Approaching Advent

From tomorrow I will try and post an image of Advent and a meditation up to Christmas Day.

Here we go again. Three weeks and five days of carol services, carol singing, Christmas parties, school nativities, bible studies, dinners, christingles, concerts, messy churches, toddlers parties, nursing home parties and anything else they might throw at me! Of course, it started weeks if not months ago for some people. I was down the town on Friday – not sensible it being Black Friday, murder was nearly committed in Priory Meadow car park – but I had a meeting with the bank – carols and other Christmas delights were blasting out. Very hard to have a serious meeting about your overdraught with I saw Mummy kissing Santa Claus in the background let me tell you. I said to the girl “you gotta put up with this for another month?” She said, knowing what I do, “I bet you are professional in pretending you are enjoying it!”

Tomorrow, I will be surrounded by Christmas trees and Christmas lights in church and Christmas has started for them. Here we go again. We had our Christmas fair yesterday. Santa was at both, motorists outside were blasting their horns at him as he waved to them as they went down the road.

But the bible passages for Advent Sunday aren’t about Christmas at all.

They are not about babies in mangers, or Bethlehem, or Mary and Joseph and so on.Advent literally means “coming” But God has already come in Jesus, and Christmas and preparing for Christmas is yes, about reminding ourselves that God is come every day on earth, in Hastings, already. Fact. Not something that will happen for the first time three weeks on Friday. Christmas Day is a celebration and a reminder of who God is, love incarnate, and it is right we are reminded.

But this is not primarily what we are looking forward to – Advent is about looking forward to and expecting Jesus to come anew, that God’s reign on earth will come soon in all its glory and all its fullness. Most preachers this Sunday will speak of Bethlehem and Christmas in that way coming and that’s fine but I want us to think about this new thing the bible and faith invites us to expect joyfully. As a picture going round social media says anyway “there are twelve days of Christmas and none of them are in November.”

The first Sunday of Advent offers hope that the reign of God will be experienced in its fullness. These next few weeks offer us an opportunity to do some soul searching, as well as helping us prepare for what is to come. It is a season of expectation; which means that we need to be on the alert.

Jesus warns us against being caught up in the things of this world. Focus your attention on what God is about to do.

Here we go again or daren’t we go?

It is about going with God on a journey and an attitude on that journey. It’s like whether you face these weeks with excitement or whether you would rather go to sleep and wake up on Boxing Day.  

  

We’re told before the Son of Man comes on the clouds, there will be chaos and violence. Even the skies will be darkened and the nations will experience distress. Well, there’s a word for this morning. Many people are reflecting on the news whether it be the spending review or an impending vote on whether we are about to drop bombs on Syria. Many people in the aftermath of Paris the other Friday are frightened about going about in big cities. They shut the whole of Belgium down didn’t they. Many people find facing the future hard because of the signs, chaos and violence aroud them. They despair and reject God because what difference will God make – here we go again with pain in the world, and here the Church goes again with its naff sentimentality about caring. 

Chaos and violence while we celebrate detached from reality? Here we go again for us while the world goes mad? Flipping heck, they might shout at me over coffee saying we thought Advent Sunday was meant to be optimistic?

Well, it is. For here we go again with God who has come and will come to save the world. God came as we will remember as a child into poverty, as a displaced person in a strange place and as a refugee seeking shelter. God will come again into chaos and violence, that’s what the Advent Gospel says, and Jesus says “When you see these things… do what? Do what someone said to me the other day switch off the news and worry because you can’t cope? No, Jesus says, he is coming into terrible times, not when it is nice – so stand up and raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near.”     

What is important to note here is that while this is a reading for Advent, in the context of Jesus’ ministry these words come near the end. He is facing the cross. The days are drawing to a close. Death will lose the battle, for life reigns supreme in the resurrection.

Don’t let the worries of this life keep you from seeing what God is doing. Look for the signs that God is breaking through. That can happen when we are extremely low. I got a phone call on Thursday giving me some information that was not very pleasant to hear. I was pretty fed up.

I had a good shout at God in my prayers. I needed to know I was cared for. I turned on my e-mails, and there was one from the Northumbria Community who pray for all their members through the year and each are sent an e-mail when it is their day. I didn’t know Thursday was my day: Hello Ian, it said. Today you are held in prayer by friends and companions in our community. May the saints and Saviour watch over you and your loved ones. Amen. Someone who shared the news in the phone call said to me don’t lie in bed worrying. I find it hard not to, sometimes, don’t you, when big things happen. I found that simple prayer sent to me transformative. That God’s love comes anew and will come in the pain. Remember God came in Jesus into muck and filth and to very strange people. God comes today through surprise and often when we are needing him most. God will come in his glory again to judge this world and renew it with an overflowing of grace and peace. That’s our belief as Christians, to expect it and work for it.  

             

So what is God saying to us as we begin the Advent journey and as we remember Christmas? As we watch or listen to the news, do we let fear control our decision making or do we trust that God is present in our midst.

When we don’t prepare ourselves properly, fear will take hold. When we aren’t aware of our surroundings and the resources God provides then we put ourselves in a position to be manipulated and used. We shut our hearts and minds to the needs and concerns of others.  We become insular.

But when we’re able to look at the world through the eyes of God we can weather the storms and embrace our calling. So, here we go again, reminding ourselves of how God works, excited about how God might work, and hoping that God has everything under control, that poverty, injustice, terrorism, bombs and anxiety do not have the last word, like my two horrible things this week might have but did not because of that lovely prayer.

The message for Advent 2015 is this: stand up and raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near.

It is about being confident in our message. It is about saying to the terrorist and the unjust this will not have the last word. It is about being the church that actually puts what it says it believes into practice. It is not about retreating when it is tough, it is about reminding ourselves who we are: loved by God, given potential by God, encouraged by God, and who will be blessed by God.

I want to end by quoting from the letter ministers get from time to time from the Secretary of the Conference, which speaks of our attitude as we begin this season:    

“Lifting our sights a little higher is to trace the promise of God’s love which is always just that little bit further ahead of us than we are sometimes willing to acknowledge. Manger, cross, tomb, bread and wine speak to us of a hope that is very much more then optimism or the vague notion that somehow we can make things better if only we try very hard.  Manger, cross, tomb, bread and wine are one in that they mark the location of love, for where God is love is. 

That is both a simple and a hard message to proclaim, but proclaim is all we can do in the face of terror, hatred and disinterest.

‘Christians, where is your hope?’ Do not sisters and brothers lose heart.  We reply, ‘Here’, because Christ Jesus is our hope and in Christ we have deep wells upon which to draw, living and celebrating the story of redemption and salvation. The reminder of St Augustine of Hippo that ‘Only hope makes us Christians’ is a truth we must hold to.

Even if we hate Christmas, and I know a lot of people do because of the pressure society puts on us this season, we need to remember the real message of these weeks, we need to remember the nature of God who comes into the world, who has come and will come again, to bring us back into relationship with him, and bring us his peace. We need to expect great things.

We go forward looking for the signs that God keeps his promises and that the time of his rule is at hand. Whatever the news. Whatever leaves us reeling. However dark our circumstances. Here we go again – in expectation and with joy.