November 27, 2011

First Sunday in Advent

Texts: Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 80:1-7,17-19; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37

When the old Christianity spoke of the return of the Lord Jesus, they thought of a great day of judgment. Even though this thought may appear to us to be so unlike Christmas, it is original Christianity and to be taken extremely seriously.

When we hear Jesus knocking, our conscience first of all pricks us: are we rightly prepared? Is our heart capable of becoming God's dwelling place? Thus Advent becomes a time of self-examination. "Put the desires of your heart in order, O human beings !" (Valentin Thilo), as the old song sings.

It is very remarkable that we face the thought that God is coming, so calmly, whereas previously peoples trembled at the day of God, whereas the world fell into trembling when Jesus Christ walked over the earth. That is why it is so strange when we see the marks of God in the world so often together with the marks of human suffering, with the marks of the cross on Golgotha. We have become so* accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God's coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God's coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.

So Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached the first Sunday of Advent in 1928. Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran theologian who spent his life writing, teaching, and preaching, and became known as one of the greatest modern-day confessional theologians. He opposed the rule of the Third Reich at a time in which many of the churches in Germany were ambivalent or, worse yet, complicit, in the behaviors of its leadership. In 1943, Bonhoeffer was arrested because he was part of a plot to assassinate Hitler. His words take on a whole different meaning. I imagine these words, however, not spoken in sunny Barcelona, but as words to which Bonhoeffer clung in his prison cell, his Bible and the hymns he had memorized were his companions, as family and his fiancé waited on the outside, writing coded letters to each other so that the messages could not be intercepted by the prison guards. He would later die as a result of his participation in the assassination plot only 23 days before he would have been freed as the 3^rd Reich crumbled.

Waiting for the advent of Christ is a time with baited breath, complicated by images of the promised end and the birth of a baby. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence…” It is simultaneously that for which we hope and that which we fear. “The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.”

It is the first week of Advent today. It is the time of year where we pause, take a breath, and remember that for which we wait. It is a time of expectation, expectation that God will show up, and will show up in our lives in tangible ways. We look for Christ’s arrival, but do we know what we are looking for, are we aware what we are really asking for? “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence.” The earth shakes, for it cannot do anything other when God’s presence is among us. Even the inanimate objects react to God’s advent.

But isn’t it good news? Isn’t it about the coming of our salvation? Isn’t it about the day the world was about to change? It is certainly good news, but it is paradoxical all the same. We depend upon this God, this Christ, who comes, who meets us as a helpless infant and dies on the cross. We wait for the Good News, which we would never expect. It is the Good News that happens when all the news around us seems Bad. It is the Good News that comes during the darkest hour, reminding us that, though the sun should be darkened and the moon refuse to shine, and the stars fall from the heavens, there will be a dawn.

It is in this reality that we live, and it is a reality that seems unreal to the world around us. How do we communicate that that in which we believe is more real, is more tangible, and fills our hearts with something that will accept no substitutions? In his book, Life Together, Bonhoeffer writes: “The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of man. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner. The psychiatrist must first search my heart and yet he never plumbs its ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him: here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants to confess and yearns for God’s forgiveness. The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ.”

This world certainly knows distress, weakness, and failure, but it gives it a name other than sin. To give distress, weakness, and failure a name other than sin is to make its remedy something other than forgiveness. As forgiven sinners who can only hope for the final removal of sin in Christ, we come together here, as we are, broken yet holy, sinners yet saints. We come together as sinners and leave as brothers and sisters. We see each other as we are, and as seeing each other as we are, in Christ, we see each other as we are promised to be. “You, O LORD, are our Father; we are the clay and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” In other words, you have made us, and we turn to no other. In our darkness, in our waiting, we turn to you. “Do not remember our iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.” Though we experience the darkness, we wait for the dawn. Though we tremble with the mountains as we call upon God to tear open the heavens, we pray for that which we hope and that which we fear. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, and we are made by none other than the Creator himself, saved by none other than Christ himself, and gathered together by none other than the Holy Spirit.

We did not make ourselves, nor can we save ourselves, nor are we able to come together as forgiven sinners, proclaiming the paradox that, in our brokenness, Christ meets us. In our sin, Christ saves us. In our fear, Christ gives us hope.

So, whether the sun shines or fades to darkness; whether the moon refuses us her light; whether the stars remain hung or whether they fall, we are the LORD’s. We ask for the Advent of Christ knowing it inspires both hope and terror; we also know the hope far outweighs the terror. O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence. With knees knocking together, we ask for God’s presence, knowing we can do no other, for God alone creates, God alone forgives, and God alone saves. And so we wait; we wait for something more than the shifting of the wind. We wait for the coming of the Christ child, the coming of God that we do not expect. When the world asks what we are waiting for, we proclaim we wait for the coming of Christ, the promised One, the One through whom all things were created and the one in whom all things will find their end. We expect the unexpected; our hope will be fulfilled by none other than the one who inspires our hope in the first place.

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence. Quaking along with the mountains, we wait for Christ, the God who exceeds our expectations, the one in whom we place our hope. Come, Lord Jesus, come and dwell among us.