It strikes
me that people my age have lived through an unsettling communications
revolution, in large part due to the internet and the cell phone. Such a
contrast to what used to be! In the early 1950’s, I can actually remember my
family’s telephone being for a short while, on a party line. When we wanted to
call someone, we picked up the handset, put it to our ear, and a female voice
said, “Number please” and you responded Capital 3-5515. I was taught by my parents that the telephone
was not for frivolous use. You said what you needed to say and then got off the
phone. Boy, has that ever changed! When we see people driving around talking
endlessly on cell phones and – God help us - even texting while they are
driving, what we are really seeing is the relentless progression of the
saturation of our lives by constant communication. My question is: do people
really have that much to say? I don’t think so!
I
say all this as a means of leading into my intended subject which is messages. The Communication of Messages! Life is a
process of receiving messages and acting on them. To illustrate this point, I
would tell the following parable. It is entitled:
The Castaway
Once upon a time
there was a man who was marooned on a desert island. In the course of becoming
a castaway, he had also lost his memory. Every day at noon he would walk down to the water’ edge and would pick
up a bottle with a slip of paper in it on which was written a message. Every
day the messages were different. One day the paper said. “A leaf fell from a
tree this afternoon in Havana , Cuba
The Advent Message
Hopefully,
I have made my point. Life is a process of receiving messages, sorting them as
to importance, and then acting or not acting upon them. During the Season of Advent, in some sense,
we stand on a sandy shore – like the castaway – gazing out at a vast ocean
which occasionally produces messages for us. The Advent messages which we
receive are provoking to say the least. They are intended to assault our consciousness!
The messengers are familiar names: the prophet Isaiah, John the Baptist and the
angel Gabriel, to name just a few. They bring us life messages and demand our
attention.
What happens
during the Season of Advent is that, during these four weeks, we are introduced
to what is coming. That is the magic
word in Advent, “coming.” In these readings we are given quick glimpses of the
promised birth of the Messiah. Advent is
the prelude to the Church year which contains all of the major themes of Christianity.
The very first Advent
reading which we heard this year was the following from the beginning of the 64th
chapter of Isaiah:
O that you would tear open the heavens and come down , . . .
What an image! It tells us
exactly what is going to happen. In response to the anticipation of “God coming
down,” the Season of Advent then week by week builds in intensity as it calls
each one of us to an awareness of the burning need for preparation: Last Sunday
we heard from the 1st chapter of Mark this message: “Therefore keep awake: for you do not know
when the Master of the house will come, . . . I say to all: Watch!” Both last Sunday and this Sunday, we hear the
voice of John the Baptist, the “forerunner” of the Messiah. His voice is
strident: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way
of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Next
Sunday, the angel Gabriel will make his appearance and will announce to Mary
that she is going to bear a child. Advent is a prelude of preparation for the coming
of the Messiah who will recreate God’s world. During the Season of Advent, we
find special solace in the following passage:
For behold, I create
new heavens and a new earth.
Isaiah
65:17
I see the Season
of Advent as a great four week drama which, as it unfolds, reveals the undoing of
Adam’s error which threw the whole creation out of kilter and estranged
humanity from God. This for me is the most powerful expression of the meaning
of the Season of Advent. Paradise
will be restored!
All life is a
process of change! As Christians, we
believe that this is a process of redemption, a movement toward salvation. The point of the lections in the Season of
Advent is that everything is in a process of transition from fallenness to
re-creation and that God is in control of the movement. This is the story which is told during
Advent.
Human beings rail against the temporary
condition of their lives. They perceive
this as a movement toward death (end) which they are powerless to stop. They are willing to listen to any
alternative. The serpent’s suggestion to
Eve echoes in every age and finds an attentive listener in each one of us. “You will not die. God knows that when you eat of it [the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil], your eyes will be opened and you will be
like God knowing good and evil.”
Only in Jesus are
we able to break out of the grip of this dreadful journey. In Jesus the finitude of human beings is
subsumed into infinity. The opposition
is destroyed.
It is the
anticipation of the accomplishment of this which evokes numerous mentions of
joy and rejoicing in the Advent readings:
Sing aloud, O
Daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult
with all your heart, O daughter
of Jerusalem
against you, he
has cast out your enemies. The King of
Zephaniah
3:14-20 (3 Advent C)
Why? Because God is
going to visit and redeem his people!
Saving history moves on. The
story unfolds. Transition and change are
unstoppable, but they are a part of God’s plan. The movement is toward the restoration of
the Kingdom (Paradise ). We heard this expressed in the
psalm today.
When the Lord
restored the fortunes of Zion
then were we like those who dream.
Psalm
126:1
We
need to see our lives as prelude also, moving introductions to greater moments,
greater and deeper understandings which lie ahead. These “deeper understandings” are revealed to
us during the rest of the church year. One understanding which needs to be
emphasized at this time of the year is the belief that there is more to reality
than the material world which we experience every day. Advent lifts the veil so
that we can see into the reality beyond!
Conclusion
I strongly believe
that all sermons should have decisive conclusions and now is the time. The
gospel never ends; sermons definitely should! To end this Advent reflection, I
will take you back to that desert island and you are now the person on it
looking out at the vastness of the ocean and wondering what the next message
will be. Of course this parable is an analogy about the human condition. We
find ourselves in this world gazing at the enormity of the universe and we
can’t help but wonder who we are, where we came from, what it all means, and
whether anyone cares for us. Don’t worry! The message in the Season of Advent
is clear. On December 25 another bottle will float to shore and there will be a
message in it which will read:
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son
is given: and the government
shall be upon his shoulders: and his
name shall be called Wonderful,
Counselor, The mighty God, the
everlasting Father, the Prince of
Peace. Isaiah
9: 6
I understand that message and,
hopefully, so do you!
The
Rev. Dr. Richard B. Tudor
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