Nov 29 2009
Pastor’s notes
We praise God as we start the new cycle of the Christian Year today on the First Sunday of Advent – the season of anticipation and hope. The word “Advent” means “coming” or “arrival”, and the focus of the entire season is the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ in His First Advent, and the anticipation of the return of Christ the King in his Second Advent. Advent is far more than simply marking a 2,000 year old event in history. It is celebrating a truth about God, the revelation of God in Christ whereby all of creation might be reconciled to God. In this double focus on past and future, Advent also symbolizes the spiritual journey of individuals and a congregation, as they affirm that Christ has come, that He is present in the world today, and that He will come again in power. That acknowledgment provides a basis for Kingdom ethics, for holy living arising from a profound sense that we live “between the times” and are called to be faithful stewards of what is entrusted to us as God’s people.
So, as the church celebrates God’s in-breaking into history in the Incarnation, and anticipates a future consummation to that history for which “all creation is groaning awaiting its redemption,” it also confesses its own responsibility as a people commissioned to “love the Lord your God with all your heart” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
In this season we seek a spirit of expectation, of anticipation, of preparation, of longing. There is a yearning for deliverance from the evils of the world, first expressed by Israelite slaves in Egypt as they cried out from their bitter oppression. It is the cry of those who have experienced the tyranny of injustice in a world under the curse of sin, and yet who have hope of deliverance by a God who has heard the cries of oppressed slaves and brought deliverance!
It is that hope, however faint at times, and that God, however distant He sometimes seems, which brings to the world the anticipation of a King who will rule with truth and justice and righteousness over His people and in His creation. It is that hope that once anticipated, and now anticipates anew, the reign of an Anointed One, a Messiah, who will bring peace and justice and righteousness to the world.
Part of the expectation also anticipates a judgment on sin and a calling of the world to accountability before God. We long for God to come and set the world right! Yet, as the prophet Amos warned, the expectation of a coming judgment at the “Day of the Lord” may not be the day of light that we might want, because the penetrating light of God’s judgment on sin will shine just as brightly on God’s people. We must be aware of this in the Advent Season and yet there will be time enough during the rest of the journey through the Christian Year to remember our sins. It begins in Epiphany when we hear about the brotherhood of the Kingdom, and realize our failure to effect it. Then as we move toward and through Lent we realize that the coming of Jesus served more to lay bare our own sin than it did to vindicate our righteousness. And there will be time to shed Peter’s bitter tears as we realize that what started with such possibility and expectation has apparently ended in such failure.
It is only as we experience that full cycle, beginning with unbridled joy in Advent that slowly fades into the realization of what we have done with and to the Christ, that the awful reality of Good Friday can have its full impact. And in that realization we can finally be ready to hear the Good News on Resurrection Sunday! That is the journey that the disciples took. And so there is value in taking the same journey beginning with the anticipation and joy of Advent!
After the service today we will have a Merredin Congregation Meeting and being the 5th Sunday, Margie and I don’t have to rush off somewhere else. And I understand that we are going to have a bring and share congregation lunch after that, so none of us needs to rush off. I said to the Parish Council that we are able to interact more with those in the outlying congregations than with the folk in Merredin because we have time after the service in those places to chat, so today is a valuable time for us. Perhaps we might also think about being innovative to create value in the other times when we meet for worship. In Mukinbudin, we have a cuppa before the service – that’s good. Last Sunday evening in Southern Cross, we didn’t have a service at all. We just talked about life and faith and prayed together. And we began to think about having the service on Tuesday evenings. It’s good, it’s all good because it’s God’s.
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