"LIFT UP YOUR HEADS"

Hear, ye! Hear, ye! Hear, ye!  It is now Advent!   I know some of you think it is still Thanksgiving. Nope.  It's Advent.  The chancel area is your clue.   Thank you to Jan Robitaille and crew, Diane Gelernter, Sharon Kiffe, Susan Thomas, and Dave Neagle, Jack & Binx Harrison, who were here yesterday preparing ye way.  Doesn't it look lovely?

This is what we do during Advent, which is a Latin word which means "coming." During Advent we wait for the coming of Christ. While we wait we prepare, which is an act of faith. Right?  Thank you for being here, which is an act of faith also.

This is different than the way the world prepares for Christmas.  The world prepares by shopping & dropping. There are presents to buy, packages to mail, cards to address, company parties to crash if not the White House, and crowds to survive. Admittedly, this "ready, set, shop approach" is a part of the preparation for Christmas as well.

It is like there are two preparations during this season. First of all, we prepare for the holidays.  We do so by bustling about, buying gifts, backing goodies, trimming trees, tipping a Tom & Jerry or two, making a list and checking it twice. Mirth and merry making.  Have fun.  You deserve it!  This is a joyful season.  See you Wednesday night for our "hanging of the greens."

Second of all, we prepare for the holy day. Which is really first of all. We prepare for the holy day by waiting and watching.  We are in expectation that what happened 2000 years ago in Bethlehem is about to happen again.  It was outrageous then, that the God of all creation would come to us in the vulnerable human form of an infant. 

And so it is absurd now, to think this might happen again.   Yet this is the mood and magic of this season which makes it more than merry making.  It is holy.  We patiently wait, as we prepare for God to enter our lives again.

You see, Advent is our annual wake up call. It's like the disciple who said to his master, "Sir, what can I do to attain God?"  Said the master, "What can you do to make the sun rise?"  "Well, nothing," confessed the confused disciple, who continued, "So, why are you having me do all these spiritual exercises?"   Answered the master, "To make sure you are awake when the sun rises." Advent is our wake up call.  We don't want to sleep through the sunrise.

Typical for the First Sunday of Advent is to hear an apocalyptic reading from one the gospels. In truth, there are not many, which is alright by me, not being a biblical literalist of this doomsday literature, but I believe it does contain the Word of God no less. 

For you see, these "end of time" readings are a way of ringing our bell, to make sure we will be awake when God arrives. So we start the year with one these apocalyptic lessons as a way of grabbing our attention.

We heard Luke this morning, describing the signs in heaven and the foreboding on earth which will prelude the Son of Man's coming.  This for openers, "The sun, the moon and the stars will do strange things, and people will grow faint with fear."  Now I know this doesn't sound very Christmassy, this apocalyptic piece, but it does have its purpose. 

When hearing of the cosmos about to crack, we do lose track of how many shopping days are left until Christmas.   I mean, it does shift our focus.

Before we get to Christmas, before we can have the children come forward as shepherds and angels, and the choir sing of glory to God in the highest, we need some preparation, which includes serious soul searching of what this is all about in addition to the party time. 

At Murfreesboro, Arkansas, there is a diamond field.  I've never been there, but I know some of you have been.  I am told you can go there and hunt for diamonds.   It's a state park, so it's open to the public.   You are free to hunt and peck, and pick up any diamond you can find.  Finder's keepers.

They say those who are most successful at finding the diamonds have a method, which I will share with you just in case any of you go to Murfreesboro some day.   Just remember where you got the tip, so you can tithe your take.

The smart ones sit, and wait and watch, in faithful repose. As the sun moves across the sky, the sun's rays reflect off the face of the exposed diamonds, providing a handsome reward for him or her with such patience.   This is the message of Advent.  Christ will come again for those who wait and watch in faithful preparation.

What is our hint of a glint on the ground?  Again, this is the way Christ will come, according to Luke:

There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth...with men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.  Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

We might find the historical background useful. This passage is a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem.  Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.   Prior to the destruction, in 66 A.D. Halley's Comet appeared over Jerusalem.  Though they did not know it was Halley's Comet in those days. After all, the astronomer Halley, for whom the comet is named, was not born until the 17th century. 

So instead, the biblical people thought it was a sign.  They did not know it was a comet that appeared every 75 years.  They thought it was a supernatural sign, "the shaking of the powers in the heavens," as Luke describes it.

For the ancient people, this kind of cosmic sign predicted impending doom.  It was enough to cause men and women "to faint with fear and foreboding of what is coming on the world."

Josephus, a Jewish historian, wrote that before the fall of Jerusalem a heavenly body that looked like a sword hung overhead for one year.  This was a cataclysmic event, as if the end of time had come. 

The Christians, a hopeful lot in the face of tragedy, after all, our faith was born out of our darkest, sorriest hour, interpreted this to mean, "the Son of Man was coming in a cloud with power and great glory." 

Which you've got to admit, is pretty gutsy to believe.  The Romans are about to erase their holy city, and the followers of Christ say, "Oh, this must be good news.  Surely the Son of man will come and save us now."

But the Son of man did not come.  At least not as expected on a cloud.  And the world did not end, as anticipated.   Though the Holy City was definitely destroyed.  Instead, the faithful found a new way of life.

For expelled from Jerusalem, the Christians, who up until this time had been a small, struggling Jewish movement in a little corner of the world, were forced to go out into the world, with no Temple to which to retreat, wondering what God had in store for them. 

What God had in store was quite amazing.  Instead of dying, they lived.  Instead of diminishing, they grew.  Instead of defeat, they spread, eventually throughout the world, changing, transforming, and helping to build a new world.  If not heaven on earth, it certainly gave them a mission on earth, and a glimpse of the Kingdom to come.

It was not the end of the world.   It was the beginning of a new world.  It was as if, well, it was as if Christ had come again.

This is what Luke says.  When "end of time" type things begin to happen, in other words, when your world looks like it's coming to an end, be it war, pestilence, fire, or your favorite football team lost, don't look down (and here are Luke's most important words in this apocalyptic paragraph), don't look down, look up, get ready, lift up your heads, for your redemption, not your death, but your redemption (i.e., new life) draws near.

This is what the faithful are to do, "lift up your heads ye mighty gates." As one year fades into a new Christian year, if any part of our world appears to be crumbling, we are to look there for new life.  We cannot predict how it's going to come, or what it will look like.  All we can do is be prepared, and celebrate the surprise when it arrives.  For God is not done yet, and Christ will come again.

Then Luke supports this with Jesus' Fig Tree parable. There are other fig tree parables in the gospels.  We would expect Jesus to tell one of them here, for they tend to be end-time type tales, with the fig trees withering or Jesus nuking them. This would fit well here, ending with something like, "When the fig tree drops its leaves, you know the end is near."

But, again, Jesus surprises us.  He says, "When the fig tree leafs out, you will know the summer is near."   Which means when these terrible apocalyptic events occur, fear not, for it is not the end of life, it is the beginning of life. 

When the old life dies, and the old world fades away on us, watch for new life, like the leaves on the fig tree budding out after a long, cold winter.   New fruit will appear, and then the harvest.

We have all been there, terrible, dark winters, without a visible star in the sky, and no idea how we are going to make it.   And suddenly we perceive a light, it kind of creeps up on us, we're not sure when it first appeared, but we perceive it, and, behold, it is getting brighter, and our lives are getting lighter, and much to our surprise we laugh again, and look forward again.

The valley doesn't seem so deep, we know there is a way out, even if it is not yet clear.  What is clear is we have hope.  Don't you know what has happened?  Christ has come again into your life.  Indeed, our God never tires of surprising us and saving us.  It's in God's job description.

This is what Luke is telling us in these few apocalyptic verses.  Of course, he really tells it best at the beginning of his book, when he starts his gospel with a birth story, the child of God born to peasant people inconspicuously in a back- water berg where there was no room for him in the inn.

Luke says, if we want a sign, we already have one.   Look at Christmas.  It's the only sign we need.   It's the sign that God came to be with us, incognito, quietly, lovingly, to redeem us and give us new life.  Yes, Luke believed that one day Christ would come again, at the end, in glory, and establish for all time the Kingdom of God. 

But before that final glory, Luke says, Christ will come to us again as Christ came to Bethlehem, to be with us now and to give us new life in our areas of deepest need.

Luke structures his gospel to say this.  In Luke's gospel Jesus shows up by surprise two times. Both times Jesus comes in a time of fear and foreboding; when you'd least expect him. 

Once at the start of the story, the other at the end of the story, serving as the bookends of Luke's gospel.  In both cases the incident begins with two people walking down the road of life.  And in both cases a desperate time is transformed into a joyful time.

First, there is Mary and Joseph, trekking the sixty miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem, by order of the Caesar to be taxed.  The Caesar wanted more tax money in order to employ more troops in order to further bend the backs of the Hebrew people.  This was terrible news.   The times were tough enough already and everybody knew it would get tougher.  Better to have never been born.

But you know the story.  While people waited for God to act in some horrific way, the Son of man sort of a celestial "Terminator" coming on a humongous, dark cumulonimbus cloud.  God instead sends a baby, out back, where no one would notice.  This is not God coming to end things. This is God coming to begin things, to renew things, coming as new life, "for God so loved the world."

This is the first appearance of Christ in Luke's gospel.

The last appearance begins the same way, told only in Luke, two people walking down the road. Once again it is a time of fear and foreboding.  Jesus has been crucified, and the followers are devastated, their hopes demolished.   It would have been better had they never hoped at all.

They walk a long and winding road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, only to meet a stranger, who tells them they should have expected this, it is this kind of a world. 

In their misery, they do not forget their manners, and as they invite the stranger in and share bread with him, they come to know the presence of Christ.

Their grief gives way to glee.  Through their darkest hour, they come to know Christ in a way they never knew him when they had followed him in life.  Now they know he is not dead, he is risen.  And so are they, transformed to new life, "for God so loved the world."

So -here's the message - when hard things come to pass, the things we fear and the things we hope will never happen, when they happen to you personally, or when there is fear and foreboding in the land, don't look down.  Look up!  "Lift up your heads... (for) the King of kings is drawing near; the Savior of the world is here." 

It begins today, with Advent.  Hear ye! Hear ye!  Hear ye!