Oh this has been a tremendous task… maybe it was the tension between the good news of the Advent message in the face of so much to the contrary?

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Sermon preached at Zion Episcopal, Washington NC
Sunday December 3rd 2023
The Reverend Alan Neale
“And yet…”

Friends, as we enter into Advent, we enter into a strange time when, in the words of our first hymn, “alleluias” are accompanied by “deep wailing”; and when “moments of deep rapture” are accompanied by “tears”. Today we enjoy the stark white beauty of our white sanctuary, and yet… our hearts anticipate the colors and exuberance of Christmas decorations

So, today is the beginning of the Church’s New Year; we surprise our neighbors, maybe we surprise ourselves, as we bid one another, “Happy New Year”. Today is the first Sunday of Advent, and the next few weeks (leading to Christmas) are days and weeks of quiet attention to the Lord. Naïve though it may sound for this old male priest but we do our best to lay aside the frenetic, the frantic, the fussing days preparing for Christmas and try to nurture for and in ourselves some Advent quiet and piety.

In a brave counter-cultural and counter-personal onslaught, we will do our best (the Lord being our helper, our community of faith being our support) to slow down and wait, wait, wait upon the Lord.

As you know, the Church’s year is packed with different seasons with different emphases – Advent leads to Christmas… to Epiphany… to Lent… to Easter… to Ascension, to Pentecost and to Trinity. Each season carries a special challenge to us walking the path of discipleship; but the challenge of each season actually applies to the whole of the year. Advent reminds us that it is in the very nature of God that He comes to his people, to His world for Advent means Coming.

Psalm 50:3 reads, “Our God comes and will not keep silent”;

and as the Message translation reads with typical verve,
“From the dazzle of Zion,
God blazes into view.
Our God makes his entrance,
he’s not shy in his coming.
Starbursts of fireworks precede him”.

The readings for today are not exactly brimming with joy and happiness, lightness and delight.

The prophet Isaiah is impatient with the Lord as the divine visitation seems delayed; he cries out “Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down” and, meanwhile, “we all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away”. And yet these words of dismay are balanced with this belief, “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay and you are our potter”.

My friends, do you see that despite an honest, realistic assessment of what surrounds him, the prophet holds firm to this core belief, “You are our Father; we are the clay and you are our potter”.

In Mark’s Gospel, there is a recognition of “suffering” to be followed by the most cataclysmic of days as “the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, stars will fall from heaven, and heavenly powers will be shaken”. Not exactly pictures worthy of a happy and carefree announcement, “Happy New Year”. And yet these words of dismay are balanced with this belief, “About that day the Father knows. Keep alert. Keep awake”.

It is profoundly, so very profoundly, significant that the prophet Isaiah and the Evangelist Mark both find comfort in adversity as they remember that their God is as to them a Father; a father not shaped nor expressed in the mode of earthly fathers; but a father shaped and expressed in the relationship of Jesus with his Father. St. Paul tells us that each of us has received (and continues to receive) the Holy Spirit who is poured into our hearts, our deepest beings, and enables us to cry out in love and faith and trust, “Abba, Father”.

And then today’s Psalm, a portion of Psalm 80.

The Book of Psalms (all 150 of them) enable us to encounter people of faith struggling profoundly with what seems constant betrayal by God and others. The promises of God seem all too often delayed and protracted; the promises of our fellows seem all too often tainted with self-interest and lack of commitment.

Yes, there are Psalms that are stirring to the soul but there are many others (like today’s Psalm 80) that speak to the experience of isolation, confusion and fear.

And yet (those powerful two words of Christian experience, applicable to Isaiah and to Mark), and yet today’s Psalm carries a prayer expressed three times within the space of fifteen verses.

Psalm 80, verse 3 and verse 7 and verse 18 “Restore us, O God of Hosts, show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved”.

Or as the magical Message Translation reads, “God, come back! Smile your blessing smile: That will be our salvation”.

RESTORE/RENEW… ENLIGHTEN/SMILE… SAVE/MAKE WHOLE.

Our friend in faith, the Psalmist, urges us to consider not only the realities of our worlds (personal, local, national, global) with all their darkness and stress but also to consider, to contemplate, to be mindful of the great realities of God towards us… It is the Lord’s purpose to restore and renew, to enlighten and smile upon us, to save and make whole.

Today is Advent Sunday and also our Church Annual Meeting. Today we reflect on the Lord’s work in this place in 2023; today we give thanks for opportunities to grow and to serve, today we rejoice that in all our walk and work, the Lord has been with us. And as we reflect, so we pray that (in the words of the Gospel) we will be ready, prepared for the way in which the Lord in 2024 – that we may be renewed and be instruments of renewal, that we will be enlightened and share light with the world, and that we will continue to be saved/made whole and be agents of wholeness.

This Advent, as Church and as Christians I pray that we will expect and experience the Lord to visit us with words and power of renewal, enlightenment and wholeness. Is that your prayer, too?

And yet… Come, Lord Jesus.

AMEN