Sermon 11/30/08 - First Sunday of Advent
Sing We Now of Christmas: Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus - Isaiah 64:1-9, Mark 13:24-37
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Lucky Charms used to be my very favorite cereal. All those yummy marshmallows! I can’t eat Lucky Charms anymore, sadly, because marshmallows are made with gelatin, which I don’t eat. I’m still hopeful that eventually they’ll change their recipe. But until then, I can just reminisce. When I was little, I used to pick out and eat all the marshmallows first, and be left with all the regular old cereal. I just couldn’t help myself. But as I got older and matured as a cereal connoisseur, I reversed my order. I’d eat all the plain cereal first, and leave all the marshmallows for last, finishing with the very best part. And in fact, I even came to really enjoy all that plain cereal in its own right.
Sometimes, when I think about the season of Advent, the season of preparing and waiting for Christmas, I feel a bit the same way I used to feel about Lucky Charms. There have been times, especially when I was younger, where I just couldn’t make Christmas come quickly enough. The weeks of Advent seemed like an eternity. My pastor stubbornly had us singing Advent hymns and I wanted to be singing Christmas Carols. The days until Christmas Vacation from school seemed endless. I wanted to hurry to the good part. Advent, all the waiting, was certainly not the good part. But as I’ve gotten older, as happens to most of us, we have a sense of time already going faster and faster on us, not going too slowly. Already, Christmas is just 25 days away, and Advent has only just begun! It goes too quickly, not too slowly. I want to savor this time. I want to enjoy the waiting and longing for Christmas. But I don’t want it to be Christmas until it is Christmas. And so I find myself reveling, as my pastor once did, in the Advent hymns, with their often minor keys or more reflective lyrics.
Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel’s Strength and Consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear Desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.
Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.
This famous Advent hymn was written in 1744 by John Wesley’s younger brother, Charles Wesley, a prolific writer of hymns, many of which are still in our hymnals today. Charles knew that most people might not learn and memorize complicated theological doctrines, but they would indeed learn the words to songs, just as we do today. So he backed his hymns with the theology, the ideas about God, that he wanted to make sure people knew. What does this hymn say? Well, you might notice, for one thing, that it doesn’t talk very much about a baby Jesus. Yes, it talks about why Jesus is born, and that he is born a baby, a child. But mostly, this hymn focuses on why we need Jesus to be born, why we long-expect this Jesus. Jesus is born to set his people free, to deliver us from fears and sins, so that we can find our rest in Jesus. Jesus is born to be our strength, our consolation, the hope of the whole earth, the desire of every nation, and the joy of every heart. Jesus is born to deliver his people, a child yes, but a King, born to reign, born to usher in the Kingdom of God, born to rule in our hearts, born to raise us up to God’s kingdom. For Charles Wesley, for this Advent hymn of longing, that’s the important message about what we need to know about Christ’s birth, why we should want Christmas to come so much.
Why are you in such a hurry for Christmas to come? I’ve been thinking about that a lot already this year. Is it so bad to hurry Christmas along? Is it so bad to be anxious and eager and excited for Christmas to arrive? After all, I usually feel that children are more on target with their hopes than we are as adults, and children certainly don’t seem to worry as much as I do if we’re skipping ahead to Christmas and not focusing enough on Advent. Why not wish for Christmas to come, for the Christ-child to arrive?
Our two scripture lessons today are about the coming of the Christ, the Messiah. The prophet Isaiah certainly wants to hurry to the coming of the Savior. He can’t wait the Christ to arrive. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence – as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil – to make your name known . . . so that the nations might tremble at your presence!” Isaiah doesn’t mention Mary or Joseph or angels or shepherds. But he, like Charles Wesley in his hymn, certainly is talking about a messiah – one who comes to save the people. And Isaiah sees a world in desperate need of a savior. And he can’t wait for the Christ to come. In Mark, we hear Jesus himself speaking. And he too is talking about his own arrival to earth – again. He’s talking about people being ready, being prepared, expecting him to come to earth – again. “Therefore, keep awake – for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” Jesus is promising his disciples that he, the savior, will come again. We can expect him. Prepare for his coming. Wait for him to return. And he, like Isaiah, uses powerful imagery – not of another manger scene – but another scene of earthquakes and heavens shaking and winds and power.
Why are we in such a hurry for Christmas to come? Or perhaps, the real question we have to ask ourselves is: Do we indeed want this long-expected Jesus to come or not? Maybe we want baby Jesus to come again – to hurry to the birth of the precious Christ Child. But are we really in a hurry for this coming of Christ that Isaiah and Mark describe today? We like to think about the baby Jesus coming, meek and mild. That’s the Jesus we’re ready to hurry here. But what about the Jesus of Isaiah and Mark, or the Jesus who comes to rule like Charles Wesley describes? Do we want and long for this Jesus to arrive? Why are we in such a hurry for Christmas to come? To answer that question, we have to ask ourselves why the Messiah comes in the first place. Why did Jesus come to earth? Why do we have a Christmas at all? That’s the question that is at the heart of everything we’re doing, every song we sing, every space we decorate, every text we read, every candle we light this season and into Christmas. Why Christmas?
Charles Wesley’s hymn answers it: because we need a savior. “Come, thou long-expected Jesus, born to set thy people free; from our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee.” We need saving. Jesus came as a tiny baby, and Jesus comes to us today, and Jesus promises to come to us again because we need saving, and we need to see how God frees us from our sinfulness, and how Christ is hope for a world that is in desperate need. That’s why we need Christmas. That’s why we wait with eager longing for Christmas to come. We need to remember that we need saving, and so God sends us a savior, once and again.
So this year, if you try to remember why it is we’re in such a hurry for Christmas to come, really, I’ll try not to worry about it so much if our eagerness outweighs our savoring! Come, thou long-expected Jesus, joy of every longing heart. Amen.