Isaiah 2. 1 – 5
Matthew 24. 36 – 44
Fr Alex
I’m always struck by the fact that the First Sunday of Advent falls right in the midst of the great festival of consumerism: Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Of course, as Christians, we know there’s only one Friday that can give us eternal savings: and that’s Good Friday!
But this weekend seems to me to be the epitome of the great separation between Church and society. In the Church, we believe we’re entering a time of prayerful watching and waiting in preparation for the birth of Christ.
For many in our society, however, the spending, and the pressure, and the busyness, continues right up to Christmas. And don’t forget the Boxing Day sales!
I won’t be the first person you’ll have heard in a pulpit lamenting the loss of Advent (and I probably won’t be the last). It’s an Advent tradition for priests to rail against the rampant materialism of the world; and encourage us instead to focus on inward, spiritual things.
But actually I think Advent is a little more complicated than that.
Archbishop William Temple once said that “Christianity is the most avowedly materialistic of all the great religions.” It’s quite an arresting statement, isn’t it.
He didn’t mean materialistic in the Black Friday sense of the word – getting lots of stuff. Rather, that while other religions emphasise the utter transcendence of God – somewhere ‘up there’, above the messy realities of earthly, created life – at the very heart of Christianity is the Incarnation.
God, in Christ, becoming one of us; the Word being made real material flesh, and come down to live among us.
And to express this truth, Christianity has a sacramental system. The Church uses material, created things to reveal spiritual truths – water, oil, fire, ash, incense, our beautiful church buildings… And humble bread and wine become the host to the very presence of Christ.
And our great hope, as Christians, at the end, is not to be taken out of this material world – but rather that creation will be remade as God desires it to be: and as God promises it will be.
Our reading from Isaiah gives us a clue to this. When the kingdom comes, he says, all the peoples and nations will stream to it; they will physically go somewhere to meet with the Lord.
The swords and spears that divided them won’t magically disappear in a puff of smoke; they will be beaten into ploughshares and pruning-hooks. We will need to feed ourselves, in this new kingdom.
And, ultimately, it reveals the reality of God’s promises. This is Isaiah’s vision of the fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham, that through him all the nations of the earth will gain blessing; just as Christmas is the fulfilment of God’s promise that he will not leave his people comfortless.
The tension between the Church and the world this weekend might encourage us to look away from the material world, and to focus inwards.
But in Advent, we’re not preparing for some vague, spiritual thing to happen to us at Christmas; we are celebrating the physical birth of Christ, in the real mess of a real stable, in a real place and time. We’re celebrating the tangible reality of God’s promises.
And we’re praying, as the great carol reminds us, that Christ will be born in us at Christmas; not just in an inward and spiritual way, but that we will really be remade in his image. That when people see us they will be drawn to Christ; that they will see his face in ours.
And so this season of Advent doesn’t take us out of the world. Rather, as we enter prayerfully into this time of watching and waiting, our gaze is drawn more fully into the world. As we look for the signs of this coming kingdom, we see those parts of our lives and our world where those kingdom qualities are in short supply.
We heard what those kingdom qualities are, last week, as we celebrated Christ’s kingship. “A kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.” There are plenty of places where people are longing for those signs of the kingdom to be brought to birth this Christmas.
We watch and wait in Advent not for something that’s far off and far away, and unimaginable; but for something urgent, and here, and with signs that we can see all around us.
As Jesus said in our Gospel this morning, “about the day and hour of the kingdom no one knows … therefore we must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
We watch and we wait so that we can be ready for action when God’s time comes. To discern, through this holy season, what might need to change in our own way of living, if Christ is really to be born within us this Christmas; and for us to be ready when his kingdom comes.
So may this be a fruitful season for you, that you may greet with joy the incarnate Lord at Christmas.
Let us pray.
“O Lord our God, make us watchful and keep us faithful as we await the coming of your Son our Lord; that, when he shall appear, he may not find us sleeping in sin but active in his service and joyful in his praise; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”