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Second Sunday of Advent 6 December 2020

Sermon by Revd Caroline Risdon


Let us pray…
 
Loving God we give you thanks for the gift of your word, the grace of the sacrament and the fellowship of your people. Amen.
 
The season of Advent, like no other season in the Church calendar, is one of waiting. Sometimes we overhear children saying 'I can't wait for Christmas.' and we understand that they are caught up in the excitement of waiting.
 
Waiting forms a rhythm in our lives. We are used to it, we wait for the train, for a delivery, for pay day. For all that waiting is such an ordinary part of our lives, we have created a world in which waiting is a negative. This is especially so financially. Our parents and grandparents rarely bought anything without waiting while they saved up the money for the item. We, on the other hand, live in a world where if we need or want something, we can buy it immediately. And we have come to expect that it can be delivered directly to our homes sometimes within a matter of hours.
 
Of course, we are likely to remember 2020 as the year of waiting. We have waited through two lock downs. We have waited while vaccines are developed and trialled. As David, our Reader, said over the summer, this type of waiting is like the experience of being in a hospital waiting room. It is a nervous and anxious time.
 
So our experience of waiting has become skewed- we either feel impatient because it is inconvenient or we feel anxious because it is unknown. Advent gives us an opportunity, and a brief one at that, to re-shape our attitude to waiting. To re-discover that waiting has its own value and dignity.
 
I usually find the extreme commercialisation of Christmas very hard to live with. The unrelenting adverts; the frenetic way in which we buy, buy, buy; the over-eating; the sheer waste. “Commercial Christmas” seems to take on a manic pace of its own. But this year is different. And if we feel that the heart or Spirit of Christmas is gone because we cannot shop or drink or spend excessively, then we have to ask ourselves what we thought we were celebrating?
 
The birth of Christ is defining moment in human history and in the history of the people of God. Mark tells us in his opening sentence what the good news is- that this Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He shares God's nature. In other words, in this baby, we find God. Nestled in the crook of a woman’s arm, God. Fleeing as a refugee, God. Vulnerable and helpless, God. God can no longer be thought of as distant or remote. Emmanuel, God with us.
 
This is what we celebrate at Christmas- that God came to earth to dwell among us and to show us a new way of living. It is the moment which enables us to do what John the Baptist announces, 'repent.' Turn around; turn back from the ways we were living and turn towards the ways God would have us live. 
 
John the Baptist is one of God's agents preparing the way for the Lord to come. He offers a baptism of repentance as a means of "getting ready" for the arrival of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Advent can be our means of “getting ready” for the arrival of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
 
How? I think the word 'waiting' is helpful here for it can have two meanings. We can wait on the Lord in terms of serving God. And we can also wait on the Lord in terms of anticipation. Both are necessary.
 
As Christians, I believe we are called to action. We are to be a community of welcome and support, not only to each other, but to those who are strangers to us. We are to use our voices and our power to advocate for those who are silenced or dominated. We are to be worthy stewards of God's great and good creation in the choices we make each day. This is waiting on God in and through acts of service.
 
But we cannot be heralds of the good news if we do not take time to find God. Prayer and reading the Bible are two of the most vital ways to dwell on God. As I said in the newsletter this week, the act of coming before God in prayer is far more important than the content of your prayers. You may pray in words, or song, or crafting or exercise. You may pray through deep silence, or bible readings, or the words of the ancients.
 
But prayer can only nourish and sustain you if you allow time for God to speak to you. This is waiting on God in the sense of anticipation. We come before God, offer our prayer time, and wait.
 
There is a Biblical text which seems to capture all that I am trying to put across. It comes from the Old Testament, from 2 Chronicles, chapter 15:

“They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, with all their heart and with all their soul. They took an oath to the Lord with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with horns. All Judah rejoiced over the oath; for they had sworn with their whole heart, and had sought him with their whole desire, and he was found by them, and the Lord gave them rest all around.”
 
The God who was always there, finally revealed. The God who was never absent, only that they were unable to perceive him. At last all the disparate pieces click into place and, all at once, God gifts them peace.
 
“They sought him with their whole desire, and he was found by them, and the Lord gave them rest all around.” AMEN.
 
Revd Caroline Risdon, 05/12/2020
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