Sermon by Walter G. Edmonds
Damascus United Methodist Churches
Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37
First Sunday of Advent - November 30, 2008
The news Wednesday night from Mumbai, (formerly Bombay), India, has the same ring to the ears, as the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. We see the city of 19 million overwhelmed by the 10 attack sites across this sprawling economic and entertainment capital in the East. Terror reports like the one from the Jewish center where Rabbi Gabriel Holtzberg and his wife were killed, and their two year old child was saved by a co-worker, bring back the stories of the casualties and miracles that still haunt our own country after more than seven years. Having been in India in 1977, even some 30 years later, I am still caught in the web of details that continue to be given, for my heart still cares greatly about these Indian people of great warmth and hospitality. Their loss becomes my loss, our loss, and I want their evil slayers to be captured, if not destroyed.
In many ways the tone of our Old Testament lesson from Isaiah 64 and the Gospel lesson from St. Mark 13, has the same ethos of warring madness. “Oh, that the God of Israel, the Son of Man, would come with fire and earth shattering vindications, and rip open the land and show forth his adversaries his unequaled might.” Then God’s enemies would be laid low, and God’s people would be brought together from every corner of the earth with a protective light and shield around their heads. Then all would know the ultimate power and omnipotence of both the ancient Creator and the ever present abba Father of Jesus Christ. Such apocalyptic dreams and desires were ours after the siege of the United States on September 11, 2001, and we, like India, seemed to think that we might be at the end of the age.
You remember church attendance went to a new high for nearly six months. Members of the community prayed with one another, talked with one another for extended periods. People began their personal litanies of lament, laments being defined as prayers to God for help in time of need, disputations or arguments with God as to why and how God needed to intervene and remedy the situation. People addressed their shortcomings, our nation’s shortcomings, and everyone seemed to be willing to confess what we needed to change and their willingness and earnestness to make the change. As most of us remember, we all seemed to be more in love with God, and more in love with each other. People talked about New Yorkers and their radical shift to awareness of each other, and the breaking down of needless walls erected for nobody knows why. There was a “spirit de corps” that in many ways was not only prevalent in our country, but prevalent across the world, as most all the nations came to the side of the United States to share our grief, loss and suffering. The disaster that shook the heavens and filled the sky with smoke rendered the people of the world more receptive to the entrance of God into their lives.
This is the posture with which we begin Advent. Can we allow the attacks in Mumbai, or the constant reports of financial losses all over the world be the blatant signs of our need to have the Son of Man coming again in power and glory? Can the always forthcoming reports of new cancers in people near and dear, the break-up of relationships in families, the loss of self-esteem and the curse of abusive behavior among adults and children, cause us to beseech God to bring us the purest presence of mercy and grace in our midst once again? Do we choose to live in our own little world where we attempt to prevent any vulnerability or hurt, and when it comes, surprisingly find ourselves reduced to even questioning if there is a God? All these questions beg for Advent. All these observations about natural and human made disasters draw us to one single call from the human spirit, “O God, if you are there, come upon us and deliver us from the alienation we inevitably experience.”
Yes, Advent is born out of our need to know that God is present in our every condition, and that this God will, indeed, intercede into our lives and the life of the world with a dramatic sweep that stops all human crisis, chaos, and pain. Every human being, and therefore every one of us in this designated godly sanctuary, needs to experience an “out of our world” tapping of the Holy Spirit, that rudely or otherwise pulls us out of our routine, Mary, an obedient young maiden finds out that she is going to have child out of wedlock and that he will save her people. Joseph, a trusted carpenter, is told that he must accept the child as his own, and give him a name that signals Messiah. Shepherds are scared out of their wits by an angel who tells them that they are to be the first ones to see the “Savior of the world,” in a town where these lowly shepherds were probably loathed by its citizens. Wandering star gazers spend the better part of a year seeking a child in a different culture and country because they are convinced that he is to act on behalf of the God of all nations and races. Our God, and the God of all people, has been acting this way from the very beginning, from the garden onward, until this very moment. What happened two thousand years ago was the logical, as well as an illogical, intervention into human history by a God who must show his children real love, real grace and real redemption.
And that’s where we are today. This same God has not changed his style over the millions of years of his begotten-ness. We are the ones who have grown immensely by God’s willingness to share literally all creation with us. Some of us have allowed this immense sharing by God to become “ho-hum,” or as is voiced in this season, “hum bug.” But the truth remains. The God of our Lord Jesus Christ has never stopped “throwing open his heavens” in order for us to be retrieved from our alienation, rescued from our sinful separation, and dramatically delivered from our prosaic indifference. God is coming again this Advent and Christmas to restore us to the perfect union He intended for us in our very creation from the beginning. The question remains, “Can we awake from the gray malaise we so easily slip into, and see the signs from New York to Mumbai, Wall Street to Main Street, Tom and Rays to our doorstep,” that all point to our need for an incarnate Savior.
Awake, Jerusalem, awake, Your Savior Is Coming!
