Sermon 12/23/07
Come, Prince of Peace: Now and Not Yet
(view lectionary notes for this text)
It’s hard to celebrate Advent. This year I saw a Christmas display in September. I started hearing the Christmas Carols on the radio in early November, well before Thanksgiving even. I came home after church the last Sunday in November to find that my brother had set up our Christmas tree already. This caused a bit of a conflict – I protested – ok, yelled and complained a little – that it wasn’t even the beginning of Advent yet. He said something to the effect of “everyone else is putting their decorations up.” We reached a small compromise and left the tree set up but undecorated until we were well into the Advent season.
Then there is my mother. I often tease her because at this time of year, and really, since mid-Fall, she’s constantly talking about what her Christmas shopping, what she’s purchased for who, whether or not she has the right amount of presents for everyone. She usually starts warning us all that she’s worried she won’t be able to get as much for us this year, although if this were the case, after so many years we’d certainly be down to getting no gifts at all. And usually, sometime fairly close to Christmas, she starts talking about how she wants to give us all her gifts for us right now. “Can’t I give you just one present?” she’ll say. She does this at birthdays too. And if you let her give you one, she’ll just want to give you more. I’ve learned from experience. From this has sprung our newest family tradition – one present on Christmas Eve, Christmas pajamas. That’s it. Because if we really gave in and let her give us all our presents in advance, I know we’d all be disappointed on Christmas day that we didn’t wait. She’d be disappointed too, she knows. We’d have taken away from the fullness of our Christmas celebration. That’s how I feel about rushing to Christmas instead of relishing the season of Advent that goes so quickly – like we’ll be disappointed that we hurried things along so much, and didn’t enjoy the waiting as much as the getting there.
Advent is unique because it isn’t a season celebrated by those outside of the Christian faith. The secular world doesn’t have an Advent season. It’s just the Christmas season, or the Holiday season, from November until December 26th, when things instantly shift gears to planning for New Year’s celebrations. But in the Christian Calendar, Christmas begins, well, on Christmas. And it lasts for 12 days – like the song says, “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” right past January 1st and into the New Year. This time, for people of faith, is Advent. It’s special. It’s something other than Christmas. It’s a time, as we’ve been talking about for the last three weeks, to hope, to prepare, to wait, to expect, to pray for God’s peace to come. It’s a precious time, and I like to try to soak up as much of it as possible. And that’s why, even now on December 23rd, even when our Christmas Eve services are just a day away and Christmas itself is just the day after tomorrow – even when we are so close – we have to remember that we’re not there quite yet. Not yet. It’s still not Christmas yet. Imagine that we are about to go down the first drop on a roller coaster – Advent is the steady climb to the top of that first hill. We’re at the top, hovering, just a second away from the rush of speed and adrenaline that will come. We’re full to the brim of anticipation. But it’s not here, not quite yet. Can we possibly wait for Christmas just a little bit longer?
Today, we finally read scripture lessons that sound like Christmas to us. “How the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way,” our text from Matthew begins, and it closes with, “she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.” Christmas – Christ’s birth. Finally, we’re to the story we’ve been waiting for. And yet, this passage still isn’t the whole story – it’s just a piece of it. We don’t get a whole host of angels here, just one who visits Joseph. We don’t get any shepherds or wise men, or stars. We don’t even see Mary really – we just hear her name mentioned. Really, this is just Joseph’s side of the story, and still, just a prelude to the gospel from Luke that we’ll read tomorrow. Joseph finds out that Mary is pregnant, and he knows he is not the father of the child. He resolves to quietly divorce her, to save Mary from public disgrace, and to save her from trial and prosecution – Mary could be stoned to death if Joseph accused her. But Joseph has a dream in which one of God’s messengers appears to him, encouraging him not to fear but to trust and to take Mary as his wife. He learns that her child, Jesus, will save people from their sins, and be born of the Holy Spirit. Jesus will be Emmanuel – God with Us. Joseph obeys the messenger, and Mary becomes his wife, and Jesus is born. God with Us. Almost. But not quite yet.
Still, we’re in a tricky situation as Christians in the 21st century. As we move through the church calendar, we know how the stories will go. We know that God chooses Mary to give birth to Jesus. We know that even though Joseph wants to back out of his betrothal to Mary, he doesn’t. We know that Mary and Joseph will have a baby boy, and they will name him Jesus. We know that Jesus grows up, and is crucified. We know about resurrection. And yet we’re supposed to anticipate Christmas as leave room for the unexpected to happen. We already know that the baby Jesus is coming – he’s already here! He’s already come and lived and died and lived again. Are we, during Advent, supposed to pretend like we don’t know what’s coming? Are we trying to pretend like this is the first Christmas, and we’ve never experienced this before? It’s a little complicated.
But really, in some ways, we get the best of both worlds as Christians on the other side of the first Christmas. We know what God promises us, and we know that God’s promises are fulfilled. We know that baby will come, and we still get to plan for his arrival all over again. We get to wait for God’s coming in the Christ Child, even while we know that is already here, already come, always here with us, among us, in us. We wait for God to come again, while we know that God is already here. We celebrate Jesus’ birth because of who we know he will become. Even as we go through the cycles of the Christian calendar, we know that we are always Easter people, celebrating a resurrection all-year round, not just at one time, and we are always on a spiritual journey of reflection and repentance, as we grow in discipleship, not just during Lent, and we’re always waiting for God, waiting to see how God will appear to us, not just during Advent, and we always can experience God with Us, not just on Christmas Day or in the Christmas season. We use these seasons in the calendar to help us, to guide us, to challenge us. But we always have a full experience of a dynamic and deep God.
So we’re waiting for Christmas, and Christmas has already come. God is coming to us again, and of course, God has never left us, and is already here, has always been with us. Now and Not yet. You may not think of it this way, but actually, this idea of ‘now and not yet’ is at the core of the gospel message, the good news that Jesus will preach. What Jesus so urgently proclaims to us is this simple, complicated message: Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand. To repent means to change the direction your life is going in so that you’re going in God’s direction. God’s kingdom means God’s Way, God’s Intentions Fully Realized. And at hand? At hand has two meanings, two sense: it means both “just about to arrive” and “already here.” We’re called by Jesus to change our lives in response to the good news that God’s Way is both coming and already arrived. Jesus tries to show us that God’s Kingdom isn’t just something we’ll get to experience in some other lifetime, in some other reality, after we die, something we have to wait for – God’s Kingdom is already here! And Jesus tries to show us that God’s kingdom isn’t quite here yet – it’s at hand, just about to arrive, and God’s Way will be the way of earth as soon as we are ready to answer the call of discipleship and become co-workers in the kingdom. God’s Way, the Kingdom, is at hand. It’s here now, but it’s not quite yet here either.
When we let ourselves live fully into the tension of Advent, the now and not yet of this season of waiting and celebrating at the same time, we learn how better to live into this same tension that marks our whole faith journey as Christians. God is always here in the world, always with us, always in us – and so we work to open our eyes to God who is already in our midst, right now. And we always work for God to be more fully known and shown in our world – we see many places in our world and community and in our hearts where God’s presence is needed. So God is always on the way, about to arrive as we learn to be more open to God’s moving among us. Here already, and just about to arrive. Now, and not yet.
It’s December 23rd. Christmas is here already! But it’s not here quite yet. Jesus Christ, who we know so well, is being born among us, new, again. Now, and not yet. Amen.