Second Sunday in Advent

Richard Davenport December 4, 2022 - 2nd Sunday in Advent Romans 15:4-13 The readings around the end of the church year and the beginning of Advent often overlap to a certain extent. In Advent we reflect on the birth of Christ, God coming to earth in the flesh and everything that will soon mean for our salvation. It is an exciting time. The culmination of all of the prophecies and promises of the Old Testament. Even if the world and even if the faithful believers didn't quite know what Jesus was going to do, we have the benefit of looking back and reading all about it. Still, those who were patiently waiting knew this was going to be a big deal. Jesus was here and somehow salvation would come with him. As Luke's Gospel tells us, even simple shepherds knew enough to know the birth of Christ was something worthy of awe and wonder. The season of Advent asks us to put ourselves in the place of all of those in the Old Testament who looked forward to the fulfillment of God's great promise of a savior. Though God's people waited for thousands of years, they did not wait in vain. God sent his Son at the appointed time, the proper time, to bring salvation to the world. They knew God was bringing his grace into the world in a new and more personal way. Not that forgiveness was absent in the Old Testament, far from it. Here though, God comes to his people directly. Previously, God's forgiveness was almost always mediated through a priest. Now God was dealing with people without the middle man. God himself serving as both the forgiver and the priest who conveys that forgiveness. Life in this world will change forever with the death and resurrection of Christ. God demonstrates his power and majesty in a way never seen before. The faithful who have been waiting for him all this time won't really understand what this is all about until it's all said and done, but now, after the fact, they see how everything God did in the Old Testament was a lead up to what Jesus had just accomplished. Still, for all of the wonder that comes with the arrival of the savior, there's a lot of confusion and bewilderment too. Jesus reigns as king and yet the evidence of his kingdom is sporadic, intermittent. Like watching cars passing you in the fog, the evidence is there, but it is momentary and fleeting. It takes some work to see they were there after they've passed by. So it is with Christ and his kingdom. You could see it if you looked for it. You could see the lives that had been changed, but the evidence wasn't very widespread and certainly hadn't covered all of creation. The expectations were high that Jesus would do many amazing things, and he did. He worked some miracles no prophet before him had ever done. But people expected something more. There were also some general expectations that this wouldn't just be the continuation of God's gracious work, but the completion. Jesus would come in, do what he needed to do, and wrap everything up in a neat bow. When that didn't happen, there was some confusion. The disciples had to chew on this a bit after Jesus ascended and before the Spirit came to make everything clear to them. At that point they understood things were going a bit differently from what they expected. It was still according to God's plan as it had been all along. The goal hadn't changed. They were looking for God to establish his kingdom here, that he would undo all the damage sin had done to mankind and all creation. He would do all of those things. God's plan was always to restore creation, never to take us out of creation. But, that wasn't going to happen and still hasn't happened just yet. So Advent and the eager expectation of the world as it looks to the coming of the savior is an experience we relive today as we continue looking to the arrival of the savior. We live in an age when the savior has come, when the payment for sins has been made, and everlasting life now exists. At the same time, much of what was promised is still unfulfilled. We can look back on the work of Christ and understand it as just the beginning. It was important, even essential, work, but still incomplete. Now some 2000 years has passed and each year we continue looking forward, continue waiting, for the arrival of the savior. We wait for his return. We wait for the fulfillment of all of his promises. We wait for the eternal kingdom of God to be seen around the world and for the unrighteous to be cast out. We wait for the resurrection of all flesh and life everlasting. Though some, such as the Seventh Day Adventists, might argue that all of these things are waiting on us to do something, for us to accomplish some task or feat, they fail to see that God has never operated that way. God does wait for the proper time, but that time has never been dependent on us doing something or other. God doesn't need us to accomplish his work. He never did. Jesus offered his life as a sacrifice entirely on his own and rose from the dead without any help from us. When he ushers in his perfect kingdom, he will do that without us as well. Anything that might need to happen, he will cause to happen in his own good time. It's no different from how the Israelites took possession of the promised land, which happened because God went before them and drove the inhabitants out, not because he needed help. We look ahead to the return of Christ. We look in eager expectation. We look ahead with patience, knowing he will return at the appointed time and nothing we do will change that. It's very freeing to know that God's forgiveness and grace require nothing from you. His grace truly is a free gift. His gracious work continues with the establishment of his kingdom. Also something he does entirely without relying on us. You don't have to make it happen, in fact, you can't make it happen. God will return when the time is right and not a moment before. That's why Jesus continuously warns people to be ready and not be found sleeping. You have no control over his return, so you have to always be prepared, be watching. It could happen at any time. That's very freeing too. You do have to keep watch. You do need to pray for the strength and patience to avoid the temptation to be lazy and forget all about it, but you don't have to make it happen. And if you can't make it happen, then you have to question whether it's even worth bothering at all. You think about all of the things we look forward to when Christ returns. An end to death, sure. An end to sin, not just the eternal consequences of sin but sin itself gone. That means everything that flows out of sin is also cut off. Anger, envy, pride, laziness, callousness, greed, and so on. All sorts of things that go on to bring pain, grief, and sorrow into the world, bring divisions and broken relationships, loneliness and heartache. God is going to bring an end to all of that and he'll do it permanently, and he'll do it without me. If he's going to do it, that means I don't have to. I'm not going to worry about it. I'm going to live my life free from all of those concerns. Sure, they're a bother. Sure, I don't like them. But I can't get rid of them and that's ok because God will deal with them eventually. If God is going to deal with it, then I don't need to. I'll just worry about me and let God take care of everything else. It makes some sense. I mean, why waste your time on something you can't do anyway? And yet, it doesn't feel right. Something seems off here. I really don't have to do anything but sit back and wait? I really don't have to care about anything that's going on unless it directly pertains to me? That doesn't really fit with other stuff we find in Scripture. Aren't we supposed to love God AND love our neighbor? I'm pretty sure God talks about that sort of thing quite a bit. True, God does do exactly that. He doesn't just suggest but commands that we love our neighbor, that we care for our neighbor, that we help and befriend our neighbor in every bodily need. Why do this if it's all just temporary? Why go to the effort if I can't really fix the world, if I can't bring an end to the various sins or even the symptoms of those sins? No matter how much I do, all of that anger, callousness, greed, and all the rest will still be there and people will still suffer from the effects of what those do, so why bother? God is going to take care of it all anyway, right? Yes, God is going to usher in his kingdom and the new creation. Yes, God will purge the world of sin and right all of the wrongs and fix everything that is broken in the world. Yes, God will do this entirely with his own power and if that's all there was to it, then we really wouldn't have much to do at all. But God's kingdom isn't confined to the future. God's kingdom is already spilling over into the world today. When Jesus died and rose again, he planted a flag on foreign soil, he established a beachhead, he built an unassailable fortress in enemy territory. He brought grace and life into a world that knew only sin and death. His kingdom is there wherever he is present bringing his mercy to his people. He is here with his kingdom among us today. He is forgiving you today. He is bringing life to you today. The benefits of his kingdom and the new creation are delivered to you today. You have received that forgiveness. Eternal life is yours. It's a done deal. All done by God and given to you. With that out of the way, we hear St. Paul's statement in Romans to live in harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus, something not possible in a world without God. This we are given to do, not because we bring God's kingdom into the world, but because we bring that kingdom to the people. We who have received God's mercy, who have received life, who have seen what God has in store for the world have been given a special privilege. We have seen the risen Christ as he brings forgiveness to us at his table. When we leave his house, we do not leave his kingdom. Rather, we carry his kingdom with us. As we strive to live in harmony with others, as we care for the needs of others, both physical and spiritual, we open the doors to the kingdom and his blessings and mercy spill out on those we come into contact with. We who have seen the triumph of Christ at his first advent know what to look forward to when he arrives a second time. The savior who will bring perfect harmony, peace, and life when he returns is already sending that restoration and healing on ahead of him now. We, like John the Baptist, announce the coming of the savior. We, like John the Baptist, show people a little of what awaits them. We, like John the Baptist, are limited in what we can do, and our efforts fall far short, but they point to the greater work of Christ and the healing he brings. We have been forgiven. We have been given life. We see the kingdom of God as Christ comes here to be with us. We know what we look forward to. This is not the time for laziness, but for action. This is the time to show a world that knows grief, loss, and death, that a savior has come, that he is coming again, and that he wants them to be a part of his kingdom too.