"SOMETHING'S COMING"

In Advent, we look toward the coming hope of Christ.

This past Thursday, former Beatle George Harrison died. Now maybe if you're under 40 that doesn't mean much. I'm guessing that because, on Friday, at the church office when I began talking about how sad I felt that George was gone, Lora (who's 33) just gave me kind of a blank, disconnected stare. I said, "You know...the Beatles...John, Paul, George and Ringo?!" She paused and said, "Yeah, I think I've heard of them." (YIKES!)

As the news talked about him and his life and the Beatles and all that, two things were quoted that struck me as so pertinent and important for all of us. First, a spokesperson for Harrison's family said, "He left this world as he lived in it conscious of God, fearless of death, surrounded by family and friends." I think that really is the way to live.

But someone also gave a direct quote from George Harrison himself, and on this, the first Sunday in the season of Advent, it seems especially important. He said, "Everything else can wait...but the search for God cannot wait." So true, so true. When we choose the priorities of this holiday season and of our very lives, the one thing that cannot wait is our search for God. Christ has come...Christ is here...and Christ will come again. We need to be ready.

The word "Advent" means "coming." Too often we limit our thoughts in these weeks before Christmas to the coming of God as the baby in the manger. The other side of Advent is that we are not only to remember the "coming" that happened some 2000 years ago but that we are also to realize that Christ will come again. Time and the world as we know it is headed toward a final destiny that will culminate when history ends and eternity begins at the time that God has already determined and that we will never know...until it happens. But we are told to be awake and alert and ready at all times.

The coming of Christ, though, is even still more than past and future. The coming of Christ is also in the now...the present...this moment...this place. Christ comes in the faces of the sisters and brothers seated all around us this morning and in the faces of all the people we meet "out there." In medieval times there was a charming legend which said that on Christmas Eve the Christ Child wandered throughout the world, looking for places where he would be welcomed. Those who loved him, hoping that he might find their homes, placed lighted candles in the window to invite him in.

Of course, no one knew for sure in what guise the Christ Child might appear. Perhaps he would come dressed in the rags of a beggar, or he might come as a poor and lonely child. He might also appear incognito in the form of the disabled, the halt and the blind, who were put out to roam the streets in medieval cities.

So it became customary for devout Christians to welcome into their homes all who knocked at their doors on Christmas Eve. To turn any away may have meant the rejection of the Christ Child, who had come in an unfamiliar garb.

During the Advent season we are implored to remember that the Christ Child is wandering along our streets, looking for homes where he will be given warmth and shelter. The lights in the windows of our homes and the lighting of the Advent candles in our church symbolize to all of our community that Christ is our guest. Here is a place where there is room for God in our hearts.

Jesus never intended for us to lives our lives obsessed with worry over what the future is going to bring. We don't know what it will bring. We can't know. The best thing that we can do is to take seriously, everyday, Christ's commandment that we love God, our neighbors and ourselves...regardless of what the future may bring. The story is told that the great church reformer Martin Luther was once asked what he would do if he knew for certain that the world was going to end tomorrow. Without hesitation he replied, "I would plant an apple tree this afternoon." Luther wasn't given to speculation about the ending of the world; he focused rather on the "end" that is, the "purpose" of the world which God intends for the present time. Luther would plant an apple tree today, even though the world will be ending tomorrow, because he believed that what may happen in the future does not excuse us from what God requires of us here and now. And in all that we do in the here and now God expects us to live as people of hope. Think of "hope" as Hanging Onto a Promised Eventuality. Christ has been in the world...will return to the world...and IS in the world right now. That's a promise. And the future rests securely in God's hands even though we can't see it.

That's what hope is all about. In the 8th chapter of the book of Romans we read, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.... For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we [can] wait for it patiently.... [For] we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love God." Too often we let the things...the circumstances...the distractions of this world lure us away from the hope with which we should be living. Even more so, the sufferings...the hard times...the pains and frustrations of this life can fool us into believing that we have no hope at all. But what we as human beings cannot accomplish, God has already done.

In a story entitled, "A Mustard Seed Christmas," Charlene Fairchild writes, "It was the first Sunday in Advent and my husband ...rather gingerly...brought up the subject of Christmas, knowing that I was immersed in the full bloom of grief. My Mom had died on Labor Day and this was the first Christmas to be marked without her. I did not feel like Christmas.

I remembered the reading from Romans I had heard that morning at church: ‘The night is far gone, the day is near .... let us put on the armor of light .... put on the Lord Jesus Christ.' The season celebrating His birth and looking for His coming again was upon me, and I was being called to participate. But it was beyond me to rejoice. As I said these things to my husband, he reminded me that God IS able even if I was not. He mentioned the parable of the mustard seed to me. God could take that little mustard seed and make of it something worthy. God could take that tiny seed of faith and grow it into a kingdom of hope.

I felt as if I had been touched. I got up and went to the kitchen and rifled through my spices. Yes! There it was. My bottle of mustard seeds. I got one out and grabbed a piece of paper from the pad by our phone and taped that mustard seed to the center. I returned to the dining room, waving the paper triumphantly. ‘I've got it! I've got it! I CAN celebrate this year.' My husband said, ‘Here, let's put it up on the mantel. It'll be our first Christmas decoration.' Up it went. Every time I looked at it, I was reminded of the hope it symbolized and the faith it embodied. I couldn't do it on my own. But God could. And God did!"

During Advent we are reminded that something is coming: it's the hope and the promise of Christ. In one church's Christmas Eve bulletin, someone made a comical typo: "And the Word was made flesh and swelled among us." But, you know, that's exactly what we're being asked to do during the season of Advent: invite the Word -- the Spirit of Christ-- to "swell," to grow inside of us. To "prepare us room" for any time and any way that Jesus wants to come into our world...and into the world through us.

For those of us who DO know who the Beatles were, perhaps we can also recall, from the pop culture of our youth, the "feel" of a rhythm and rhyme that is reminiscent of both Clement Clarke Moore and Dr. Seuss. Using that "feel," a pastor named Todd Jenkins in Fayetteville, Tennessee, wrote about the meaning and the challenge of Advent this way:

'Twas the beginning of Advent and all through the Church
Our hope was all dying--we'd given up on the search.
It wasn't so much that Christ wasn't invited,
But after 2,000 years we were no longer excited.
Oh, we knew what was coming--no doubt about that.
And that was the trouble--it was all just "old hat."
The day after Halloween started the fad
Of the subtle, seductive and memorable ad.
There were gadgets and dolls and all sorts of toys,
Enough to seduce the most devout girls and boys.
Unfortunately, it seemed, no one was exempt
From this seasonal sin that did all of us tempt.
The priests and the prophets and certainly the kings
Were all so consumed with desire for these "things!"
It was rare, if at all, that you'd hear of the reason
For the true origin of this whole holy season.
A baby, it seems, once had been born
In the mid-east somewhere on that first holy morn.
But what does that mean for folks like us,
Who've lost ourselves in the hoopla and fuss?
Can we re-learn the art of wondering and waiting,
Of hoping and praying and anticipating?
Can we let go of all the things and the stuff?
Can we open our hands and our hearts long enough?
Can we open our eyes and open our ears?
Can we find Christ again after all of these years?
Will this year be different from all the rest?
Will we finally be able to give God our best?
So many questions, unanswered thus far.
As wise-people still seeking after the star,
Where do we begin-- how do we start
To make a place for the Child in our heart?
Perhaps we begin by letting go of our limits on hope,
and the stuff that we know.
Let go of the shopping, of the chaos and fuss,
Let go of the searching...let Christmas find us.
Let's open our hearts, our hands and our eyes,
To see Jesus coming in our own neighbors' cries.
Let's look without seeking what we think we've earned,
But rather let's look at relationships spurned.
With Jesus comes wholeness and newness of life
For friends and for lovers, for husband and wife.
The Christ-child will come not because of our skill,
But rather Christ comes because its God's will.
We can't bring the Light with our parties and trees,
But only by dropping, at heart, "to our knees."
Christ will come if we wait patiently through afflictions,
Coming in spite of, not by, our restrictions.
Christ's coming will happen-- of this there's no doubt.
The question is will we say, "Come in" or "Stay out"?
Can we block out commercials, the hype and the malls?
Can we take our devotion beyond these four walls?
Can we cling to our hope, keep alert, stay awake?
Can we welcome the Christ child for ours and God's sake?
As Advent begins all these questions make plea.

The only true answer is: Well...we will see." Amen.

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