Archives for 2012

Where’s Jesus?

December 24, 2012 By Andy James

a sermon on Luke 2:1-20 and John 1:1-14
preached on December 24, 2012, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

One of my most memorable Christmas gifts growing up was the wonderful series of Where’s Waldo? books. They featured a tall, lanky, strange, bespectacled man named Waldo who popped up in a variety of very interesting scenes. The goal of the books was to find him amidst these very busy scenes. He was best distinguished by his bright red striped shirt, but sometimes when he hid behind a tree or something he was a little more difficult to spot. For several years, each Christmas brought a new book in the series, and I remember spending many hours looking carefully for Waldo and the many other things hidden in these scenes. It was a fun game and a great way to spend those lazy Christmas days with family and friends—and even a welcome break from all the toys that seemed to get a lot of attention too!

Sometimes, I feel like we are playing a bit of a game of “Where’s Jesus?” in our world at Christmas nowadays. Signs of the holidays are everywhere, but Jesus is a bit more hidden. Our streets and homes are decorated with trees, garland, Santas, and even nativity scenes, but too often for me at least it just feels obligatory and not all that real and meaningful. Religious celebrations that talk about Jesus take a back seat to family gatherings that focus on gift-giving and eating. Many people are now even saying “Merry Christmas,” but do they even know what that means? Even one of our own parents in the church told me the other day that her child had never made the connection between Jesus and Christmas—to this youngster, Christmas was all about Santa Claus and giving and receiving presents, and, based on our celebrations, I for one am not really all that surprised. Some in the church go on and on about the “War on Christmas”—all the supposed places in our civic culture where the seemingly more generic “holidays” have replaced a proper celebration of Christmas—but I think we have to answer for our own actions and reclaim Christmas for ourselves before we can point to anyone or anything else.

You see, regardless of how we might act or behave in the church or elsewhere, Christmas is not about Santa Claus, giving or receiving gifts, or even the glorious music that shapes these days. When we focus on these things, the world can so easily close in around us. The very shallow joy of this view of Christmas becomes insincere when things get hard or tragedy strikes as it has so often in recent months and years. Between the destruction of Superstorm Sandy and the highly-visible gun violence around us that culminated in Newtown and continued even earlier today, we need something more than the traditional holidays has to offer, a deeper, more real, more transformative joy that brings us new life.

At its core, Christmas should be exactly that. This is the day when we celebrate God’s presence in our world, Immanuel, God-with-us, God’s coming to us in human form, in the birth of Jesus. This is the day when we remember that God doesn’t ever give up on us but shows the greatest possible love for us: love in a simple babe in a manger, love in a wise and challenging teacher, love in a miraculous and astounding healer, love in a life-giving death, love in an astounding resurrection. This is the day when we see that God can’t be pinned only to the powerful, only to the religious, only to Christians, only to the church, for on this day we celebrate how God in Christ was born to Mary, a poor, unmarried girl, in a dark, dank, messy manger, with only strange shepherds to greet him.

So when we look around in these days and wonder, “Where’s Jesus?” the answer may surprise us. We might like to try to get Jesus more fully into our holiday celebrations. We might want to confine the religious element of this season to life in the church or to something that we can do when there is time. And we might even recognize that Jesus is the reason for the season. But when we ask “Where’s Jesus?” the answer may be more like those Waldo books than we could ever imagine, for he is dwelling in our world, not so much hiding as hanging out. He is very much present with us, even when we don’t know it, even when we least expect it. He is ready for us to watch and look and search for him, waiting for us to discover him when and where we least expect it. Our reading tonight from John puts it beautifully:

The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it.

The Word became flesh and lived among us,
and we have seen his glory,
the glory as of a father’s only son,
full of grace and truth.

And so our call this Christmas and every day is simple. Live like this all this has actually happened. Act like Christmas is not about giving gifts or gathering with family and friends but about celebrating God’s life in our midst in Christ. Make Christ’s presence real in our world. And keep asking “Where’s Jesus?” as we look for him to be at work in the expected and unexpected places in our world, for we will certainly encounter this baby boy, this radical teacher and preacher, this astonishing healer, this self-giving servant, this resurrected Christ, in our world.

Sometimes it will be easy, with joyful music and easy signs to point the way. And sometimes it will be hard, when we are lonely, when the walls seem to be closing in around us, when violence and war seem to have the last word. Yet in joy and in sorrow, when we ask “Where’s Jesus?” we know that he is among us. In our songs, in our words, in our celebrations, in our sacrament, we trust that Jesus is among us. In our sorrow, in our sighing, in our living, in our dying, Christ walks with us all the way to show us God’s love each and every day.

So may we seek Jesus and find him this Christmas and throughout the year to come so that our joy might be complete, our hope restored, and our world renewed for these days and always.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to all, this night, this Christmas, and always. Amen.

Speaking Up and Singing Out

December 23, 2012 By Andy James

a sermon on Luke 1:26-56 for the Fourth Sunday of Advent
preached on December 23, 2012, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Music is an integral part of this time of year. We’ve been hearing holiday songs for most of this month already if not longer, and there is incredible variety in style and subject. Nearly every popular music artist makes an album of holiday songs, but the subjects of holiday songs stay pretty much the same. The secular songs talk about winter, cold weather, snow, family, and friends, and the religious ones tell popularized and shortened versions of the various Christmas stories from the Bible along with some material from legends and history.

One of the greatest and most common subjects of these songs is Mary, who is also the main subject of our reading this morning. While we may not hear these songs quite so frequently on the radio, these songs about Mary are some of the best holiday music out there, if you ask me. They take a lot of different forms and focus on many different parts of the story. A lot of these songs are settings of the Magnificat that we just heard read and will sing ourselves in a few minutes, and at our Taizé prayer service the other night, we sang another very simple setting of it that managed to show the spirit of joy in Mary’s song in only a couple lines. Other songs about Mary simply attempt to tell the story of how Jesus came to be born, like a well-known carol from France that tells the story of Mary’s encounter with the angel Gabriel or the song I just sang by John Bell from the Iona Community in Scotland. Still other songs reflect on Mary’s reaction to the news that she would bear God’s son, with one I heard this year even taking a very earthy view of Mary’s encounter with the angel as it depicts in word and song the strangeness of this very intimate encounter between an angel and a young girl.

But as much as I love all this music about Mary, this year I have realized more than ever before how difficult it is for me to identify with Mary. I haven’t been visited by an angel, so I can’t know what it was like for her to experience Gabriel’s presence as she did. I am not a parent, so I can’t go into Christmas drawing connections between the birth of my own children and the birth of Jesus. And since I am not a woman, I can’t imagine what it is like to carry new life of any sort into the world, let alone a son who would be so special and transformative!

With all these limitations, I think it is very easy for me to miss important things about this story—but all of us stand at a disadvantage here because this story has almost always been told through male eyes. The gospel writers were all men, and although Luke tells this story so beautifully, no man could fully capture the feelings and challenges of a story that is so closely connected to a woman’s experience.

We in the church have too often quieted the voice of women over the centuries. While there have been a number of notable women who have contributed their scholarship and spirituality to the life of the church, it has only been in the last one hundred years that women have been given voice in pulpits in many churches, and those who have a closer experience to this key figure of our faith remain locked out of leadership in so many traditions even today. There is something very much missing when half of the human race is not allowed to offer their own perspective on such an important moment in the story of our faith.

And yet amidst such quiet for women, Mary spoke up—even if we have to hear it through the voice of Luke. Mary spoke up when no one seemed to care, when she faced exclusion from society for getting pregnant before she was married, when her story of divine parenthood for her child just wasn’t believable. Mary spoke up not just to claim something for herself, not just to reclaim her personhood, not just to announce that she too had a voice, but Mary spoke up so that others might hear, so that others could understand what she was going through, so that others could join her in praising God for this new thing that was taking shape in her.

This wasn’t an easy thing for her to deal with in general, let alone for her to talk about—her acceptance of it wasn’t a given. God didn’t ask Mary to sign up for a special trip, give up an evening to go to a sales presentation, or even to make a big donation to a favorite charity. Instead, through the angel Gabriel, God asked Mary to give up nine months of a relatively normal life for the pain and struggle of pregnancy. God asked Mary to take on the responsibility of raising a son at a very young age when it wasn’t entirely clear if she would have to do so alone. God asked Mary to stake her reputation as a virtuous woman on a visitation from an angel that she alone witnessed and that others had no incentive to believe.

But the reality is that Mary didn’t have much else to give—or much else to lose. She herself points out her own lowliness, and it seems that there is not much else she could do to be a part of what God was doing in the world around her. Yet in spite of all the obstacles, all the pain, all the ridicule it could bring, she somehow welcomed the angel, listened carefully, and responded hopefully, “Let it be with me according to your word.”

But her acceptance was not the only way that she spoke up. As she sorted out what all these things meant and talked to her relative Elizabeth, another woman who faced pregnancy in an unusual circumstance, Mary suddenly figured it all out. In talking with Elizabeth, she moved from a meek moment of submission and acceptance to a joyous offering of praise and thanksgiving. As she recognized more of what this child would mean, she was ready to praise God, not just for the gift she had received but for this child who would change everything for everyone.

What is our Mary moment? What sort of request in our lives would bring us to wonder and reflect as she did? What could God ask of us—male or female, rich or poor, young or old—that would challenge us and bring us to this kind of new life? What would make us confront our fears and our challenges and speak up with a word of hope and praise?

Because as a man I can’t know the full meaning of what it would be to give up as much as Mary did, I suspect any comparison I might offer would fall a bit short of the incredible offering that she made. But the great medieval mystic Julian of Norwich wrote of what she learned through her own visions of Mary:

I was not taught to long to see her bodily presence whilst I am here, but [instead] the virtues of her blessed soul, her truth, her wisdom, her love, through which I am taught to know myself and reverently to fear my God.

Perhaps then our words and actions can live out this truth, wisdom, and love of Mary each and every day. We can join in Mary’s commitment to opening ourselves to God’s work in us just as she did—not just being virtuous but living in faithfulness, truth, peace, justice, and love with one another and modeling these things for our world so that God’s new way might take hold in our world. And we can offer our own words of praise for what God is doing in us and around us, for mercy that transforms lives and hearts, for strength that scatters the proud, brings down the powerful, and lifts up the lowly, for generosity that fills the hearts and minds and stomachs of those who are in need, and for promises kept that show us how God has been, is now, and always will be at work in our world.

So as we bring our preparations and waiting to a close and join in celebrating this Christmas, may we do our best to be like Mary, opening ourselves to whatever God may be asking of us, speaking up to call others to join in God’s transformation of our lives and our world, and singing out in joy for God’s wondrous gift of new life born in a manger some two millennia ago and taking hold in our hearts once again this Christmas.

Lord, come quickly! Amen.

Joy Abundant

December 16, 2012 By Andy James

a sermon on Philippians 4:4-7 for the Third Sunday of Advent
preached on December 16, 2012, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

The past two days have been an incredible mix of emotions for me. I spent Friday as a somewhat usual day off—until I heard of the horrific events of the school shooting in Newtown, when I then tried to follow the news as best I could without becoming engrossed in the sad and difficult news of the day. Then, as many of you know, I spent all day yesterday on a very quick trip to Washington, DC, where about thirty members of the choir I sing with sang at the White House to provide entertainment for the public holiday tours.

It was a strange mixture of two days. Friday, nothing seemed right. Christmas seemed an eternity away, with some twenty children killed mercilessly in yet another incident of gun violence that for some reason we are unable or unwilling to do anything about. Then yesterday, within seconds of walking into the White House, Christmas came into sharp view, with some of the most beautiful decorations I have ever seen and the scent of pine and fir all around. I told one of my fellow singers that I felt like Christmas had finally begun! Several of us noted how it seemed quite strange to sing about joy and happiness after Friday’s events, but the eventual decision was to set aside the horrific events of Friday and try to set a celebratory mood for the day, and I think it worked.

The past two days have felt very much like a strange mix of joy and sadness, but that’s also what we face today in our worship. Today is the third Sunday of Advent, the time each year where we light the pink candle of the Advent wreath and celebrate the joy that comes when Jesus is born. The texts appointed for this day talk about the joy and hope that comes in and through the birth of Jesus, and so we normally think about how this season is filled with great joy and hope and promise, and we finally get to sing one of the great Christmas carols, “Joy to the World,” because it fits with Advent as much as Christmas.

But today, the joy and hope and promise of Advent and Christmas seem to be left in the midst of the horrors at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Rejoice in the Lord always, even in the midst of this?? Paul couldn’t have meant that we have to rejoice today, could he? If we take our last song seriously, do we have to be thankful for this? In the face of such tragedy and death, what are we to do? Celebrate?

One option for rejoicing that I hear a lot in times like this is to be thankful that it wasn’t us, that no one we knew was killed, or that the violence didn’t get any worse. In the face of such suffering, I don’t think it is our place to rejoice that we aren’t as bad off as those people over there or to thank God that we haven’t faced such loss ourselves. As Christians, it is our call to stand with those who face this kind of immense, real, deep loss and pain and to do everything we can to embody the love, grace, mercy, and justice of God in Christ each and every day.

So in the midst of such a challenge, I am grateful that this text says that there is more for us to do. Some days we just can’t rejoice, but since there is more to do, we can move on for now and come back to rejoicing on another day—or maybe even later on in this sermon! So when Paul suggests that our gentleness be known to everyone, I think we might have something that seems doable in a moment like this. We can be gracious and understanding to those who approach these difficult days from very different perspectives. We can respond to such heinous violence in our world not with more violence but rather with a generous and gentle call to peace. And we can listen and hear in such a way that those who suffer pain and loss in the midst of this and so many other moments of violence know that we stand with them and will join in God’s work to make all things new.

After we start down the path to gentleness, Paul challenges us yet again to trust that the Lord is near. On days like yesterday for me, that felt entirely possible. Amidst the beautiful holiday decor of the White House, amidst the pageantry and majesty of Washington, DC, amidst the presence of my fellow singers and in the beautiful music we created together, God felt very near. But on Friday, God didn’t seem very near but in fact felt very much absent—not because there was no prayer in the school as some have suggested but because the horrific things that happened there were so far from what God intends for creation. Yet the Lord is still near. In the life and death of Jesus, we see that God has experienced the full breadth and depth of human life even as he conquered the fullness of death and destruction, and we can trust that he will return to make that victory full and complete and joyous for all. In moments like this, in joy and sorrow, we can be confident that the Lord is and will be near to make all things new for us and all creation.

But then Paul continues with another challenge: “Do not worry about anything.” Have you ever tried not to worry about anything? It’s not easy, and I’m not sure I know anyone who has been able to pull it off, because when I try, I all too soon start to worry about how much I worry! Paul certainly tempers this perspective with an instruction to be faithful in prayer, but it is nonetheless incredibly difficult to set aside all the things that make us worry even when we can turn to God in prayer.

And finally, Paul tells us to trust God’s peace: “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” If this peace can come, then send it our way, O God! It sure would be helpful in the Middle East these days, and Newtown could use some of it, too. But while this peace will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, Paul says it also surpasses all understanding—so sometimes we may have it when we don’t even know it.

But amidst this peace that surpasses all understanding, alongside all the pain and sorrow and sighing of these days, along with the joyful expectation of Christmas, we might finally be ready to embrace the fullness of this joy. Real and true and complete joy comes not from imprisoning ourselves in deep sorrow, not from taking pleasure in the pain of others, not from always having everything that we need and want, but from a way of life that shows deep and real gratitude for the gifts we have from God, for God’s presence with us in the midst of every storm, and for God’s gift of new life that emerges in the face of death. This joy is not about us and our happiness, about smiling faces or simple laughter or even safety amidst great peril. Joy is not about escaping the pain of our world with a holiday that doesn’t deal in the real here and now, for if Christmas is anything, it is a celebration of our God who came into our midst to dwell in the dark and painful stuff of our world. This joy that is solely about our happiness, this joy that simply wants to escape the real things of life—these are the forced cheer and shallow celebration that we confessed earlier today, things that we too often claim are the fullness of what God intends.

Instead, the deep, real, true joy that God gives us may not always be cheerful or happy, but it does show us how God can transform us and our world through justice, mercy, and peace. It helps us to see how the world is about more than our own happiness. It reminds us that God has broken into our world in Jesus to feel the joy and sorrow of the human experience. And it promises us that there is something more in store for us than what we can see in the here and now.

So in these days when joy may seem so far off and yet so near, when our lives and our world are touched by pain, violence, sorrow, and confusion, may God open our eyes to the One who comes to bring us real and true and deep joy, to the One who transforms possibility into promise and pain and suffering into new life, to the One who breaks into our world to bring us wonder and peace and hope so that our joy might be all the more complete and real and deep and true when we welcome Jesus on Christmas morning and when he returns to make all things new.

Lord, come quickly! Amen.

Breaking the Silence

December 9, 2012 By Andy James

a sermon on Luke 1:67-79 for the Second Sunday of Advent
preached on December 9, 2012, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Some years ago, back in seminary, I found myself silenced by laryngitis for nearly a week. It started as one of those late spring colds—you know, the gentle tickle in your throat when you wake up a little stuffy in the morning—but pretty soon I knew something else was going on. I kept on going through that day, speaking and singing normally, until that night after choir practice, when I knew something was really wrong. All of the sudden, the pitch of my voice dropped, but I tried not to be worried about it.

The next morning, I had something to worry about. I could not speak at all. Well, yes, I could talk briefly, but speaking for more than a minute was painful, and singing was certainly out of the question. I asked everyone I knew for their magic cures, and within twenty-four hours I had nursed my voice back to a softer version of “normal,” but my disregard for its tender state soon brought me back to silence.

During those four or five days that I had no voice, I was supposed to sing a solo on Saturday and then sing with the choir on Sunday for the last time before leaving for the summer. It was a pretty major inconvenience for me, but about a week later, I could talk without sounding like I was whispering all the time. Thankfully it’s been a long time since I felt like that, but I’m always afraid that I’m only one stuffy nose away from another week of silence.

In our scripture today, Zechariah had one major case of laryngitis. It all started one day when he drew the short straw among the priests and went into the sanctuary to offer incense to God. He took a bit longer than expected in there, and when he finally emerged, he couldn’t answer everyone’s questions about what had happened because he was entirely unable to speak. The people knew that something important had happened, but they had no way of knowing what, because Zechariah could not tell them. Zechariah went home when his term as priest was over—probably a bit earlier than expected because he couldn’t talk—and he and his wife Elizabeth were finally able to conceive a child after years of being barren.

While Zechariah was silenced, Elizabeth could speak about what she knew, for she had had her own visit from the angel Gabriel. She celebrated with her relative Mary who came to visit and share the news of her own miraculous conception and the coming birth of Mary’s son Jesus. They both cried out with great joy and amazement about what God was doing in their midst, about all the things that would soon come into being through the two children that they were carrying. Even through all of this commotion, Zechariah, the priest, the spokesman for God, the proud father, the one who normally would be first to speak, remained silent, watching and waiting in the midst of a moment of great joy, hoping for a moment when he could speak again.

The silences in our lives may not be cases of laryngitis—like my springtime affliction—or sudden muteness after encountering God—like Zechariah. We might be so stunned by something happening around us that we do not know how to respond. We might be ordered to remain silent to protect some sort of secret that cannot be revealed. We might be so bound by grief and loss that words cannot emerge from our mouths. We might be so constrained by the limitations of the world that we cannot speak what we really want—and need—to say. We might be called to speak words so dissonant with what we hear around us that they would fall upon deaf ears.

In these moments, sometimes silence may actually be the right thing to do. Sometimes we need to offer quiet space in the uncertainty of the moment. Sometimes we must allow others permission to be quiet so that they can be faithful to their experience and understanding of God. Sometimes we need silence to find safe places to express our deepest feelings. And sometimes we are called to conserve our voices so that they might be heard more completely in another moment. Nonetheless, even all these good silences must eventually be broken, for God calls us all to speak words of joy and praise and hope and love and peace.

After many months, Zechariah broke his forced silence with the words of our scripture today. His words were not his own—it was more than clear by then his words could only come from some other place—but these words came to him from the Holy Spirit. Suddenly, Zechariah moved from complete and utter silence to loud and joyful song:

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel!

He was finally able to speak all the words that he had been wanting to say ever since his encounter with the angel in the temple where he learned that he would be a father. All that had been promised to him had been realized, and since there was no longer any doubt about these things, his imposed silence was ended. Zechariah could finally offer praise to God and express all the ways in which God’s faithfulness would be realized in the world through the birth of his son John the Baptist and the coming Jesus.

When he finally spoke again, Zechariah could only give thanks to God for what he had finally seen—for his dreams of a child that had been realized, for his hopes for Israel’s future that would surely become reality in the life of Jesus, for the ability of the people to serve God faithfully and without fear. In the tradition of the great prophets, Zechariah claimed the promises of God for his own generation, speaking of certain salvation, great mercy, a faithful covenant, and fearless service as grateful response.

Although these words echo the prophets and the psalms, they also move beyond these promises of the past. They are more than fulfilled in the life of this “mighty savior” but also point toward the joyous future that surely lies ahead. No longer must the people sit in darkness or wait for God’s redemption to come. Such glorious redemption has come and can only bring new life to those in darkness and peace to those who remain at the hands of their enemies. Zechariah recognized the great joy of finally having a son, but this personal joy was far surpassed by his gratitude for what God was beginning to do throughout the world that would find expression in these two children.

So at this beginning of the story of Jesus’ life, we see its ending described already. In Zechariah’s song, the promises of God are laid out before us and called fulfilled long before we can even begin to imagine how they might take shape in our midst and form the new creation that is already moving toward us. Zechariah’s prophetic words speak to us out of his silence—and penetrate our own silence—as words of hope and promise of what is to come in this world and the next.

Now, we must ask, can we speak these words today? Can anyone today offer such prophetic calls to recognize God at work in our midst? Can anyone today recover from a case of laryngitis to immediately offer joyous and prophetic song? Can anyone today emerge from silence to claim this sort of God at work in the world today, a world where God seems absent from everyday concerns, a world where God seems simply used to support some political, economic, or religious agenda, a world where God seems inseparable from some people and entirely unavailable to others? Can anyone today hope to move beyond seemingly endless war to see God “[guiding] our feet into the way of peace”?

I believe that Advent is a wonderful time to break the silence around us and speak of the incredible grace and love of God that comes into our world at Christmas and is present with us every day. These are days when it becomes clear that we must break the silence even amidst everything that encourages us to keep quiet, even when it hard to be faithful in changing days, even when things around us make it hard for us to be heard, even when it seems best that we should simply be silent. Silence is probably the easier choice here—the choice Zechariah probably would have made were it all up to him, the choice we too probably would make if we could have it our way—but, just as during Zechariah’s time, the Holy Spirit continues to call us to speak out of our silence, to remember God’s great promises, to celebrate God’s good gifts, and to proclaim the continuing and coming reign of Jesus Christ our Lord in all that we say and do.

So blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
who has looked favorably upon us
and has redeemed us
and has shown us mercy,
that we might serve God without fear,
in holiness and righteousness all our days.

By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Thanks be to God! Amen.

Signs

December 2, 2012 By Andy James

a sermon on Luke 21:25-36 for the First Sunday of Advent
preached on December 2, 2012, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

“There will be signs,” Jesus said. There are lots of signs around us these days. What signs of Christmas have you seen lately?

(Just as the congregation spoke of the signs they’ve seen, I hope you’ll add some in the comments.)

As wonderful as the signs of Christmas can be, these are not the only signs we hear about in these days. Our reading this morning from Luke’s gospel tells us about some other signs to watch for in these days—not the signs of Jesus’ first coming but rather his second. You see, even as we spend these Advent days preparing to celebrate Jesus’ birth, we also remember that he will come again. So today as Advent begins, we turn to these signs that he offered his disciples that point to his return, reminders of the new creation first glimpsed in the resurrected Christ, new marks of God’s kingdom taking hold in the world and everything being made new and real and whole and complete.

However, these signs don’t feel very Christmasy. These “signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars” seem to be filled with foreboding and doom. “Distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves” sounds a lot more like the destructive power of Superstorm Sandy than the happy coming of Christmas. Fainting and fear at the “powers of the heavens [being shaken]” seems like something that we ought to be afraid of, too!

Even though it might seem to quash the happy mood a bit, we start the Advent season with these kinds of words every year. We begin this season of preparation not with a sweet baby being born or of shepherds seeking a baby in a manger or of wise men journeying from a far land to pay homage to a newborn king but with these words of foreboding, with signs of “‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.” The signs of this season point to an uncertain and maybe even unpleasant time of strife and change, to something uncertain and new and challenging and even destructive, to a great and wonderful thing that means that everything is changing and will be forever different because of God’s power and presence becoming all the more real around us.

“There will be signs,” Jesus said—and then what? Every sign points to something, warns us of something, and calls us to prepare, and so too these strange signs tell us that we need to get ready. “Now when these things begin to take place,” Jesus said, “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” It’s as our last hymn suggested:

Lift up your heads, eternal gates,
see how the King of glory waits,
The Lord of Hosts is drawing near,
the Savior of the world is here.

But what will this Savior look like? What will our redemption look like as it draws near? Jesus doesn’t tell us that—he only tells us of its signs! But the next verse of our hymn reminds us that Jesus’ own coming didn’t look anything like anyone expected it to. He was no traditional sort of king. Instead, we see that “God comes, a child amidst distress,” with “no mighty armies [to] shield the way” but “only coarse linen, wool, and hay.” (“Lift Up Your Heads,” adapted John Bell)

Our salvation, then, will quite likely look very different from what we expect or what we have seen before. Perhaps we must stand up because we won’t be able to see it from our usual seat, and maybe we must raise our heads because it won’t be in our obvious line of sight. Our redemption—our salvation—will come in glory and in wonder, in strange and powerful visions and in quiet and unadorned splendor. The things ahead are to be incredible and amazing, showing the fullness of God’s power in the most unexpected ways, transforming us and our world into something new as only God can do.

“There will be signs,” Jesus said—but they point to something that is coming, and so we are called to pay attention to them and take action. When we see the signs of Christmas going on all around us, we are reminded that there is so much to be done to get ready for the holiday. In the same way, these signs that Jesus speaks of should remind us that there is work to be done now to get ready for our redemption, for the all things that God is doing to make all things new. Jesus first suggests that we be on guard against anything that distracts us from the hope of what God is doing in us and through us and around us. He then instructs us to wait and watch and prepare for something new and powerful and wonderful coming into being. And finally, he calls us to stay awake and alert at all times so that we will have the strength to know that the mighty and powerful signs matter less than the new creation that they point to.

So like all good signs, these signs demand action on our part. Maybe these signs call us to step back and take a deep breath during these Advent days. Maybe these signs encourage us to turn our efforts of preparation for Christmas away from the gift-buying and commercial frenzy and toward a celebration of God’s amazing entrance into our world in the baby Jesus. And maybe these signs invite us to reassess our broader way of life to see how we can be more faithful as we wait for the fullness of God’s new creation to become real.

And so “there will be signs,” just as Jesus said—signs of a new and different and wonderful way of life breaking through into our world, signs of celebration as we remember the joyous birth of a child whose life among us changes everything, signs of a changing and challenging world that nonetheless gives us hope that God will make all things new. Amidst all these signs, it is our privilege and responsibility to take the time to get ready, to prepare our hearts and our lives for the one who comes at Christmas and who is coming again in power and glory to make all things new, to stand up and raise our heads, for our redemption is drawing near, in power and in quiet, in meekness and majesty, in a little babe and a mighty king, in Christ our Lord who has come and is coming to make all things new.

May we know this matchless and majestic strength, this power shown in weakness, this savior of the world who comes as a lowly baby in a manger and reigns as the mightiest king the world will ever know, as we prepare to welcome him now at Christmas and in the time still to come when all things are made new. Lord, come quickly! Amen.