Advent: Bethlehem and The New Jerusalem

Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, Advent paradox, a penitential season of shedding our sins to prepare for Parousia, the New Jerusalem, the Second Coming of Christ - - paradox: a joyful season anticipating our celebration of his First Coming at Bethlehem with shepherds and a constellation of angels. 

Historically as much a downer as Lent, Advent began as “St Martin’s Lent,” forty days from November 11th, St. Martin’s Day, to Christmas. But traditions evolve even as they are observed, and I remember Advent as only slightly less penitential than Lent, no longer forty days, just the Four Sundays, no flowers, no alleluias; until now instead of somber, a season of restrained happiness when we are not sure whether to acclaim “Bless the Lord, who forgives all our sins” or “Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” as “Merry Christmas!” Is barely held in check and we hum but do not yet sing “Joy to the World.” 

Christ and Culture. Christ and Culture, as with many things, Culture happened, commercial society cut Advent off at the knees. Along with the “Free Churches” singing Christmas Carols - - as soon as the turkey carcass is cleared from the Thanksgiving table and a football game turned on TV, comes “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and the strains of “Silent Night.” However, notwithstanding our clinging to Church tradition, the Dark Ages are over, and, frankly, I wonder if Jesus might prefer December with the Baptists, to our Advent faux-solemnity!!  

Pity that, while we have only a few really good Advent hymns (O come, O come, Emmanuel always reminds me, at my Lutheran seminary, I submitted a paper about this time of year, discussing Emmanuel. The professor returned the paper to me with a big red "X." When I asked him what was wrong, he said, "We are Lutherans. Immanuel is spelled with an "I." You will do well to remember that!"). We have many beloved Christmas carols but a dark St Martin’s Lent custom of not singing them until Christmas Eve, by which time the Culture has made us sick and tired of Dreaming of a White Christmas and we’ve had it all up to here.

So Advent has evolved from Purple for guilty penitence to Blue for hope and joyful anticipation of Blessed Mary’s near-term pregnancy - - Blue is Mary’s color: in Christian art, Mary is the woman in Blue, this is her season and her Holy Child is due. Just as well, as we are not penitential, talk of sin makes us uncomfortable, Away with Purple and its Gloom! even as we know that the Bible's Advent warning is To, For, and About us - -

Isaiah: 

you were angry, we sinned;

you hid yourself, we transgressed.

We have become unclean,

all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.

We fade like a leaf,

and our sins, like the wind, take us away.

you have hidden your face from us,

delivered us into the hand of our sins.

Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord,

and do not remember iniquity forever. 

Then Mark’s apocalyptic gospel, frightening, foreboding, the End of the World when Jesus will find you unaware, unprepared, asleep. And truth, regardless of telescopes, astronomy and cosmology, stars, galaxies, and the vast expanse of interstellar space, the Eschaton is at hand for each of us personally. Not yet as Matthew, Saint Paul and Revelation John expected, Jesus returning on clouds of glory with his holy angels to destroy Satan, throw dragons into the lake of fire, and establish the Kingdom of God on Earth, nonetheless each of us in Time, passing into the shadow, and to eternity. 

As Advent has evolved, so also have our faith and expectations evolved. Living under the love of God, we are not obsessed with sin (though perhaps we should be), we no longer fear the fires of Hell (though the clash of human cultures is creating hell on earth). Instead of Paul and the early church’s anticipation of Jesus’ return in Time, we accept Jesus’ promise to the sinner on the next cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise,” a holy and blessed assurance - - so Advent becomes not only a joyful time of looking-forward-to in the community of faith as Christmas trees go up and Lessons and Carols begin, but especially for each one individually, a time of realizing the Easter gospel that is our Alpha and Omega as Jesus people: in the Nativity, love, death and Resurrection of Jesus, God's plan of salvation comes. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

Like an early band of pilgrims walking toward Jerusalem, or in Advent slowly making our way to Bethlehem, the church is a community of travelers, each of us on a journey, each as alone as every pilgrim in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, but living and moving together in hope and faith that at the end of our own Time, life goes on, a new adventure with our God. 

All of which brings us back round to the Advent Paradox: Behold, the Lamb of God!! Joyfully we anticipate Jesus 
Second Coming,
First Coming,
this life or the next,
Bethlehem or the New Jerusalem

Sheep of Jesus’ own fold, 

Lambs of Jesus’ own flock, 

Sinners of Jesus’ own redeeming. 

+++++++++++++

Advent Sunday sermon, Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida, the Rev. Tom Weller. 20171203. 03Dec2017. Pic pinched online.