Monday, December 3, 2012

"What a Way to Begin!!"

On December 2, 2012, I had the opportunity to travel to Bloomfield, where I served for 10 years as the pastor of St. Mark's, and fellowship with the dear people of St. Mark's, bring the message for the First Sunday in Advent, series C, and speak about the exciting things that are happening in the life of the Lutheran Church, ELCA and Nebraska Synod.  Here is the message I brought.



Happy New Year!  That’s what today is, you know.  The first weekend of another liturgical church year cycle during which we recite and relive the cycle of our faith and the mission and ministry of Jesus among us and with us.  The expectation of his birth, his birth, his maturing ministry, his life, death, resurrection and ascension and then the long season of what it means to be His people in mission and ministry now ending with our Lord’s promised return.

But what a way to begin.  With a Happy New Year that, according to the Bible, sounds like the world’s attic is going to collapse into the world’s basement.  It sounds like the coming of a time when everything that has always been counted on as stable and enduring will begin to crack.

What a way to begin, with the sense that humanity is doomed and we cannot save ourselves, as much as we’d love to think we can.

What a way to begin, with Jeremiah who, from the middle of his own “doomsday”, the Babylonian Exile, looks forward to a new day, a day that took almost 600 years to happen, and still 2,700 years later still isn’t complete.

What a way to begin, with our Lord’s own words that point to “doomsday”, the end of times. 

A funny way to begin when the news is rife with the message of “the end” by those who sincerely believe that the Mayan calendar has something to say about it.

In fact, when I took a glanced at the Omaha paper before I left home this morning, it looked like there was a whole section devoted to “doomsday”, to the end of the world, to what it looks like when things are falling apart.   Oh, no, that was the sports section.  

Seriously, though, the “Living Section” has an article about a survival group that trains up around Tekamah.  They are serious.  This group is serious about how to survive a “doomsday” scenario.  The end of times.

What you notice, I hope, is that this doomsday message isn’t new.  It has been around (and gained popularity) every time when what seemed enduring was beginning to crack.  For the early Christians, where they were helpless in the face of persecutions and the political realities of the day, the doomsday message was rife. 

In succeeding generations (right up to our own), there have been unknown futures.  There have been nations perplexed, dismayed, and bewildered.  There have been personal and public disasters, worries that weight us down and paralyze us to inaction.  There have been the end of seasons in life.  There has been sufficient things to agonize us.  Finances.  Politics.  The fiscal cliff.  What our children are doing.  Global warming and an earth polluted. Personal and national security. Disease, paralysis and death.  Losses and failures.  Food safety.  There is no end to things that might agonize us, cause us worry.

Jesus suggests something more pro-active.  Jeremiah suggests hope. 

What Jesus gets, that few of us seem to understand, is that worry diminishes our ability to deal with the future.  Worry is the opposite of Advent.  Advent is about hope and anticipation.  Worry agonizes about the future.  So Jesus says, “Lift up your heads!”  Look with joy and anticipation. 

Jeremiah tells us that God has a new vision.  Not just to recreate the past (or rather what we remember about the past) (which wasn’t all that great to start with and certainly wasn’t want we remember it was).   A new day is surely coming, says Jeremiah.  Salvation is at hand.

If you look a little deeper into Jesus’ words, you’ll see that they are the end of the story.  They are from the days before Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection.  The truth here is this:  We begin at the end of the.

I love reading stories to little kids, Owen, now especially.  It is so fun when they know the end of the story because they have heard the story so many times.  It is so fun when they can deal with the scary parts because they know the end of the story.  Oh, yes, some adults are like that too, needing to read the last chapter before starting the book.  Knowing the ending seems to make the middle parts more bearable.

So “Happy New Year” (Advent) begins at the end of the story.  When things seem to be falling apart around us, when we are tempted to be paralyzed with worry, when we want to give up, we need to know future is open to us in a new way because of the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus.  The end of the story gives hope for today.
In Advent we see the coming of our God in every moment.  We see what has already come that makes us new.           

You see, when we understand that the battle has been won, that we have received everything and that the Holy Spirit of God is continually at work, then we can face the treats, the doomsdays, with the simple trust that God is acting for us. 

When we see that Advent isn’t a one time or once a year piece, a time expected for Jesus to return again, we can look for God entering human history, every day, today.  Every day is New Year.

I wonder if the walk of faith isn’t something like living in the shadows of doomsday, everyday.  Engaging in the struggles of the day, enjoying the moments, joy full or sorrowful, knowing That God has already taken care of it.  I wonder if it isn’t seeing God at work in the unexpected, around a corner, in the middle of the street, or in a back alley.

What a way to begin – at the end.  What a great way to begin, knowing that every day holds within itself the possibility of being a “doomsday.”  In faith, with full confidence in a God who is continually coming, in a God who asks us to look up, we face this day, this new year, this Advent, clinging to the One who loves us, who gives our lives meaning and promises us boldness and confidence because we are baptized.  And, as a wise old pastor once said, the death of baptism is the only death you need ever fear.”

So, what a way to begin!   

Happy New Year!!    

 Amen.

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