This Is My Favorite Time of Year (sarcasm!)

Here are the thoughts for my Advent 1 sermon. The text is Isaiah 2:1-5 and Romans 13:11-14

MAIN IDEA – The holiday, “Christmas” season is a difficult time for me. Part of it is because I have been soured by playing to many music performances and I grew to hate Christmas music. Another part of it is because I have tended to in the past take the aspect and meaning of Advent as a penitential time, and I have had a difficult time getting into the “spirit of the time.” I had a spiritual director who once suggested that a great deal of my difficulty came from my sense that something is indeed missing in this time. There is something missing in my life and in the world. In my life I am missing the fullness of the grace of Jesus Christ and the glory I find with Christ. In the world there is a notable lack of the love and mercy that I find in Christ. So it is hard for me to be happy and upbeat in this time when I realize how much things are missing and needed.

Yet there is a longing and a desiring that is addressed in the scriptures. There is a longing for peace that is promised. There is a return of Christ that is promised. A challenge is embracing that longing and that promise and living them in an anticipatory way in the here and now. Then Advent becomes not only a time of recognizing what is missing but celebrating what is promised. Can I live with this hope and not let the excitement of the world usurp the hope of my faith?

Open my eyes to the real needs of the world and of my life. Let me see the way in which I need to be redeemed. May I see the wounds and the scars of the world even as many try to cover them up, and may I then work to offer the real hope, a promised hope, and a here and now hope of Christ.
Amen

THEOLOGICAL IDEA – Paul often speaks in terms of “already/not yet.” This is a reality of the Christian life that we are already saved but not yet living into our salvation. I am led to think of David Tracy’s reference to such an awareness with his illustration of an analogical imagination. In worship, in specific moments of worship we are already in the presence of God, and yet we understand and realize the way in which we are in a very real way not yet fully living in God’s glory.

Isaiah offers a future hope and Paul calls us to future living. Two very different but very important ways to live. It is a combination of Multmann and a realized eschatology (in a way).

Whenever we are speaking of the here and now we must be aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit. In our actions of love (as Paul calls us to live) we are led and guided and lifted up by the Holy Spirit.