Christ, the Unexpected

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It’s the first Sunday of the church year, the first Sunday of Advent, and we are kicking it off with some intense, powerful, and even controversial Scripture readings. Up on the wall, we have the words, hope, peace, love and joy. Beautiful words of reflection that carry excitement and promise. When you initially hear the Scripture readings this morning, whose first thought is, “I feel so comforted and this has just got me so excited for Christmas!” Last Sunday we had the crucifixion on Christ the King Sunday, and again this Sunday, we have readings that seem to be doing the opposite of what we might think the feast day proclaims.

So - we’ve gotta ask ourselves: what is Advent? Is it a time of preparation for Christmas? A time to get all our Christmas shopping done, to look at Christmas lights and sip tea and hot chocolate? To coordinate schedules and vacation plans with our family? This past week, everyone on my block was putting up lights and decorations, and Cohen and I decorated our house, too! I have a beautiful advent calendar that my Grandma cross-stitched for me, and my mom hangs chocolates on it for me and I look forward to those little chocolates every day of December! These are all good things and great blessings - decorating with joy and planning gifts for our loved ones, excitedly making holiday plans and enjoying cozy evenings with family and eating my advent chocolate every evening.

Is this what advent is? I don’t know, but what I do know is that while the world is sprinting headfirst toward the 25th, we are being called to pause, to slow down, and our eyes are being drawn elsewhere. While we are longing to peer into the manger, and to sing of hope, peace, love & joy, we are being confronted this morning with the last day, the coming of the Lord, the day of the Lord. Did you know there are four other themes associated with 4 weeks of advent other than hope, peace, love & joy? They’re called the Four Last Things, and they are death, judgement, heaven & hell! A lot less cozy, if you ask me. But once I learned this, the readings from this morning made a lot more sense.

In Isaiah, we heard about the Word and the Law coming out of Zion and Jerusalem, who will judge between the nations. In the Psalm, we heard about the thrones for judgement being set, the thrones of the house of David. In Romans, we heard about the last hour, and in Matthew, the day and the hour, the return of the Son of Man, like a thief in the night. And you, your job is to get ready, to prepare yourself, to stay awake and to make sure you don’t miss it.

What is your reaction when you hear this? Do you feel confident and ready? What things do you think of? Maybe you think of Jesus, divine and powerful King, descending with His flaming sword, ready to judge and to separate the grain from the chaff and to dole out justice where justice is due. Isn’t this often what we hear about and associate with the judgment day? God’s wrath and power and might?

This is true - God’s justice and might will be part of the judgement day. What is your reaction to that? How do you think you’ll hold up under God’s judgement?

During my sermon prep, I was listening to one fellow who said, there are two responses people can have to this. The first response is to run off and start my own little self-justification project. The second response is… well, you’ll find me in the corner sucking my thumb.

I thought this sums it up pretty well. When we hear and think about God’s judgement, we might think God is going to say, “You did pretty good!” Maybe I’m a little nervous I didn’t do everything completely perfectly, I’ve got a little bit of trepidation, but I mostly tried my best, I’m a pretty good person, and I know a lot of people who are way worse than I am.

The second response is complete and utter fear. Terror. I know I haven’t done enough. I hear my thoughts. I know my actions. I’m screwed. The hammer is going to fall on me.

Do either of these sound like you? We’ve all probably experienced both of these thoughts and feelings at some point or another.

When we fear or when we think that we need to get ourselves ready for the last day, it’s no wonder that our inner control freak comes out and we try to predict when this day will be, to scrutinize every world event as a sign that it’s the end, to fear and watch for the mark of the beast, to look for the antichrist, to worry about being “left behind”.

The problem with everything we’ve discussed so far about the judgement day, the day of the Lord, the return of Christ, is that these interpretations have forgotten about the Gospel. These interpretations look at the Judgement Day only through the eyes of the Law.

Is that who we are? Are we a people who live in fear of the Law? In fear of judgement? Are we a people who think that we can make ourselves right before God by means of our own preparation? That we can stand under God’s judgment if we just do enough?

Advent is a time of expectation. And God has got some absolutely fantastic news for us. Our expectations are pretty much always wrong. Which is great, because our expectations suck, and God’s plans are pretty dang marvelous.

People expected their Messiah, their King, to be born in a palace, to a royal family, and instead He was born in a stable and laid in a manger. They expected Him to overthrow the oppressive government, to lead a revolution, and instead He went willingly, submissively, humbly, to His own death on a cross. And today, we still have flawed expectations. We expect God to judge us according to the Law, and in fear, we try to prepare ourselves to stand under His judgement.

But God has shattered our expectations once again. Rather than descending upon us with the law, our Heavenly Father pours out mercy. Pours out forgiveness. Pours out grace.

Children of God, there is no fear in the Judgement Day! There is no fear in death! There is no disconnect between Death, Judgment, Heaven & Hell and Hope, Peace, Love & Joy. There is only hope, and there is only Christ. We do not need to worry about the Last Day, because we are not to know the day or the hour. Not even the angels or Jesus Christ Himself know this day or this hour.

Christ clothes us with Himself. St Paul writes, “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” We “put on” Christ, like clothing, like a blanket. We are clothed with Christ through the waters of baptism. Where we expect Christ to be our judge, coming down on us for everything we’ve done wrong, all the ways we’ve messed up in our lives, every harsh word we’ve spoken out loud or in our mind, every lie we’ve told, the broken desire of our hearts, our pride, our selfishness, Christ looks at us, and what does He see instead? He sees Himself. God wraps us in the Christ blanket.

We are not a people who live in fear of the law. God is not trying to scare us straight so that we get our lives in order and live our lives right so that we will be ready when the judgment day comes and have lived good enough lives to pass the test. Our God is not a God of fear. In Isaiah, we heard, “The mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills, and all the nations shall flow to it.”

Did you catch that? The house of the Lord will be established as the highest of the mountains, above the hills, but the nations shall flow to it. How many rivers do you know of that flow uphill? Never-mind the ones that flow up so high as to be above the highest of the mountains and hills?

God doesn’t drive us through fear. God does the impossible by drawing us, with love and mercy, like a river flowing uphill, flowing against gravity. The House of the Lord, the temple, is embodied in the Messiah, in Christ Jesus, and we are drawn to Him, flowing, by the Holy Spirit working through the Word. On our own, according the natural laws, impossible. But with God, possible, and not just possible, but already done. Complete. Finished on the cross.

So: it is the first Sunday of Advent, and we have hope.

What is hope? We say “hope” to mean, “Oh, I hope it doesn’t rain today!” “I hope I get a raise!” “I hope I can get my sermon done on time for Sunday!” Things that we long for, desirable outcomes, but there is a sense of uncertainty. Hope often is correlated with wishful thinking. Things that would be really great if they came to fruition, but we aren’t really sure.

The biblical understanding of hope is much deeper. Hope contributes to our biblical worldview, to our understanding of faith, and to our confidence in God’s promises. Hope, in the Scriptures, has a connotation of expectation, trust, patience, and confidence. This hope is grounded in God. Hope placed in material things, in money, in ourselves, in our world, is futile. True hope, full hope, is in God.

Our hope is a hope of the future, of Christ’s return, of the complete and ultimate fulfillment of all of God’s promises, but it is also in those promises for today. Christ is coming, yes, but Christ is already here. Christ is here. He is here for you in Word and Sacrament, and you wear Him. He clothes you with Himself.

And as we wear Christ, we are called to walk in His light, and to put aside, to cast off works of darkness. At this time of year, we all struggle with how short the day is. When your alarm clock goes off in the morning and you wake up and it’s still pitch black outside, all of your senses tell you to hit snooze and go back to sleep, because it’s still nighttime. But it is morning, even though it doesn’t look like it.

In the world around us, it still looks dark. But the morning has come. Christ is victorious. The Kingdom of God is now. And we are called to put on the armor of light, to walk not in the darkness but in the daytime. Putting on the armour of light and putting on Christ is God’s gift to us and God’s work on us. Like the river flowing up to the House of the Lord, God draws us, forgives us, and makes us a new creature, a new creation. God washes us of our sinfulness, cleans us, peels away our brokenness, and makes us new. He washes us in the blood of Christ and we are made white, pure.

Through His Word, He draws us to live as forgiven ones. He draws us to walk in the light, to live as people of faith, to depend on God’s grace and mercy, to rejoice and give thanks and to respond to what God has done for us. He draws us to serve our neighbour, to cast off works of darkness like debauchery, licentiousness, drunkenness, sexual immorality, quarreling and jealousy. As God’s people, who are forgiven and loved, we are called to walk in the light of Christ, shining everywhere we go to all the people around us, serving our neighbour, giving of ourselves as Christ gave Himself for us.

During advent, as we long to sprint with the world at full speed to Christmas, as we gaze longingly at the manger, awaiting the arrival of our unexpected King, and as we await His arrival again in the last day, our hope lies with Christ on the cross. In every season, our hope is Christ crucified.

Oh house of Jacob, come let us walk in the light of the Lord! The light of the Lord, which is hope, promise, and assurance, this Advent season and always. Christ, the shatterer of our every expectation and deliverer of everything we never thought possible. 

Jesus Christ, the Unexpected. Amen.

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