November 28, 2004
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the Brightening Light First Sunday in Advent As was explained during the greeting, we are beginning this season of waiting and watching for Christ to be born again by looking back and looking forward at the same time. We begin this season, not in a fully decorated church, but in a church that is preparing to move with increasing hope toward an ever brightening light. It may be true that stores are already festooned as if it were already Christmas day. It may be true that radio stations such as one here in town are already playing Christmas music all day, every day. We may even yield to the temptation to act like Christmas day, the time of celebrating the birth of Jesus, out there, but let’s be different in here. For the weeks of Advent leading to Christmas, let’s slow down here and worship the living God, anticipate the coming of the Christ, and let the Holy Spirit move among us. Now I know some of us are thinking, but Christ is already here, why wait? Here’s why. We wait because as he comes into our lives again, God promises still to do a new thing. We wait so that we can remember with fresh anticipation the new thing that God will do. Only God would send the long awaited Messiah into the world as an infant. Only God would sent the Savior of the world as a servant instead of as a conquering king. Only God can promise that in death comes a glorious resurrection. And only God would ask us for patience to wait a few weeks for what we know is coming. The wait is worth it as we see again what God will do. One writer describes this time in the church year this way: “Advent is an abrupt disruption in our ‘ordinary time’. It is not only a new season in the church year; it is an utterly new year, new time, new life. Everything begins again. What one marks as new in the liturgical year we dare to confess is a genuine newness brought by God in the world. That is, our worship anticipates [life changing] newness, and matches the newness that God is doing in the world. In this season we are at the brink of something utterly new, long yearned for but beyond our capacity to enact. Advent invites us to awaken from our numbed endurance and our domesticated expectations, to consider life in a fresh way in light of new gifts that God is about to give” (Texts for Preaching – Year A. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1995, p.1). Take advantage of this time of waiting. In these days of bleak prospects, bad news every time we turn on the television or open up the paper, as we read about tragedy compounded by more tragedy, we do long for God to do a new thing. That is what the season of Advent is about for us. We do not wait idly, doing nothing until Christmas Eve. While we wait we move toward the light that is dawning and growing brighter. We are a people being transformed. We are a congregation looking to be renewed. We are the sons and daughters of God rescued from bleak, damp darkness and isolation where nothing can be seen clearly, where hearts pound and every noise makes us jump. We can walk with faith and confidence into the brightening light of Jesus Christ who is the one we look to as our lives take on light and meaning. How shall we find the confidence to move into the light? We find it as we move into the light with joy. When those Hebrew pilgrims entered Jerusalem, they came gladly. As they marched up the hill to the temple, their hearts were filled with great elation. When they walked into the temple yard, they could barely contain themselves. You know the feeling if you ever planned a trip to a place you always wanted to go. You practiced disciplined financial stewardship and saved the money you needed. You got brochures and, a “Triple A” tour book. You did research on the internet. You decided whether it was better to drive, fly, take a train, or a ship. As you got ready to pack, you turned on the weather channel to help you decide what to put in your bags. When you got there, it was better than you could have ever imagined. You know the feeling if you woke up this morning, not exhausted from the Thanksgiving weekend, but expectant, filled with hope and wonder at the idea of being in this house of God one more time. Imagine now those people going up to worship in Jerusalem; hear them singing about the joy of being in their holy city. Watch them move with purpose and heart as they enter the city and remember these three things about the city and the temple. “Jerusalem is a place of refuge. Its walls and towers are a promise of protection and they stand as visible symbols of the refuge given to those who trust in God. Jerusalem is a place of praise. It is where tribes go on pilgrimage for their annual festivals to give thanks and praise to God. In fact, going to Jerusalem was a requirement of the law (Exodus 23.14-17). And Jerusalem was a place of justice. It was where legal institutions established during the reign of David were housed. Pilgrimage season was likely a time when conflicts and disputes unsettled in the country courts were brought to the royal officials and their successors. The peace of the community depended on the establishment of justice.” So we understand when those worshipers are urged to “invoke peace upon Jerusalem. They are to ask after the peace of Jerusalem as if Jerusalem were a person being greeted by each pilgrim with the traditional question of greeting: ‘Is it well with you?’” (Interpretation series. Psalms. James L. Mays. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1994, p.392-393). We Advent pilgrims are invited to do the same as we pray for peace and justice. “We do not need to be reminded that Advent is a season that celebrates the reality that peace is one of God’s great hopes for humankind. In the biblical view, peace is inevitably linked with justice. Only in the presence of justice – that it, a commitment to the well being-within-community of one’s fellow men and women – can peace be present. God’s hope for peace is God’s hope that the members of the human family institute those initiatives by which the hungry are fed and the naked clothed, as well as those initiatives which help to enable persons to be all that God intended for them at creation” (Texts for Preaching, p. 5). The light brightens for us, as we seek God’s holy places, this church, our role in the community, the presence of each other with delight so that Broad Street Christian Church and our ministries proclaim refuge – safety for all in this church, praise for the God who loves us without condition, and justice for ourselves and for the world. We move toward the brightening light when we live joyfully in the secure sense that we live in the love and presence of God, no matter what is happening around us, and let it spill out of these doors into every place with go. How daily life would be enhanced if we offered the blessing of peace everywhere we went, as the pilgrims blessed Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you” (v. 6b); “peace be within your walls” (v.7); “For the sake of the house of the LORD, our God, I will seek your good” (v. 8). Prayers for the peace of Jerusalem were real prayers then, and they are real prayers now in these days of Israeli/Palestinian conflict. They are real prayers for us as we pray for the peace not only of Jerusalem, but also of Baghdad, Falluja, blue states and red states, for those we love and for ourselves, and our church. An attitude of joy, a posture of prayer, a desire for peace in the world and in our spirits moves us toward the brightening light for which we wait. John wrote about the light that Jesus came to bear witness to it (John 1.8-9). Jesus declares that he is the light of the world (John 8.12). George Elderkin invites us to “walk in the light, beautiful light. Come where the dewdrops of mercy shine bright. Shine all around us by day and by night. Jesus the light of the world” (#217. African American Heritage Hymnal. Chicago: GIA Publications, Inc. 2001). Jesus shares the light with the church when he declares to his disciples then and to us now: “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to God in heaven” (Matthew 5. 14-16). Paul urges us to live by claiming these days as our time to live into the brightening light as if the coming Christ were already here. “Besides this, you know what time it is” (v.11). Besides what, we ask. Besides, this: already Paul has talked about “mutual respect among believers, appropriate attitudes toward outsiders, and respect for governing authorities” (Romans 13. 1-10). Besides all that, it is time to wake up, be aware, pay attention. Our salvation is found in the full light of Christ, and it is closer than we think. It is time to claim it now. The word for time used here is kairos. We have heard before that kairos describes a special moment in time. It is God’s time. It is found in those moments when we know that God is at work among us, it comes when the spirit moves in this place, when Jesus is real, when we know that the living God is alive in us. “It is kairos time”, Paul says. This is no time for us to be spiritually groggy. Today is not the day to hit the snooze alarm, it is the perfect time to get up and claim the light of salvation. Know that we have an eternal relationship with God, and we need not plan on holding back on celebrating God in us until we get to heaven. We will have all the time we need then, but we can start celebrating God in us today, we are living into the light and the promise of God. Get up, wake from sleep and celebrate God at work in us now. The night is passing, day is breaking, the light becomes brighter and brighter. Out in the nighttime of the soul, there is hopelessness, scarcity, spiritual blindness, and exclusion. That is not what we are about here. We are about the bright daylight – hope, abundance, spiritual vision that makes its way into mission and ministry, and inclusivity. Before the end of the year people reaching the church’s voice mail will hear this congregation described as “an inclusive church for a diverse community”. That is who we are, and everything we do will soon reflect that part of our identity. We walk into the brightening light by saying who we are in the full light of day and by treating others and ourselves body and soul with care and respect. Paul lists behaviors that harm our bodies and our inner selves, and can harm others too. It is what he calls living in the flesh, it is about living only for ourselves with no thought of God. Avoid that kind of overindulgence he says. Be responsible in what you put into your body, be responsible and faithful in your sexual relationships; avoid quarreling and jealousy. These behaviors love the darkness and seclusion, and the hope of avoiding consequences. But we live into the brightening light. Finally, let your light shine as a Christian who “is committed to the belief that the world’s new day dawned with Jesus the Messiah, and the ever since his resurrection the world has been caught in the overlap between old and new, seen as the moment just before the full dawn when those who know their business are already up and behaving as in the daytime” (New Interpreters’ Bible, volume X, Nashville: Abingdon, 2002, p.729). Live now as Christ is already here. During this Advent season, dare to move into the brightening light. As we move, we walk with joy, we pray for peace, we walk fully awake and with dignity into this time God has for us in Jesus Christ. The light is on the way, and will grow brighter as Christ approaches. He is the light of the world, and we place our lives in his hands. May Jesus Christ be praised. Amen. Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
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