ADVENT 1A
December 2, 2007
SCRIPTURES
Matthew 24:36-44 No one is certain of the day or the hour. Pay attention!
ISAIAH SCRIPTURE
-The phrase mountain of the Lord's house is a visual image. Jerusalem and the Temple were on a high hill, or mountain, and could be seen from a distance
-Isaiah’s vision: large! beyond time, transforming. A great vision is one that transforms. Lindy
-It is speaking about what will happen at the end of history—in other words, it is eschatological. It is not as a possibility within history.
-It is a beautiful vision; but, be it noted, peace rests in no human program, but in obedience to the divine law" (J. Bright in Peake's Commentary on the Bible)
-notice that the image is not just of peace, but of turning weapons into tools, tools that help growth and creation and life. Non-war, Non-fighting is not enough. Proactive, pro-creative is where God calls us.
-This passage also occurs in Isaiah's contemporary prophet Micah where an additional verse spells out the resulting domestic tranquility: each nation will sit under its own vine and own fig tree, and no one will intimidate them (Mic 4:4).
-Warring needs distance and God has come to gather the peoples together to prevent the absolute necessity of relating with others at “arms” length. Larry Gillick S.J.
-An invitation to look at life, upside down, & inside out. "O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!" An invitation to open ourselves to a whole new reality--the reality of God's soverignty, God's purposes for his creation and his people. An invitation to wait on God to bring this reality about, to wait for God's justice and not seek our own "justice", to wait on God's peace not our own vision of peace. Each and every Advent the prophets call us to wait upon God, but each and every year we seem too have too much on our own agenda to wait on God's reality Desperate Preachers
-Explanations
In latter days….. some undefined time in the future: (In the end of days) final age
The house of the Lord….temple in Jerusalem, Zion
Come let us go up …Pilgrimage of people to mountain; Ps 122; non Israelites
Instruction …Torah May teach us his ways….God may teach them His way
He shall judge between the nations: God will judge….law will prevail
Swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks. Agriculture symbol of conflict
Come let us walk in the light of the Lord. A call for response.
- It is tempting for us, in an era of conflict…to simply write off such an announcement as this one, either as unrealistic or as applicable only to an era beyond history.
-Hope of future is hidden in the present. E. Dickenson
-What did Thanksgiving Pilgrims have in common with Isaiah’s pilgrims? Lindy
-"The nations" destroy the weapons of war--not God--.
MATTHEW SCRIPTURE
- Jesus interrupts our routines and says to us, "Keep awake. You have no idea when your Lord is coming." This seems to be his way of reminding us that life is far too precious to allow us to put up with business as usual. Even good-sounding legislation and sensible justice are not enough. Just ask the mothers of young children caught in the crossfire of gun battles on the streets of the nation’s capital. There is a more godly way of life available. Take Isaiah’s words to heart. Yearn for real peace. Wake up, for goodness’ sake, lest you squander your days on the wrong things. Peter W. Marty
-It is this incapacity to attend to the important things in life that brings urgency to Advent. Peter W. Marty
-History belongs to God, and it will surely unfold as God sees fit. What then, is our role?
- Some people think Advent is a time of quiet waiting. It should be a time of active searching! Searching for the spark of Jesus in others, repairing and polishing our own armor of light, and looking for hope when people say there isn’t any. Rev. Ben E.Helmer
-We have a suggestion here of how universal that end will be—it will affect everyone, believer and non-believer alike.
- Living between the ages, we should be prepared at all time for end of present age.
-This passage is from Matthew's version of the so-called synoptic apocalypse (Matt 24; Mark 13; Luke 21).
-Son of Man was the name that Jesus used for the coming Messiah. Safiyah Fosua
-Live in the present with an eye toward the future.
-sermon A. celebrate Christmas as something that happen in past (Bethlehem, etc.)
B. celebrate Christmas as something that happens in the present (birth, gifts, etc.)
C. celebrate Christmas as something that happens in the future. (new birth, pilgrimage, new world, etc.) Lindy
QUOTES (see below for a general list of Advent quotes)
-To jaw jaw is always better than to war war. Winston Churchill
- Hold on to that which already has hold of you! Lindy
-Climb Every Mountain Song from Sound of Music Isaiah would say climb ONE mountain...the mountain of God
- Hopeless, hopeful, hoping. Everything that is done is done by the hopeful.
-Part of the discipline of our faith is to learn how to wait without falling asleep and to learn to live as if the fullness of time has already arrived, even though it will not come in our lifetime. De Jong
-We look for permanent joys in wrong places.
- What we call beginning is often the end and to make it an end is to make it a beginning. The end is where we start from. T.S. Eliot.
-We stand between our vision and our tasks. Phillip Brooks
-Look past the fly specs on the window!. Lindy
- "I sometimes feel as if I've been sent for, but I just can't get there." . George Harris
HUMOR
-We never lose God. Even after we die the shell is there but the nut returns to God. Bombeck
-Old man playing baseball. Hit ball as hard as he could. Ran as fast as he could. When he finally reached 2nd base his breath was back on 1st and his heart was on third.
- Ready, get set, WAIT!
-With out Advent we are like the little dog chewing up his destination ticket.
CHILDREN
1. How can one be ready for a surprise!? Surprise in Bethlehem. Surprised by gifts we receive at Christmas. Surprised at God's grace coming into our lives. Give other examples or ask children for examples. Be ready for divine surprises... for Jesus coming into your life, for unexpected blessing from God, etc.
2. Using Boy Scout and or Girl Scout emblems talk about "Be prepared" which is their mottos. Then talk about Advent.
3.Oh, the
Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss.
The Waiting Place...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come,
or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or No....
ILLUSTRATIONS
1. The most powerful icon of Advent may be a pregnant woman:
a. We struggle
b. We grow beyond our normal bonds
c. We give birth
d. Are "taken over"...not in charge
e. Although we are the host, we did not create
f. We surrender, accept the event fully, embrace it, let it start
2 There is a story of a wise old Rabbi who instructed his students by asking questions. He asked, "How can a person tell when the darkness ends and the day begins?" After thinking for a moment, one student replied, "It is when there is enough light to see an animal in the distance and be able to tell if it is a sheep or a goat." Another student ventured, "It is when there is enough light to see a tree, and tell if it is a fig or an oak tree." The old Rabbi gently said, "No. It is when you can look into a man's face and recognize him as your brother. For if you cannot recognize in another's face the face of your brother, the darkness has not yet begun to lift, and the light has not yet come." Dennis Bratcher
3. On September 9, 1997, a gigantic crane cut through all of the red tape encircling Judiciary Square and lowered a four-ton sculpture to its permanent cement base. What made this particular installation remarkable was the biblical symbolism of the sculpture’s design. Titled "Guns into Plowshares," this 16-foot-high steel plow blade consists of 3,000 handguns welded together to form the distinctive shape of the well-known farm implement. Artist Esther Augsburger and her son worked for two and a half years with the Metro Police Department. They molded handguns that had been surrendered by local residents. This simple plow announces a prophetic hope: the longstanding hope for the day when God will get God’s way . Marty
4..A fable is told about three apprentice devils who were talking with Satan about their plans to destroy all of humanity. The first apprentice suggested telling people there was no God. Satan rejected that suggestion. The second apprentice suggested they tell people that sin and evil are okay, but Satan rejected this suggestion too Finally, the third apprentice said, "Let us destroy all of humanity by telling them there is no hurry!" The fable concludes that Satan loved that suggestion because he knew that people would believe there was no hurry.
PRAYERS
1.Oh God, You have given us the vision to see beyond our time to beyond life that we might accomplish great purposes that out-live us. And, You have given us vision to see beyond the physical to the spiritual that we might not be driven by our possessions but instead by great principle. We give thanks for the gift of vision. May we not become blinded by our smaller visions but hold on to the larger visions that can transform us and therefore transform the world around us. . Amen Lindy
2. Like the Pilgrims of old we are not quite sure where we are going or where we will end up nor do we know exactly what it will be like when we get there. It seems like series of departures...where we are always on the way (to Your kingdom) but never quite reach that point where we can say, "I have arrived". Yet, we know, O God, that You are leading us to a new homeland..... Oh God we pray that we will have a Pilgrim-like spirit on our journey.
May we have a Pilgrim-like vision ... a vision that sees beyond this world to Your world. a vision that motivates us, inspire us and is large enough to transform us. May we have a perspective-shift that takes us away from ourselves, away from our world towards You and towards your kingdom. May we carry a pilgrim-like vision on our journey.
May we have a pilgrim-like faith that sustains us through the difficulties times a faith that enables us to hold on to that larger vision and not revert back to the lesser visions that surround us. May we have a sustaining faith and trust in You that enables us to take blind leaps... to grab on to You when the way is unclear, unknown or uncertain. May our faith grow as we worship together and share each other's faith. O God may a pilgrim-like faith sustain us on our journey.
May we have Pilgrim-like gratitude ....thankful for Your many blessings we encounter along the way. For the bounty of the earth; for the people around us; For your grace: Your unending love and forgiveness; .. and especially for Your presence within us. O God, as we continue on our journey of faith, may we never lose sight of our many blessings.
And now, As we say, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done" let us not forget that this journey of faith which we take is not a journey TO YOU but a journey where You are WITH US just like you were with the Pilgrims of old on their journey . For that, we are eternally grateful and we pray for a pilgrim-like spirit as we continue our own personal journey of faith. Lindy.
ADVENT
-words: “coming”, in between, remember, repent, rehearse , turn, as if, waiting, watching, expecting.
Anticipation, “To come to” , alertness, attentiveness, readiness, patience, receptivity,
-Advent is preparing for the long view. Not a time to prepare for Christmas.
-At Advent we should remember that we straddle a paradox. As Christians we live between the already and the not-yet, DeJong
-Expectations are not wrong...it's where we look for them that's wrong.
-Is God really absent, or does God appear so because we are looking for the wrong God? Paul Nuechterlein & Friends
-"Oh come, O come, Emmanuel"
-illustration: church calendar does not portray a circle that has no beginning or end but portrays a spiral...a propeller moving forward through time or like the threads on a screw with each rotation pulling us along toward our final goal. That goal is the kingship of Christ.
-before the good news comes the bad news Buechner
-Thou wouldst not seek me if thou had not already found me. Pascal
-The secret of waiting is the faith that the seed has been planted, that something has begun. Nouwen.
-To have found God is not an end but is itself a beginning. Franz Rosenzweif.
-We prepare for what already is.
- Is it a game of pretending the past is future? …We find ourselves remembering tomorrow and looking forward to yesterday.
-We are preparing for what already is.
-“Back to the future”
-“The end of the world AGAIN?”
-“ Ready or not here I come”
-“ Wake up call”
-"In the meantime"
-In between times
-Great Expectations
-A wake up call
-"waiter", " wait-ress" , "waiting room". (a time of waiting)
-Advent and "adventure" have a common derivation.
-"here I come ready or not" (hide and seek)
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