Advent — Andy James

Waiting at the Doors

November 27, 2016 By Andy James

a sermon on Isaiah 2:1-5 and Matthew 24:36-44
preached on November 27, 2016, at Discovery Church, Clayton, NC

A few years ago, a college student named Andre Sanchez spent the better part of his Thanksgiving holiday waiting at the doors—not at the doors of his grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving dinner but rather at Best Buy, where he arrived at 1:00 on Tuesday afternoon before Thanksgiving so he could save some $600 on a couple electronics items when the store opened early on Friday morning. Afterward, he told a reporter, “When I finally got in, it felt like the gates of heaven opened up.” He was surely not alone—based on the sheer volume of advertisements via paper, email, and television these days, a great majority of Americans spent at least some part of the last few days shopping, and more than a few of them spent some time waiting at the doors.

This is a season of waiting at the doors. Even if we did not wait to get into a big-box store on Thursday or Friday, I suspect that all of us are filled with some sort of waiting and expectation these days. We are waiting at the doors for the inauguration of a new president to bring an end to a brutally long campaign and election season. Here at Discovery, you are waiting at the doors to welcome your new interim pastor as he begins his work in your midst. And we are waiting at the doors of Christmas during this Advent season as we prepare our homes and our hearts to welcome Jesus.

But what are we waiting for? What stands on the other side of the doors for us? Will the gates of heaven open to reveal a great Black Friday or Cyber Monday deal? Are we expecting a radical and dramatic change on January 21st after the inauguration? What are we asking and expecting of your new interim pastor Alan as he begins his work and service here? Most of all, are we ready for the dramatic and real change that comes among us when Jesus is born at Christmas?

Our two texts this morning give us a glimpse of what awaits us on the other side of the doors of Christmas—a time well beyond Jesus’ birth, looking to his second coming in power and glory to make all things new, to the radical and dramatic shift that is made possible because God has been at work in our world in and through Jesus Christ. Our texts today give us a glimpse of what we are waiting for, not with visions of angels and shepherds and wise men but with a look well beyond Christmas Eve to a world that comes into being because of what God is doing in these days.

Isaiah starts us out with a hopeful vision of peace and justice that shows us how things will look one day—not just on the other side of the gates of heaven as we wait for all things to be made new but “in the days to come” here on the earth, too. The prophet assures us that one day, God’s life in the world will be more evident and real. People everywhere will be drawn to God and look for God’s presence, not just in their own ways as they feel led, for their own individual benefit, but together, as many peoples joining as one, to seek instruction in how to live for the well-being of all. But these days to come are not just a time to sit around and enjoy something new—in this time, the word of the Lord will go forth to bring justice and peace to all the world, to “beat… swords into plowshares, and… spears into pruning hooks” so that the whole world will know the fullness of God’s presence and can live differently in light of this each and every day. Finally, if it weren’t already clear, the prophet invites everyone to join in this waiting and watching: “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!” All of us can prepare for these things ahead with hopefulness, doing our best to make this new way that awaits us on the other side of these gates real here and now.

Then our reading from the gospel according to Matthew gives us another vision of the things that await us on the other side of the doors of these days. Here Jesus suggests that the things that we are waiting for will be quite a surprise—a sudden, dramatic change that isn’t at all understood or imaginable but that is coming nonetheless. Jesus goes on to make it clear that we won’t know anything about the days to come until they come. All we can do is stay awake and alert for the day when the Lord is coming and be ready for it to appear without any warning. One commentator sums it up well:

We are not expected to know everything, but we are expected to do something. The Jesus of the verses before us calls persons to a life of work in a spirit of wakefulness. (Mark E. Urs, “Homiletical Perspective on Matthew 24:36-44,” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 1, p. 23)

One way to think about this might be to adapt that wonderful old adage, “Jesus is coming—look busy!” While we need to be doing things to get ready for the days ahead, our busyness in these days needs to be real. We are called to be aware of what time it is, to turn away from the world’s pull upon us toward greed and consumption and to turn toward preparation and readiness. We are called to live like people who know what time it is, to deepen our practices of faith and to act to further the justice, peace, and reconciliation of our world along the way.

An old Advent hymn puts it well, I think, when it asks, “O Lord, how shall I meet you?” How shall we get ready for the bigger changes ahead? How do we make this Advent season about something more than decorating our homes, completing our shopping lists, and meeting the world’s expectations of everything that must be done in the countdown to December 24th? How do we respond to the real divisions and challenges that are becoming more and more visible in our communities in light of the election? How do we make Discovery Church ready for the things that God has in store in and through your new interim pastor’s ministry but even more in the days beyond? In all these things and in all things, how do we set our lives in order to truly welcome Jesus?

I don’t have any easy answers to these questions, but I do know this: As we wait at the doors of what God has in store for us as individuals, as the people of Discovery Church, and as citizens of the United States and our world, God calls us to remember that the things ahead will be dramatically and completely different. They cannot be described or contained in human words, for they hold a new, transformative way of life that begins by God’s own initiative.

As we wait together here at these doors, we can remember that this promised transformation has happened once before—not through one announced with trumpets, attired in regal robes, living in a gold-gilt palace, or even elected by the people, but rather through one announced by angels to lowly field workers on the night shift, one wrapped in swaddling clothes, laying in a manger. And so the things we do as we wait at these doors ought to reflect the life of the one who brings new life, a way of justice and peace described by Isaiah that comes when our swords are beat into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks, a way of radical expectation described by Jesus that insists that we be prepared to welcome the fullness of new life in God’s kingdom at any time, a way of hopeful waiting that comes when we remember the incredible gift of transformation in Jesus Christ that stands behind all real transformation in this world and the next.

As my friend Carol Howard Merritt put it:

We will never know the reign of God that is in and among us until we wake up and become attuned to those promises of peace and justice, until we can become alert to those things that are going on around us that remind us of God’s presence, until we walk away from the cynicism and despair that can sedate us and become busy, working for a world where the downtrodden will be [lifted up] and the ravaged will be made whole.

So may God open our eyes to the possibilities before us as we wait at the doors of God’s kingdom in our individual lives and in our life together in this place, may God help us to trust that our waiting at the doors will bring us something more than just temporal pleasures and seasonal highs, and may God show us how to look for the real joy and hope and new life that come as we walk in the light of the Lord.

Lord, come quickly! Amen.

Joseph: The Last to Know

December 20, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Matthew 1:18-25
preached on December 20, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Joseph must have been the last to know. They had been pledged to each other, all the steps toward marriage complete except for the final ceremony and celebration, when Mary figured out that something was going on in her body, that she was growing another human being inside her. Joseph would have had no clue about this for a while unless Mary told him what was going on, so I suspect she waited as long as she possibly could to tell him. Surely Mary knew that things would not go well when she did finally tell him—after all, modern attitudes about having children before marriage would not begin to kick in in most communities for two thousand years or so.

When he did find out, Joseph prepared to do exactly what you would expect—he decided to protect her reputation by “dismiss[ing] her quietly.” Except God had other plans. “Just when [Joseph] had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream.” Mary and her child would not be dismissed quietly so easily, for God was at work in her life. The angel told Joseph that he should take Mary as his wife after all, that there was no disgrace worth fearing from marrying her, for “the child conceived in her [was] from the Holy Spirit.” The next steps then became clear: Mary was to bear a son, whom he should name Jesus, “for he will save his people from their sins.”

When Joseph awoke from his dream, he set aside his plans to send Mary away. He followed the angel’s instructions and reaffirmed his commitment to her. Against all the cultural norms and expectations, Joseph took Mary as his wife and welcomed her son by the Holy Spirit as his own. In so doing, he took his place in the long line of his ancestors who had waited, watched, and worked for the coming of the Messiah. As Matthew puts it, “All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.’” Even though his initial instincts suggested that he should do otherwise, Joseph would not get in the way of this new thing that God was doing in the world. Joseph may have been the last to know, but he was among the first to get out of the way of what God was doing in the life of Jesus.

As this season of Advent preparation draws to a close, as our look at some of the major personalities who mark these days comes to an end, Joseph gives us yet another perspective on how God calls us to wait in hope and respond in faith to the coming of Jesus into our world. Like Zechariah and Mary and Elizabeth before him, Joseph’s surprise at the events that unfolded around him cannot be duplicated in our own celebrations of the coming of Jesus at Christmas. When we enter these days of waiting, we generally know how things will turn out. The annual commemoration of Jesus’ birth will go forward as it always does. We will celebrate Christmas in the usual way at the usual time on the usual day. December 25th will come, and we will share this great feast that marks our lives and our world, and then we will return to the way things have been before until Christmas comes again next year.

But in that first Advent over two thousand years ago, these women and men found themselves in a much different place. They had varying levels of confidence in the proclamation offered to them by the angels, because the promises offered to them had not yet been fulfilled. They may have been told something about how the story of the birth of Jesus would go forward, but they certainly had no idea how this story would go on to end some thirty or so years later.

Like Zechariah, Mary, and Elizabeth, Joseph had to step out in faith. Doing what the angel told him to do would put his reputation on the line and risk his past, his present, and his future. Marrying this woman who became pregnant before she was married would risk being pulled away from his family. He could have been separated from his wife through her own punishment for this act that would be attributed to her. If they managed to stick together, everyone would have known what had happened to them, and the social capacity to shun such misbehavior was developed many centuries ago. Going forward as the angel instructed may have even left this new family without a way to get by—after all, who would hire a carpenter who married such a woman?

In the end, all these things would bring huge changes for them. In Matthew’s telling of the story, Joseph and Mary would be forced to leave their hometown of Bethlehem, first escaping to Egypt to elude the death squads of King Herod who came targeting all the infant boys of Jesus’ age, then finally settling in Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth to stay far, far away from this evil and jealous family. However, all this also meant that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus were able to begin a new life in a new town, separated from those who knew about this potentially disgraceful past by some 70 miles—maybe not all that far in our own time, but a long way in those days. Joseph may have been the last to know, but in the end he acted in confidence and hope that gave the space for Jesus to live out his call.

As we walk in our own Advent days, Joseph’s example can inspire and guide us in our own preparation. While we know what to expect in the days of Christmas that come so quickly before us, these Advent days still point us ahead to a time whose events are not so clear to us. So as we wait and watch and work for a different day to come, for the wonder of God’s kingdom to be unveiled in our midst, for the fullness of hope to be revealed among us, we can join with Joseph to trust God’s proclamation for our own world.

First, we can set aside our fears of being called out because we are different from others because of what we believe. Just as Joseph could stop worrying about what other people would say about his wife and child who might bear disgrace, we can stop worrying about whether other people will recognize our holidays, whether those we encounter will wish us a Merry Christmas, or whether we our way of life will be changed by people who think, believe, or practice their faith differently than we do. Whatever comes of these things, God’s presence will be with us, and that is what matters for us, just as it was what mattered for Joseph.

With Joseph as a witness for us, we can also think differently about the social assumptions we place upon people. If we act in the ways that God seemingly decrees for us, we would join the community—and Joseph himself—in rejecting the mother and child who brought salvation to our world! Instead, the witness of Joseph reminds us that God might be working beyond our expectations and usual pathways to bring something new into being around us. The people we so easily want to reject might just be the ones to show us a new way. God might just be working in ways beyond our comprehension to welcome a new thing into being. We are called to offer the kind of grace to all people that Joseph showed to Mary and Jesus, regardless of our fear, trusting that God is present in all these things in the transformation of our world through Jesus.

And Joseph’s witness reminds us that even when we do not know where the journey will lead us, God will go with us. Just as Joseph had no clue where he would end up as he welcomed this unexpected news and yet trusted the word of God offered to him by the angel, so we can trust the wondrous word that God offers us today, inviting us to set out on a different pathway, even if we cannot see where it will lead. Even though Joseph was the last to know what that road would look like, he was among the first to step out and follow, trusting that God would go with this holy family and guide them all along the way.

So as we walk these final Advent days, may we deeply trust that God is with us, setting aside our fears of how others might see the steps we take on this journey, welcoming others to join us along the way, and watching for signs of God’s presence on the journey until our greatest hope is fulfilled and all things are made new through Jesus Christ our Lord. Lord, come quickly! Alleluia! Amen.

Zechariah: Waiting in Silence and Hope

November 29, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Luke 1:5-25, 57-66
preached on November 29, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Advent is my favorite season of the church year. In the midst of the most commercialized, over-the-top, schmaltzy season of our broader culture, the church offers us a gift in Advent as we pull back and think about the process of preparation for the things ahead, remember the roots of our celebration of Christmas, and look for ways to embody the unique gift of being the people of God in this way in this time.

During these Advent days, we exist in a different sense of time. We set aside Christmas carols for a few weeks and gather around the new flame of this simple wreath. We step back from the hurried pace of these busy days to wait and watch and pray together. And we offer the world a reminder that we are always preparing for something more than just the next holiday—we are preparing for a new and different way of life that will come in the return of Jesus Christ.

The gospels of Matthew and Luke introduce us to several people who were a part of the first Advent, who were among the first to see this new way of life in its fullness. Matthew gives us the story of Jesus’ earthly father Joseph, and Luke tells us about Zechariah and Elizabeth, two of Jesus’ relatives who had their own son about the same time as Jesus, and then of course Mary, the mother of Jesus. These rich stories of getting ready to welcome Jesus can be helpful guides for us as we journey our way through our own season of preparation. So over this season, we will look at Zechariah, Mary, and Joseph, hoping to learn from their examples of preparation as we live in the different understanding of time in these Advent days.

Zechariah has always been one of my favorite figures in the Advent and Christmas story. He might be one of the lesser-known characters in the run-up to Jesus’ birth, but I think he is one of the most real and honest of them all. Zechariah was a member of the priestly order, and he took this role and work seriously. He lived righteously and blamelessly before God in a day and age when this old order was not exactly known for such things. Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth were “getting on in years,” as our translation puts it gently, and they had no children, a mark of great disgrace in that time.

As Zechariah took up his place in the rotation of priests in the temple, he received the honor of going into the inner sanctuary to offer incense. He had no idea when he went in that everything would be different when he came out. It all began pretty normally—the people were gathered around outside praying, and Zechariah offered the incense—but then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, shattering the normalcy of the moment and offering a startling new word to him. As the crowd stood by waiting outside, Zechariah listened as the angel told him the new things that would be ahead for him and Elizabeth: she would bear a son, to be named John; he would bring them great joy and happiness, then go on to “turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God” and “make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

As exciting and hopeful as this news surely was, Zechariah was wary of becoming too hopeful. After all, he and Elizabeth had been praying and living faithfully for many years, hoping beyond hope that they would have a child, but their prayers had gone unanswered. Now, all of the sudden, how was he to believe all of this? Had he and Elizabeth suddenly gotten younger? What proof could he have that this might actually happen to them? His uncertainty was well-founded, but the angel would have nothing of it. The angel told Zechariah, “Because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.” And so Zechariah emerged from the temple, unable to describe his experience to anyone, longing for a way to make it clear that there was something new ahead for him, left to encounter the days of waiting and transformation in silence.

The months passed, and Elizabeth indeed became pregnant. She was visited by her cousin Mary, who was also expecting her first child in entirely unexpected circumstances. Zechariah remained mute throughout the birth of their son and even until they prepared to circumcise him on the eighth day. Elizabeth had insisted that they name the boy John, as the angel had instructed Zechariah, but the men in the family did not take her seriously since there was no other relative with that name. They were all ready to name the child Zechariah, after his father, until Zechariah wrote to them, “His name is John.”

Only then was Zechariah’s imposed silence ended. His questioning was now over, and he fully acknowledged the incredible gift that God had given them. He then offered an incredible song of praise that formed the basis for our last hymn, finally expressing all the emotions and joys that had been spinning in his head for nine months, giving voice to his praise for the history of faithful people and prophets in the life of Israel, naming God’s call to be a prophet for his son even from this early age, and claiming that his son’s birth was the beginning of a new day for God’s people as

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.

Zechariah’s story and song are incredible gifts for us in this season of Advent as we prepare our hearts and minds to welcome Jesus and live in the different understanding of time that this season offers us. First, his example of patient yet hopeful waiting can set an example for us. In these days when so much seems to be in need of change, in our lives where we long for a new and different way, in our world where so many seem to sit in permanent darkness, we can join Zechariah in his patient, faithful waiting. We can listen carefully to God’s voice inviting us to trust that there is a different way ahead, that the seemingly-endless litany of woe before us will not go on forever, that the dawn from on high will break upon us and God will guide our feet into the way of peace. And we can do the big and little things that we know how to bring about change in our world. We can raise awareness of those places and people in our world who are in great need. We can encourage those in positions of power to act with wisdom and hope for the betterment of all people. And we can change our patterns of life so that we offer as much as we can to make the world more in the image of the kingdom that God is bringing into being even now around us.

But Zechariah’s example can also inspire us to take hope when we hear God speaking. Now we are certainly unlikely to encounter God in the voice and presence of an angel in the way that Zechariah did, but God still speaks among us. God still speaks among us in the gift of the Bible, giving us wisdom and guidance for the living of these days. God still speaks among us in the faithful proclamation of God’s servants, inviting us to live into this new sense of time and join in making way for the new life that comes among us at Christmas. And God still speaks among us in those who walk beside us along life’s journeys, guiding us through difficult days and supporting us as we seek to take new paths together.

And finally, Zechariah’s story and song remind us that we are called to sing our songs of praise to God loud and clear every day. Even when we might still be uncertain, we raise our songs of praise to God, not just for the things that we have seen with our own eyes but also for the promise that lies ahead. Even when we are still waiting, we join our voices with Zechariah’s for the wonder of God’s presence in our midst over so many ages, for the gift of those who call us to prepare the way of the Lord in these uncertain days, and for the gift of God in Jesus Christ, who comes among us to make all things new.

So as we enter these Advent days, may God strengthen us for this time of preparation by the witness of faithful servants like Zechariah, so that we might wait for this great celebration of Christmas with patience and hope, greet the voices of these days with expectation and joyful participation, and raise our songs of praise for all the gifts of God in our midst, even as we prepare our hearts and lives and world to welcome the great return of Christ, who is coming soon to make all things new. Lord, come quickly! Alleluia! Amen.

Making the Story Our Own

December 21, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on Luke 1:26-56
preached on December 21, 2014, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

As some of you know, I am a collector of nativity scenes. Over the past seven or eight years, I’ve managed to assemble a collection that includes a depiction of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus from every continent except Australia and Antarctica. I’m still trying to complete those last two, though I suspect that anything from Antarctica might be nothing more than a puddle of water by the time it gets to me!

The incredible thing about all these nativity scenes is the variety of different ways that they depict the same story. The materials vary based on the things common to that part of the world, and there are cultural differences in dress, look, and even skin color. Even beyond this, though, these different nativities show Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and others with a variety of different expressions and feelings. Sometimes they are shown with great seriousness and piety, other times with a bit of happiness and satisfaction. One setting has nothing more than the name of each character in a simple typeface on a block of wood, and there’s even one where Mary looks so peaceful and prayerful that I think she may be asleep!

All these different depictions of the nativity remind me that this is ultimately the story of God coming into our world, taking human form just like us, coming to us to relate to us as one of us. While Jesus was certainly born into a particular time and place, bearing the cultural, religious, and personal markers of his human identity, all these different depictions of the nativity remind us that we are constantly called to make this story our own.

The pre-birth story that marks our reading this morning is filled with so many wonderful moments that can touch our lives: the visit of the angel Gabriel to Mary, the news that the young virgin Mary will bear a child by the power of the Holy Spirit, the visit of Mary to her relative Elizabeth, the songs offered by Elizabeth and Mary as they sort out what these strange events mean for one another and the world, and the extended conversations between these two very blessed women about the children they are bearing into the world. All these different elements of this story connect to our lives in different ways based on our individual experiences, our cultural backgrounds, the circumstances of our time, and even our varied spiritual experiences. As we sort out what all these things mean for us, all those different nativities might help us a bit, for just as they give us so many different depictions of the same story, so we can remember that we will carry even among us gathered here today many different connections to this story behind the birth of Jesus.

Even with our varied interpretations and connections, there are I think two particularly important elements of this story for us to carry with us in these final days on the journey to Christmas and beyond. The first is the vision of holy friendship that we see in the encounter between Elizabeth and Mary. Our Advent Bible study lifted up this theme beautifully, and so some of you have talked about this with me before, but there is something truly incredible that we see in the encounter between these two pregnant women. Elizabeth and Mary are connected by many things. They both thought that they could not bear children—Mary because she was too young, Elizabeth because she was too old. They both were wandering through the uncertainties of pregnancy in a day and age when the health of mother and child were at far greater risk than today. And they both knew through an encounter with the divine that the child each was bearing would be special and set apart for God’s incredible purposes.

These common experiences brought Elizabeth and Mary together in a bond that only they could understand. In reflecting on this connection, author Enuma Okoro observes, “It is a testament to God’s care and provision that each woman has someone to journey with as she navigates the peculiar seasons in which she finds herself.” (Silence and Other Surprising Invitations of Advent, p. 67) As we reflect on this story and make it our own, we can think about the holy companions that we have on our journeys. Who can open our eyes to a deeper understanding of how God is at work in our lives and our world? What sorts of people are among us—or should we seek to be among us—who can remind us of our blessedness and challenge us to help others to embrace their blessedness? How can we be ready to welcome people into our lives—and into the life we share in this place—to be the kinds of companions that we need to journey with us?

The holy friendship that Mary and Elizabeth shared can take so many different forms in our world. For some, it may come in the relationships of marriage and lifelong commitment. Others may find it in friends who can walk together amidst the many changes of life. Some may find it within their families, with siblings or even between parents and children. And some holy friendships may even last for an extremely short season of life and yet still show the kind of divine presence and holy imagination that emerged so beautifully between Elizabeth and Mary. Whatever form these holy friendships may take, they all can build on the kind of connection that Mary and Elizabeth shared, for just as they found support in one another as they waited to welcome their children into the world, we too can deepen our faith and find new hope as we share our joys and struggles with one another along the way.

Just as holy friendship can open us to one way of making this story our own as we find a new and different way to live together, the great song of Mary that follows in their encounter can show us to a new way of being in the world. Mary offers this great song known as the Magnificat after her initial encounter with Elizabeth, as the impact of their shared joy settles in all the more. Mary’s Magnificat, so named because of its first word in the Latin that was the primary language of the church and Bible for so many years, builds on the tradition of the psalms and canticles of the Old Testament, especially the Song of Hannah, mother of Samuel, to give praise for God’s great works and the promise of justice and righteousness for all creation that is being fulfilled in Mary’s life as she bears Jesus into the world.

But this is more than any old song. Mary’s song here is the song of a mother who realizes that her child will change the world, of a woman who recognizes the deep blessing that has come to her and the world through her because of the child she is bearing, of a person who can see the transformation that God is making real in the world. Mary gives praise to God for the things that she is experiencing and the blessing that she is finding, but she clearly knows that this is ultimately not about her. She continues her song beyond this personal understanding of blessing to give praise to a God who brings favor when the world would never dream of such, shows mercy from generation to generation, scatters the proud from their places of privilege, turns the tables of power upside down, offers a strange but real preference for those who are poor or in need, fills the hungry with good things, and remembers promises of mercy and hope.

Empowered by the gift of holy friendship with one who understands the challenge and blessing of her life, Mary proclaims the greatness of a God who turns the world upside down, and we can echo her words of praise not just in the gift of our next hymn based on her song but also by living our lives in ways that further God’s justice, peace, mercy, and grace in our world. The incarnation of Jesus that we celebrate at Christmas becomes real when we find ways to make this story our own, when we discover how God has not just broken into the world of first-century Palestine but twenty-first century New York City, when God’s presence is not just something that we experience in our hearts but that we see taking root around us in the transformation of our world.

In the holy friendships of our lives that give us space for fear and hope amidst uncertainty, in the joyful songs that challenge us to make God’s work more real in our world, we encounter the one who comes in these days, the one who turns everything upside down in a baby born in the most humble of circumstances who yet reigns over all the earth, the one who makes all things new through death and resurrection to new life. So as we journey these final days toward Christmas, may we find ways to make this story our own, whether it be in nativity scenes that help us to see these characters as people like us, in seeking holy friendships that open us to God’s presence in our lives in new ways, or in the ways we join all that God is doing in our world to live out the joys of Mary’s song. And as we go along this way, may we be ready to welcome the fullness of Christ’s gift into our lives and our world both this Christmas and when he comes in power to finish making all things new. Lord, come quickly! Amen.

John, the Unexpected Advent Guest

December 14, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on John 1:6-8, 19-28
preached on December 14, 2014, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

A week or so ago, I lamented to myself a bit that it seemed like the usual flow of Christmas cards just hadn’t started yet this year. Even with a shorter-than-usual time between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, people—me included!—hadn’t done a particularly great job of getting out their Christmas cards yet. But this week they started coming in, filled with fun pictures of recent events and the quick updates on life and living that come with the now-ubiquitous Christmas letter.

In this era of Facebook and Twitter, with near-immediate reports and photographs from our friends, the Christmas letter sometimes seems like a dying tradition, but there’s still something wonderful in hearing a more complete perspective from those friends who haven’t been in as close touch in recent months for one reason or another, even when it is all written in the strangest third-person perspective ever! One Christmas letter this year, though, stood out to me as I journeyed through this week. One friend, in writing about his three-and-a-half-year-old son, reported a bit of confusion that seems familiar amidst our gospel reading for this week:

Don’t correct him when he brings home a picture of John the Baptist, because he sees God in that picture!

My friend’s son was not the first to get John all mixed up. Most scholars think that there was a sizable group of people in or around the early church who remembered and celebrated John the Baptist and his teaching more than we do today, so the gospel writers and others seemingly felt that it was important to include him in the story somehow. There are by my informal count more clear and direct references to him in the gospels than to Jesus’ own mother!

Yet John is a pretty unexpected guest for this season of Advent. His rugged appearance and harsh message aren’t exactly the best fit for this season when we expect to be talking about peace, joy, and hope. Yet here we are, eleven days before Christmas, faced with a gospel reading about a man who insisted that he was not who people thought he ought to be. In our reading from the gospel according to John today, John the Baptist—no relation to the gospel writer John—puts the major focus on describing who he is not.

John the Baptist clearly was regularly being mistaken for the Messiah, and in everything attributed to him in our tradition he refutes this. Even though he could clearly express who he was not, finding the words to say who he was was a little more difficult for him. When the religious leaders of Jerusalem sent messengers to try to get some answers about John, they engaged him in conversation about who he was. He acknowledged who he was, but that was not enough for them, so he told them directly, “I am not the Messiah.” They thought he might be Elijah, but again he told them that they were mistaken. Finally, when they asked him again who he was, John, like Jesus after him, answered with something of a roundabout answer, quoting scripture to say,

I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’

John the Baptist, then, was the one who called on the people to get ready for the days ahead, to prepare their hearts and minds to receive this one who was coming, to clear the old, tired pathway to make a way for something new. His message of repentance, so prominent in the other gospels, is missing here, so the gospel of John’s message about John the Baptist is perhaps less clear than some of the others. We are told that John baptized the people with water, which raised plenty of questions along the way, but that’s about it.

Yet the author of the gospel summarizes John the Baptist’s work by calling him “a witness to testify to the light” in Jesus Christ, though not the light himself. Throughout it all, John pointed beyond himself to someone greater, to one who was already emerging among them, to one who was far greater than John could ever be, for John was “not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” Yet as my friend’s son so well recognized, there was something beyond special—maybe even strangely divine—about our unexpected Advent guest.

In our day and age, in a season when we are so easily consumed by all the consumption around us, John’s message of preparation easily falls on deaf ears. We are too busy to stop and slow down to prepare the way of the Lord. We are so interested in fixing our own problems and saving ourselves that we neglect to pay attention when others show us a better way. And we are even a bit afraid of anything that emerges from the wilderness, of anything that is different and new, even if it is a voice crying out for justice and righteousness that will transform us and our world.

John is just not the guy we want to shape our preparations for Christmas. He’s a bit like that relative who always shows up for Christmas, even when you don’t want him to. He never quite fits in with anyone and he talks so strangely that he often doesn’t make sense, but you can’t tell him not to come because he’s ultimately part of the family just as much as anyone else. So what do we do with John the Baptist in these days of preparation? How do we deal with this unwanted intruder—I mean unexpected guest!—into the joy of our Advent season?

Rather than throw him out or ignore him, I think we are called to embrace John and his strange ways as we prepare to welcome Jesus in our midst. First, John gives us an important message of preparation. The coming of Jesus at Christmas is something that needs real preparation. Just as we can’t host an incredible Christmas feast without lots of preparation around the house, our hearts and minds need some preparation, too. The cobwebs of our past understandings of salvation and justice need to be cleaned up so that we can welcome our God who comes to us in unexpected ways. The dirt and dust of underused spirituality that pile up in our lives need to be swept away. And the longstanding practices and systems of our lives and our world that perpetuate injustice need to be the focus of our repentance.

Beyond this, John reminds us that this season is not about us or our practices. Ultimately the coming of Jesus at Christmas is not about the words of the greetings that we share in this season, the songs that we sing about Christmas, or what we call the symbols that we have developed ourselves for this season. Just as John insisted that none of this was about him, so we are called to make this season not about us or our favorite practices or the people we want but rather about the birth of a baby to an unwed mother in the midst of a troubled empire who ended up being tortured and killed because he insisted that all lives matter. In his actions of pointing the way to Jesus, John insists that we need to stop pointing to ourselves, our churches or institutions, or our traditions or past understandings. Instead, John tells us that we must always point to Jesus, the one who comes to make all things new.

And John finally reminds us to always be reflecting and testifying to the light that has come and is coming. All that we say and do in our lives should point to the light of Christ. Like John, we are not worthy of even reflecting this light or pointing to this gift, but we are nonetheless given this privilege by the power of this one who comes to transform us and our world.

So whatever we do with our unexpected guest John the Baptist, whether we get him a bit mixed up or try to send him away, whether we claim his message of proclamation for ourselves or seek to put him off for another day, may God help us to heed his call to prepare this new way of the Lord, to get ourselves out of the way of it, and to always bear witness to this new light, so that as we watch and wait for the coming of Christ this Advent and in the days to come, we might join in all that God is doing to make all things new in Jesus Christ our Lord. Lord, come quickly! Amen.