(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on December 3, 2017, Advent I)
Something’s Missing
If today you stepped foot inside
any store, or flipped on the television, or tuned in to any radio station,
you’d think Christmas was already here.
But it’s not here in the church.
Not yet.
In the church, it is Advent. Advent is the season of “not yet.” Advent is a little bit like an
appetizer, where you have just enough food to realize that you’re hungry. It’s a little bit like a first date,
where you spend just enough time with someone to realize that you’d like
more. It’s a little bit like a
kick in the womb, where you feel just enough to know that there is much more to
come. In other words, in Advent,
we know just enough to know that is something is missing. We know that there is something
more. And we want it. We watch for it. We wonder about it. We wait for it.
The Story of Us All
I’m excited that this year we
will have an Advent pageant! I’m
even more excited that one of our very own, David K., has written it. It premieres on the third Sunday of
Advent—two Sundays from now. (So
make sure to book your seat soon!)
You’ve probably already seen a
Christmas pageant or two in your life—with shepherds and angels and wise men
and a star and of course Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus. But this pageant will be a little bit
different. This is Advent,
remember. This is the season of
“not yet.”
Before the big event, before the
shepherds and angels and wise men arrive on the scene, there is a lot of
watching and wondering and waiting.
The gospels of Matthew and Luke start their story with the parents of
Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Together
Mary and Joseph must journey through a personal season of Advent, a time of
“not yet.” First they watch as
angels appear and give them an incredible message; next they wonder at the
news, perplexed and pondering the impossible; then they wait for the birth of
the child as all parents must.
But our Advent pageant will take
us back even further than Mary and Joseph. Because according to the gospel of John, the story begins a
lot earlier. “In the beginning was
the Word,” John says. “All things
came into being through him” (John 1:1, 3). For John, the story of Advent is not simply the story of
Mary and Joseph. Advent is the
story of the universe. It is the
story of us all.
First Things First: Life Is Good
Let’s go back to the beginning
ourselves.
From the book of Genesis, chapter 1:
In the beginning when God created
the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered
the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
Then God created the light, and saw
that it was good. And God created
plants, and saw that it was good.
And God created the sun and the moon and the stars, and saw that it was
good. And God created animals, and
saw that it was good. Then God
created humankind in God’s image, and saw everything that God had made, and
indeed, it was very good.[1]
The very first words of our Bible
are gospel. Creation is good
news. All that God has created is
good, very good.
The funny thing is, today, you
are more likely to hear this part of the gospel outside the church than in
it. “Life is good”? That’s now the slogan of outdoor enthusiasts
and festival-going families and flip-flop-wearing folks on their vacation. You’ve seen the shirts, right? Of course, the cynical side of me
wonders if these shirts, which have become the face of American optimism, are
not celebrating comfort and convenience more than they are life itself. I wonder if the people proclaiming
“life is good” are not the same people who can afford to be optimistic, who can
afford to go on vacations or take leisurely hikes—who can, in short, afford to
live the good life.
Even if that’s the case, I think
we people of faith can take a page from the world. Or rather, we can reclaim this page, a page that belongs at
the beginning of our story. And
perhaps we can rediscover what this page really means.
Is “life is good” really just a
slogan of the well-off? Or does it
reach further than the fortunate?
I cannot help but remember the way that a certain homeless and
persecuted Judean celebrated and affirmed life. I remember how when he spoke of God, he did not dream of an
escape to a celestial otherworld: he spoke about life here. He spoke of the serenity of the birds,
the grace of wild flowers, the sun that rises on us all, and the rain that falls
on us; children who dance and play flutes, brothers and bridesmaids, weddings
and feasts. You can almost hear
the echo of creation in this man’s life.
It is good. It is
good. Indeed, it is very good.
Let us never forget: this is the
first word in our gospel. Life is
good.
The One Thing That Is Not Good
And yet, that is not the complete
tale of creation either.
For after God has created
everything and has seen that everything is good, there comes an unexpected
complication. According to the next
chapter of Genesis, when the Lord God saw that the human was alone, the Lord
God said, “It is not good.”
In other words, there is only one
thing in all of creation that is not good, according to Genesis. And it is not so much a thing as it is
an absence. What is not good is
being alone. Separated. Disconnected. The church has developed a heavy and complicated doctrine
that it calls sin. But I wonder if
sin isn’t simply another way of talking about the only thing in creation that
is not good: being alone.
Being alone is more than
loneliness. It is the illusion
that we must make it on our own.
Being alone is expressed in a number of ways: greed, distrust, despair,
fear, violence. These are
attitudes and behaviors that seek the goodness of life not in creation around
us but in the elevation of ourselves through possessions or prominence or
power. So the first humans took
the forbidden fruit, thinking it would give them something they did not
possess. So Cain killed Abel,
thinking this would restore his pride.
So the world became increasingly violent, thinking that power over
others could secure the good life for themselves.
What Hope Do We Have?
But what does any of this have to
do with Advent? Why does the
gospel of John take us all the way back to creation?
Maybe it’s because the story of
creation is the story of all of us.
Deep down, we know that life is good. The warms rays of the sun are good. The gentle kiss of the rain is
good. The pine trees and the holly
bushes are good. The scampering squirrels and jumping juncos are good. The mountains and rivers and oceans are
good.
But we also know that life is not good. Which is to say, we are sometimes alone. Death has deprived us of loved
ones. Disease tugs at some bodies
and pulls them further and further from the world. Conflict cuts off friend from friend and divides families
against themselves. It’s bad. It’s not good.
What hope do we have?
Our hope this Advent season goes
back all the way to creation. Our
hope is in the God who sees and knows when life is not good. And God’s response
is telling.
Here’s how Genesis puts it: “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I
will make him a helper as his partner’” (2:18).
When God saw that life was not
good, God did not make everything around the human somehow better—more
foolproof, more flawless, more gratifying. God gave the human a companion, so that the human would not
face life alone. And that, I
believe, is the appetizer of Advent, the first date, the kick in the womb. From the creation story, we know just
enough to know that there is more to come. We know that whenever we are alone in the world, God does
not stand idly by. Nor does God
respond with an instantaneous fix.
God gives us a simple gift: each other.
An Even Wilder Hope
Whisper it for now, because God
only knows what will happen…but the prophet Isaiah has dared to proclaim an
even wilder hope. First he tells
us what we already expect: that God will give us a companion. But listen to the name Isaiah gives
this companion: Emmanuel (7:14; 8:8).
“God with us.” Could it be? That God would not simply give us a companion, but would
somehow become our companion? And I don’t mean just two thousand
years ago, in the story of Mary and Joseph. I mean now.
Could this be true in our lives?
Emmanuel, “God with us”?
We watch, and we wonder, and we wait.
Prayer
O God our Hope,
We know deep down
That life is good.
But we also feel alone—
And that is not
good.
This Advent,
We watch and wonder and wait
For your response.
Please do not leave us alone.
Amen.
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