COME, LORD JESUS! YOUR PEOPLE NEED YOU.
A Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent
Come, Lord. Come, Lord Jesus!
Come, Lord. Come, Lord Jesus!
Come, Lord. Come, Lord Jesus!
Come, Lord Jesus! Your people need you.
Have you seen that end-of-the-world movie called 2012? If you have, Jesus’ words – the ones we just heard – might have new meaning for you. Signs in the sun… distress among nations…the roaring of the sea and the waves. In this movie about how global leaders respond to news of the end of their world, no one else has time to faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming – because they won’t survive.
As you might guess, many, many people in this movie pray. Millions fall on their knees, perhaps saying something like, Come, Lord Jesus! Your people need you….RIGHT NOW! Yet in this movie, only the strong survive. Only those with power, privilege and, of course, money. A handful of others, less than a dozen powerless people, do manage to “make it” on their own. During the movie they become an extended family, people filled with persistence, perseverance and pluck. They force their way into the safe haven created by their leaders, claiming sanctuary to survive in their frightening new world.
These days, it seems, TV reality shows and disaster movies are selling “survivalism.” They reflect, I suspect, what we are thinking and feeling as a nation. In the first decade of the 21 st century, the beginning of a new millennium, we are survivors. The human race has survived terrorist attacks and wars, hurricanes and tsunamis, the worst recession in a generation and countless other woes. Are these the signs of the end of time, the second coming of Christ? Today’s Gospel reading, for the first Sunday of Advent, seems to say so.
In any event, whether we believe in apocalyptic scenarios or not, blogs and businesses that promote survivalism are flourishing. There is at least one online store hawking emergency supplies. They have two best-sellers: pouches that store water for up to five years and blankets that can be used as tents. Survivalists are no longer a handful of hermits or Rambos. Survivalism seems to offer everyone some kind of order and control – things that seem so lost these days in what feels like a chaotic cauldron of natural or man-made disasters.
I don’t know about you, but I like some kind of order and control as much as the next person. And yet I call myself a Christian, someone who tries to let go and let God, someone who seeks to follow Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Maybe that’s why that simple spiritual song from Africa has sunk so deep into my soul since I first sang it ten years ago. Come, Lord Jesus! Our world is out of control. My life has become unmanageable. We, the people of God, need you, O God! Yes, I need you, God – and I need others to survive.
Come, Lord. Come, Lord Jesus!
Come, Lord. Come, Lord Jesus!
Come, Lord. Come, Lord Jesus!
Come, Lord Jesus! Your people need you.
My sisters and brothers in Christ, there is nothing wrong with survival. There is nothing wrong with creating a sustainable world. There is nothing wrong with preparation. That’s what Advent is all about – getting ready. But sometimes, we just aren’t ready. Sometimes, we fail to see that the world, as we know it, actually keeps on coming to an end, over and over again. Sometimes, we just need to admit we are powerless, that we need help, in order to survive.
When John, my priest friend, left the church I attended in Illinois for another, I was bereft. After all, John was the first person to see something in me, the first person to sense that I, too, might be called to be a priest. He was the first person to ask me to speak in church, to share something of my stewardship story. He was the first person to take me along on his visits to homebound members of my church. He was even the guy after whom my first child was named, for heaven’s sake!
And then came the devastating news. John was leaving us…for another church…in Maryland! How could he do that? How could the church let this happen? I wasn’t ready for this! Oh, how it hurt to hear the news and to see him go! The world, as I knew it, had ended! How would I possibly survive? Over time, as I shared my pain and my loss with my friends, as I learned the lessons I needed to learn, as I let go of my need to control someone else’s life, I survived.
Whenever we suffer a large loss, a time when we lose someone or something that has given our lives meaning and value, there is a way in which the world, as we know it, does come to an end. Whether it’s a job change, the end of a friendship, the death of a loved one, a financial struggle, a mid-life crisis, an extended illness… we come to an end-time, a goodbye. We’ve all had those things-will-never-be-the-same experiences that can break our hearts.
And yet there is hope. Our hope and our help is God and is in God. Our hope in God’s help comes from others in our community, others who are willing to share our loss, our grief, our endings. Spiritual guide Joyce Rupp tells us that “for …Christian(s), hello always follows goodbye, in some form, if we allow it. There…can be new life, although it will be different from the life we knew before. The resurrection of Jesus and the promises of God are too strong to have it be any other way" (Praying Our Goodbyes).
Long before Christ’s coming, birth, life, death and resurrection the prophet Jeremiah spoke of God’s promises. “The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” Jeremiah said God would send a Messiah to “execute justice and righteousness in the land." (33:14-15). God, the prophet says, will make all things right and just, no matter how wrong and unjust they may seem at the time. With God’s help, with each other’s help, we can survive. We will survive.
Today, when that first Advent wreath candle was lighted, we heard these words: “We are here because God’s promises to our ancestors came true for us when Jesus was born. God’s promise is kept each Sunday when we worship, because Christ is in our midst.” We say in our Creed we believe God will keep that promise, that Christ will someday come again. But God also promises to come now, when we call – however hard our loss, however big our ending. Jesus, God-with-flesh-on, will come. Christ is in our midst. God is with us.
This is what God promises: We will never be left alone in all the end times and in all the beginning times of our lives. In the midst of our endings and our beginnings, we also have each other! In the meantime, Jesus tells us exactly what to do. “Be on guard. Be alert. Stand up and raise your heads.”
Let’s practice that together, right now, shall we? Here is an Advent practice, an Advent prayer, an Advent survival technique. I invite you to sing and as you are able, to stand – with me and with your neighbor, right now!
(seated) Come, Lord. Come, Lord Jesus!
(standing -“on guard”) Come, Lord. Come, Lord Jesus!
(looking up - “raise your heads”) Come, Lord. Come, Lord Jesus!
(hands up) Come, Lord Jesus! Your people need you.
November 29, 2009
The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg
All Saints’ Episcopal Church
Frederick , MD
For more on the interruptions of life, go to http://fathermom.wordpress.com