putting so much time and energy into as I get ready for Christmas the right priorities? And, Am I truly prepared for the coming of Jesus Christ into my heart? Now, if you think at this point in my message I m going to tell you to toss out the reindeer, the mistletoe and the beautifully adorned tree, don t worry. That s not where I m going with this sermon. I don t believe there s any harm in enjoying the cultural frills of Christmas, as long as they don t get in the way of what truly matters experiencing the love of God, enlarging our capacity to receive that love, and sharing that love with others. So, if stringing lights on your house or watching Miracle on 34 th Street for the 137 th time are ways for you to deepen your appreciation of God s love and share that love with the people around you, then God bless you. Go forth and enjoy! But when our holiday activities turn into time-crunching, irritating rituals, or they re a distraction from the presence and love of God our lives, then perhaps we should do as John the Baptist says and repent. Advent is a time to make decisions as to what really matters; to sort out what brings us closer to God, what brings out our best self the self that God wants us to be and what brings us closer to our family and friends, and keep those things. As for all the rest, we push them out of the way so that God is able

3 3 to approach us this Advent and come into our lives in surprising and delightful ways. You know, John the Baptist had a wonderful quality that would serve us well in this Advent season. And that is, he spent most of his time pointing away from himself and toward God which is why doing something kind and helpful for others is a very appropriate Advent discipline. Service and charity to others not only allows us to direct the attention of those we re serving toward God, it also lifts us out of our own self-preoccupation and sorrow and points our own attention toward the love and wondrous grace of God. Let me say at this point that there are no cut and dried, easy solutions for the holiday blues and the stresses this time of year brings with it. There is no simple prescription for going into the joyous holiday season with the grief of having lost a loved one, or the sorrow of a marriage that didn t work, or fear and anxiety caused by the loss of employment, or regret about joyful times that will never come again. I don t have any pat answers for such sorrow and apprehension; but I do know a partial solution: do something for somebody else so we can put aside our own needs and worries for a little while in order to minister to and serve the needs of another person. But what could we do? How can we minister and serve others? Well, the possibilities are virtually endless. Such as, take one of the few remaining stars off the giving tree downstairs and give a Christmas gift to a young person who has made poor decisions in their life and would benefit from knowing that somebody still cared about them; make a donation to an organization that provides toys and other gifts so a needy child can have a few presents under the tree to open on Christmas morning; go caroling at a nursing home, hospital, the house of a shut-in or just around the neighborhood; send a Christmas card with a hand-written, uplifting message to someone who is feeling sad or anxious; give up some activity that doesn t matter all that much in order to have time and energy to do something that does matter something that will turn attention away from ourselves to focus on God. Such activities will make us feel good. And we will be doing something that s more lasting and joyful than anything we could possibly buy at the Mall or online. One final thing we can learn from John the Baptist and do in the weeks of Advent ahead of us is to spend some time in the wilderness and I don t mean the WalMart parking lot! What did John say? Prepare God s way in the wilderness. But how often especially during this very busy and hectic time of the year do we actually set aside some quiet, unhurried, undisturbed moments to spend with God in a place all by ourselves? I m guessing that, for most of us, we don t do that very often.

4 4 But this is the season when we re SUPPOSED to be readying a place in our hearts to receive Christ when he comes. So why not spend more time in the wilderness getting prepared for him? My friends, in all likelihood your Advent season will turn out a lot like mine: an uneasy compromise between aggravation and adoration. This can be a busy, hectic quite frustrating time of the year. But we do have choices, you know. We can say no to some things that aggravate us, and yes to other, more important and spiritually enriching things that will help get us ready to receive Jesus Christ into our hearts with joy and love and adoration. We can change, or repent of those things that are preventing us from fully experiencing the wonder and awe of Jesus advent. And in doing so, we can transform our Advent season experience for the better! Through the seasonal customs and the frenzied pace of these weeks leading up to Christmas, believe it or not, the God of Israel is reaching out to us with arms of love. And God s divine love was most perfectly and powerfully expressed in the birth of Jesus Christ the Word made human God Incarnate. That s what keeps this jaded world coming back to Christmas, year after year. No matter how poorly we may keep this beautiful but often insane season, the hope is that, when we least expect it, John the Baptist will come calling, and he will become a powerful symbol to us of what Advent is really all about. Yes, John and his abrasive message can be a royal pain to us it can shake us up and bring us down. That s because John speaks the truth to us, and the truth can hurt. But the truth can also set us free. And that s the Baptist s intention: to set us free from old, bad habits and misguided priorities; and also to set us free from sin and death, by pointing our attention, and our lives, in a different direction GOD S direction. So thank God for John the Baptist, for his sharp tongue and his tell-itlike-it-is way that cuts through the babel of the tacky canned holiday music playing in the stores, the rude customers, and the continuously ringing cash registers, to tell us to watch and listen this Advent, because God is calling our name. God is reaching out and announcing to us the Good News of God s intervention into our world and into our lives in the person of Jesus, the Christ. And if we go into the wilderness and be still for a time, and allow the quiet solitude to wash over us, we will eventually hear God s voice whispering in our hearts. We will feel God s love in a world where we thought love was dead. And our experience of Advent will be transformed from aggravation to adoration; from exhaustion to exultation; from searching for the best sale prices for Christmas gifts to seeking out Emmanuel, God with us.

5 May we all have such an awesome, extraordinary Advent season, beginning now and lasting right into Christmas and our Savior s birth. Amen. 5