This week's sermon

 

Advent 1, 2023

        Though Advent is a time of deep darkness, Jesus tells us to stay awake and ‘watch’ for the man returning from his journey.

        And in this dark time, the Collect tells us to “cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”

        Waiting is hard for most of us.

        Waiting rooms are nightmares.

        We don’t want to wait—we want to move on.

        But Advent is a month of ‘waiting’ for the Christ-child to come, for Christmas to occur.

        So today we begin to wait and watch.

        It will not be easy.

        We need to rely on each other to wait and watch with us.

        The lesson from Isaiah is truly frightening. God has apparently forsaken his people because of their wrong doing.

        Listen: “But you were angry, and we sinned:

        Because you hid yourself, we transgressed.

        We have become like one who is unclean,

        And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.

        We all fade like a leaf,

        And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

        Pretty bleak, isn’t it.

        But as the collect tells us: ‘now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility.”

        To be born in a strange town, in a stable and to be laid in a manger—doesn’t get much more ‘humble’ than that.

        So, we wait and we watch.

        We must stay awake and be aware.

        We are waiting and watching for Jesus.

        I don’t know about you, but I see the works of Jesus all around me.

        That stuff in the back of the church—the food and clothing—that is the work of Jesus.

        People being kind and loving and generous is the work of Jesus.

        Looking out for our neighbors and for strangers is the work of Jesus.

        Loving others is the work of Jesus.

        So we shall be aware and awake and watching—but we will also do the work of Jesus.

        We shall. We shall. We shall. Amen and Amen.