On Saturday night (12/5) I went to bed with, I thought, the sermon completed for the morrow. At 4am (12/6) I awoke ‘suddenly’ and was moved to write an altogether different sermon. I enjoyed preaching and thinking about this sermon and I think ‘syncopation’ is one way to describe the Advent tensions, maybe the tensions of all healthy mature living?
Below is the audio, and below that the text (not exactly what was preached!).
Sermon Preached at Trinity Church, Newport; Sunday December 6th 2015
The Reverend Alan Neale; ‘Advent Syncopation”
Malachi 3:1 “The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple; the messenger of the Covenant in whom you delight. Behold, He shall come.”
So much do I have Handel’s Messiah in my mind as I hear and read our text, I sometimes am tempted that Malachi copied from Handel rather than Handel from Messiah. Ah, the seductive power of music and repetition.
And speaking of music, I preach today about the glorious allure, the feet-tapping thrill of Advent Syncopation.
“In music” and I quote “syncopation involves a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected which make part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat.”
In this season of Advent, this time of coming and of waiting, we encounter three rhythms crucial to the spiritual life, no less to the life of a disciple of Jesus.
The Rhythm of Preparation. The Rhythm of “Suddenly.” The Rhythm of Assurance.
The Rhythm of Preparation. “The Lord whom you seek, the One for whom you look” – Malachi 3:1. It will come as no surprise to Mrs. Neale that, as far as DIY is concerned, I am not a paragon of preparation. Preparing walls for painting, measurements for shelving, straight lines for picture hanging – this is not my thing. Despite this – when paint peels, shelves fall short and pictures hang uneven… I am still surprised, how quaint but Mrs. Neale is not, how realistic.
But the work of preparation in pastoral and spiritual endeavors, from that I dare not abstain.
Isaiah 40:3 “A voice cries out, ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” A massive road construction ensues, the Big Dig of all Big Digs as valleys are lifted and mountains are leveled.
Matthew 3:1-2 “In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”” Quoting the Isaiah call to prepare, John Baptist urges repentance and reflection.
And John 14:3 “Jesus says, ‘I go and prepare a place for you’”. The mansions for which our souls long are right now in the hands of the Divine Preparer.
All this for you, for me.
And our response? To prepare for the Lord in our lives and the lives of those whom we know, in situations that confound us and faith communities that nourish us. And we prepare best in the Temple, a place of community and worship and prayer; and we prepare best by keeping our covenants with God… in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Rhythm of “Suddenly.” Malachi 3:1 “The Lord will suddenly come to his Temple.” The Advent promise, a year round 12/24/7 promise, is that the Lord will appear and often… “suddenly”.
Though we are prepared, it is suddenly; though it is in the regular round of liturgical/Temple worship, it is suddenly; though it comes in the context of committed/Covenant relationship, it is suddenly.
Towards the end of a long and hard day, the Yorkshire farmer returned home with his favorite work-horse and then… suddenly… the animal collapsed and died. The farmer, stoic and unfazed, commented, “Ee by gum, he’s never that before”. Sadly, too often, our response to divine acts and godly words is, “ee by gum, he’ll never do that again”.
Through kindly offices of Google search and Strong’s Concordance I discovered at least 87 instances of “suddenly” in Holy Scripture. All but a very few are in the context of careful preparation and alert readiness; one exception of course are those ovine caretakers outside Bethlehem… wearied by work, dulled by nightfall these fellows are hardly exemplars of what it is to be “on guard” so flapping wings, angelic voices, riven skies truly come “suddenly”.
But generally in Scripture we read that “divine suddenlies” come in context of alert readiness. Regularly I am subject to “air-puff or ocular tonometry”. You know… the ophthalmologist does her/his best to prepare you for that burst of air; no matter how much I prepare, it still comes… suddenly, but it was good to know. I have rarely, if ever, quoted Jim Bakker (tele-evangelist) but today I quote his wife, Lori. She writes, “In many Biblical examples the ‘suddenlies’ are preceded by a godly person or people seeking the Lord, praying and trusting and waiting. (Despite this period of waiting) it still appears SUDDENLY.”
Our preparation should not blind us to the unexpected, our readiness not constrict our imagination and our waiting not numb us to the supernaturally natural.
The Rhythm of Assurance. Malachi 3:1 “Behold, he shall come. Look, He is on His way.” Increasingly this world, our communities, our personal lives becomes fragile, fickle, delicate, precarious and uncertain. Knowledge once assured, knowledge of security, is assailed. Knowledge once assumed, knowledge of our neighbor, is questioned. But in all this, we are sure, we are confident, we are persuaded “Behold the Lord will come”. 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you…” and this second letter ascribed to Peter is most likely being written in apocalyptic times of persecution.
Over recent years it has been a tremendous joy and privilege to share with couples, battling with infertility, the presence and promise of the Lord. It has been an awesome, almost trembling, honor to say to many of the them, “You will have a child.” Who knows? Maybe the articulation of assurance and the comfort of confidence brings a new serenity for birth to take place; not forgetting prayer, of course.
Over the years Judy Garland, Ethel Merman, Ella Fitzgerald have musically declaimed, “I’ve got rhythm… who can ask for anything more”.
Never asked this before from a pulpit – friends have you got rhythm; the Advent rhythms of preparation, suddenly and assurance?
Once he wrote the melody, George Gershwin presented it to his brother Ira and asked for lyrics Ira found it an unusually hard melody for which to create lyrics and struggled for several weeks.
Our syncopated Advent rhythms may be difficult to articulate but sure to them we can tap feet, click fingers and generally… “get moving”.
AMEN