Advent Sunday 2016: Allerton and St Mary’s
Isaiah 2.1-5; Romans 13.11-14; Matthew
24.36-44
And so we come to the beginning
again and at the beginning we face the end, the end of all things and our own
end. In a sense it is appropriate that the ancient cycle which is the church’s
calendar, that framework to hear again the stories about Jesus, his coming to
us, his incarnation, his passion, death and resurrection, hear again about the
coming of the spirit, hear again of the outworking of the spirit, until we end,
as we did last week, with that great assertion of Christ’s kingship; it is
appropriate that our calendar should begin by focussing on the end. It is a bit
like reading the end of a great novel and only then starting at page 1. Because
of what we know about the end, how are we going to be best placed to make the
most of that knowledge? Knowing what we do about Judgement, the King and the
Kingdom, how are we going to respond to the story of Jesus that is to be
unfolded once more?
All of our bible readings today
focus on the end but what a spectrum we have? The Roman God Janus was the god
of transitions, beginnings, gateways and is usually shown with two faces, one
to look forwards and one to look back. The first month of our calendar year is
named after him but it is kind of appropriate that at on the first day of our
church year, we should be given some Janus like readings. Isaiah and Matthew,
in particular have us looking two ways.
Isaiah points to the future to a jo yful
event, when peace shall reign and when all will look to the dwelling place of
God. It’s an ‘everything is going to be all right’ prophecy. But in Matthew,
Jesus’ words have us looking fearfully over our shoulders. The end will creep
up like a ‘thief in the night.’
Two visions of the future – one
full of jo yful expectation of longing and
looking forward. One marked by fear of an event over which we have no control
One with universal implications and
one which is very personal.
So which vision can I sell you this
morning – the promise or the warning? The ‘everything is going to be all
right,’ or the ‘be prepared’? Which will be your Advent mood? Perhaps the call
of this season is to try and hold the two in tension. Hopefulness and
preparedness. Optimism when it comes to the future because that is in God’s
hands but self awareness when it comes to our future because we don’t know when
our own ends will be. Advent calls us to look in so we can look ou, to be
careful of our own present so we can best grasp God’s future.
In every generation the Father
finds his children asleep. Some have given up; some have never even known him.
And even those who do claim to belong to God are very easily distracted by the
cares of this world. Advent is another opportunity to change; but we will fail
to grasp it if we start thinking that Advent comes around every year. This may
be our last Advent. It will certainly be for millions. It will probably be for
some of us who are gathered here.
Yesterday it was church cleaning
day in St Mary’s. The day before Advent Sunday was a particularly appropriate
day to clear the dust from the church and polish the woodwork and tackle those
high level cobwebs that were probably spun when Victoria
was on the throne. But Advent also calls us to have clean lives to lay aside
the works of darkness and put on the armour of light.
While many of us were beavering
away inside, Mike Gelder was having fun clearing gutters. The only problem was
that he forgot to turn the roof alarm off which he has just upgraded to one
that is monitored. Thus it was that when I returned home Melissa told me that
there had been literally loads of calls while you were out. All six were from
the monitoring system. Of course, we need the alarm to protect the lead on the
church roof from theft, sad but if we knew when the thieves were going to come
we would have Mike Gelder up there in readiness. However Advent calls us to
ensure that we have nothing to steal, to live life so that our accounts are
cleared, so that nothing spiritually can be snatched away, so that there is no
anger or guilt or jealousy or petty feuds hanging over us. For is we possess
these then there is plenty for the thief to take away.
Goodness knows Death has stalked
through this community rather too frequently of late. Unexpected deaths, even of
those who have passed there four score
years, hit us all hard. So amid all this concentration on death and the
negative side of being ready for a fearful event, let’s hear something
positive…
(story of tourist visiting garden
on Lake Como
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