A Messy Christmas

Christmas Eve 2014

Luke 2:1-20

Merry Christmas Bethany Lutheran Church!  May the grace and peace of our Lord and Savior, be with you on this fine evening.

My wife and I received an unusual package in the mail the other day.  We got out the knife, opened up the box, which was stuffed full of ...Diapers!  It was full of diapers.  

For those of you who don’t know, my wife and I are expecting our first child in April, and so up to this point, we’ve been getting all of the fun baby stuff in the mail.  We have our crib.  There are little onesies and stuffed animals that keep showing up at our door.  It’s the kind of stuff that makes you want to be a parent.  

But diapers?  Am I ready for that? The other day, I had this realization that I have never changed a diaper in my life! Whenever a baby needs to be changed, I do what every rational guy does when - I run to the basement.

Of course I tell this to parents and they all just laugh at me. One guy on the council had changed so many diapers in his life that he was showing off how to do it with his eyes closed...literally.  I told this to another friend from church who told me, “You know, the first time I changed a diaper I threw up on my shoes!” Yeah. Real helpful guys! Thanks for the moral support!

I’m quickly learning that there’s a romantic, made for TV, side of being a parent that’s all high-fives and hugs, bike rides and baseball games. But getting that box of diapers woke me up to the day-to-day reality of being a parent.  It was my first glimpse of the messy side of parenthood.

As much as I would like to take the good parts and leave out the bad ones, the truth is, you can’t have one without the other. You can’t be a parent without changing a butt-load of diapers (pun intended). That would be like saying that you want to experience the thrill of skydiving without the fear of falling. It’s a part of the package, and perhaps we shouldn’t want it any other way.

Every year, I get a similar feeling about the story of Jesus’ birth.  We have such a romantic view of Christmas, that we often miss the bigger picture of what it means for the Son of God to be born in a stable.  

Often, the images we see of the nativity show all of the good, and none of the bad. They’ll paint a romantic scene of a still, peaceful night, with two calm and serene looking parents, surrounded by soft, cuddly looking animals, gentle shepherds, and a host of angels.

The birth of Jesus is often described as a “humble” birth, which strikes me as being a gross understatement. I think a more accurate way to describe his birth would be “messy.”

Mary and Joseph are essentially in a barn. And do you know what goes on inside of a barn?  Everything!  It’s messy in there.  It’s a stable for dirty farm animals, not a hospital! There’s no crib for the baby when it’s born.  It’s just a feeding trough for the animals - a manger.  There’s no soft mattress to lie down on, it’s a bed of itchy hay.  And these shepherds that came to be the first witnesses to the birth of the Savior of the World - they are the poorest folks from the very bottom of society.

It’s as if God chose to dive into this world he loved, but couldn’t truly do so without falling into the messiness of life.

This is how the Messiah comes into the world.  Strange isn’t it? But I can’t help but think that there something beautiful going on here - there’s a harmony between the holiness of God and the messy reality of the world.  It’s a message that God is about to do something new - something completely unexpected.  Instead of destroying the world like in the story of Noah and the flood, this time God is going to enter into it - change it from the inside out.

The story of Jesus birth declares that it’s in the messiness of life that we encounter the holiness of God.  It’s absurdly counter-intuitive.  It’s the moment where you get a box of diapers in the mail and realize that this incredible thing that’s happening is going to be intertwined with everything else life has to offer.

It seems that whenever life gets messy, God is in the midst of it. When the world wouldn’t go near the lepers, Jesus was healing them with his touch.  When people walked around the blind beggars, Jesus walked up to them.  Jesus doesn’t even run from the ugliness of the cross.  This God doesn’t avoid the messiness of life - cancer, poverty, war, hunger, death - this God is in the middle of it all.

I’m getting ahead of the story.  Here, in front of us today is the Messiah - a mere baby - lying in a feeding trough for animals.  He’s in a dirty stable, with filthy animals, surrounded by two exhausted parents. And the only people who know about it are the shepherds working the night shift.

Still, I have to believe that this is the most beautiful scene you could imagine. It’s the most precious gift you could receive. And I don’t believe God wanted it any other way.

Merry Christmas Bethany Lutheran Church

and Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Sermon for the 1st Sunday of Advent: December 1, 2013

Sermon for the 1^st Sunday of Advent

December 1, 2013

Matthew 24:36-44

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie Smith 

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

“You do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” What a very strange thing to hear when all around us the “holy countdown” has started! Only 24 shopping days to Christmas; 15 school days until vacation; 14 days to the Bethany Christmas Pageant; 7 days to the Swedish Children’s Choir Concert; and approximately…20 minutes until the next showing of “A Christmas Story” and/or “Home Alone” on cable t.v. And in case you might forget, here in our worship space we have reminders of the countdown as well. Today, the first Sunday of Advent, we have one Advent banner, one Advent candle lit behind the altar, just one verse of “Light One Candle” to sing, and the worship space is once again awash in blue, the color of Advent hope.

Yes, the countdown to Christmas has begun! So what does it mean for us today to be hearing this particular Scripture text, in which Jesus warns believers we cannot know on what day our Lord is coming? True, this is spoken in reference to the second coming of Jesus, not his birth—but does this text mean we should give up on counting down anything at all? How are Christians to wait in hope of the Lord’s coming when we’re told we can never know when it will happen? Jesus seems to be telling us to wait, but not to get too excited. To be ready, but not to stop what we’re doing. To keep watch, but to understand we won’t know anything until it happens.

This kind of waiting-but-not-waiting is even more difficult to accept because of the fact that we really enjoy counting down hours, days, weeks, and months! During Advent we love to open little windows on paper Advent calendars and eat the chocolate, even if it does taste like plastic; Elf on the Shelf moves around the house; we work our way through Advent devotionals and mark days off on our work calendars. One of my favorite new options for counting down the days to Christmas (though it’s out of my budget) is the whiskey advent calendar from “Master of Malt.com”: 24 tiny tastes of whiskey from around the world, hidden behind little paper doors just like those bad chocolates we grew up with! Yes, it’s a little naughty…but it’s also a little nice, and besides, I have it on good authority that Santa prefers whiskey to milk with his cookies, anyway.

But we don’t just count down the days to Christmas. We also love to count how many months until the baby’s due date; how many more payments on the student loans; how many days until Christmas or summer vacation; and how many years to retirement. Some of you can also testify to what it’s like to count how many chemo treatments are left, and the joy that’s felt when you’re finally done. Amen?

Counting down the days, marking time, and anticipating some future event is one small thing that makes living this unpredictable, sometimes unexplainable, seemingly random life a bit easier to manage. So why does Jesus insist we cannot know the day nor the hour of his return? Why paint pictures of people going about their daily business in the field or in the mill, and the Lord’s return taking them by utter surprise, when he knows this will freak us out? How is this helpful, Jesus?

One answer lies in the fact that in Jesus’ time, as now, there were those who made it their career and mission to predict the end of all things. Just in our lifetimes, can you even count how many “end of the world” prophecies have come and gone? From the year 44 (before the Gospels were even written) all the way to December 21, 2012, there have always been predictions of Jesus’ return. But in spite of their anxious countdowns and dire warnings, all have passed without incident. Our apocalyptic hope remains just that: hope.

So it is into this context Jesus speaks these words: “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

Only the Father knows…this a constant reminder to all who seek to discover the holy egg timer that one can never know the mind of God. It is not given to us to know God’s timetable. Whether we’re talking about Jesus’ return and the coming of the kingdom; or the onset of labor, the outcome of a particular cancer treatment, the future of a relationship, or the day and hour of our death, we are like Noah, who knew nothing until the day the rains came and he entered the ark. The one thing we know for sure about Jesus’ coming (and about God’s timing) is that it will be unexpected.

We do not know on what day our Lord is coming. We cannot know what the future holds. But, my friends, this doesn’t mean we stop looking, stop hoping, or simply resign ourselves to apathy and ignorance! Counting down the days, decoding prophecies, making predictions and preparing for disaster is waiting, all right—but it is waiting in fear. Believers, on the other hand, wait in hope. We do not know what tomorrow will bring—but we are watchful and ready. We keep our eyes open for the ways in which Jesus is at the same time here right now, and yet still on his way. And we seek to clear the clutter from our minds so we can stay awake.

Anyone who has ever worked the night shift, sat up with a sick loved one, or chaperoned a youth group lock-in knows some strategies for keeping awake! Amen? But here are a few for us, as Christians who wait in hope for Jesus:

First: Pray. This one may seem obvious! But if we’re honest, we can always use improvement in this area. So during this Advent season, I invite you to come to worship a few minutes early (or stay a few minutes late) and visit the prayer wall at the entrance to the sanctuary. There, you can write your own prayers, as well as read the prayer requests of others. For what do you wait in hope? For what does the world wait? What darkness does Jesus, the light of the world, need to come and banish?

Second: Go about your daily work. Jesus says “Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.” In other words: The proper thing to be doing when Jesus returns is the work to which you were called. Jesus doesn’t want to see you hunkered down, preparing for disaster, holding your breath for the worst case scenario. Live your life; pursue your dreams; be the person God created you to be.

And third: Get an Advent calendar. In fact, if you could find one, it would be great to have a calendar with chocolates for every day of the year! For I can think of no better way to be ready for Jesus’ coming than to celebrate each and every day we are given. Every morning, open the door of your day to see what God has revealed for you there. Eat that piece of chocolate and enjoy the sweet gift that is life! But rather than worrying about counting down, remember who you can count on.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, just as during Advent we can count on Christmas to arrive right on time, bringing again the joy of Jesus’ birth, so we can always count on God to come through for us again. We may not know the specifics, but we can trust that Jesus always shows up: not just on Christmas morning in the manger, but also every Sunday in the bread and the wine; in the reading of the Word; and in our midst, whenever two or three are gathered. And our faith tells us that one day, in his own time, he will come again in glory, just as was promised.

And so, dear people, during Advent and every day, we Christians wait in hope. All earth is hopeful—the savior comes at last. Thanks be to God! Amen.

4th Sunday of Advent: Living Together in Peace

4^th Sunday of Advent 2012

“Living Together in Peace” 

Micah 5:2-5a; Luke 1:39-56

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie Smith

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.  

 Hear again the words of the prophet Micah:

And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth; and he shall be the one of peace.

One Sunday morning about ten years ago, just as my family was heading home after worship at Central Lutheran Church in downtown Minneapolis, my cell phone rang. We had just gotten to the parking lot and were still chatting about lunch options with Robert’s parents, Cindy and Ed, who were visiting from Oklahoma, when that familiar ringtone interrupted the conversation. I knew instantly what it meant—a baby was about to be born.

At that time, my pre-pastoral profession was working as a doula, otherwise known as a labor and childbirth assistant. In this role, I had the great privilege of accompanying pregnant women throughout the entire labor and birth process. However, it should be noted that babies do not come on a predictable schedule. Sometimes they come after you’ve had a good night’s sleep and have all your bags packed. Sometimes they come in the middle of the night. And sometimes…they come two weeks earlier than expected. And so it happened that I would not be enjoying Sunday lunch with my family.

Aside from missing lunch, the problem of the moment was that we had brought two vehicles to church that morning: our family-sized sedan with room for the two car seats and the diaper bag and everything else a family of four might need; and my father-in-law Ed’s pickup. Since not everyone was interested in joining me at the hospital for the joys of childbirth, I was given the keys to the truck.

Ed seemed a bit skeptical about entrusting his beloved Ford F-150 to me, and he was sure to give me a quick lesson in how to drive and park it. And then he said, with much seriousness: “In case there’s any trouble, you’ve got a pistol under the driver’s seat. Do you know how to use it?”

His words took my breath away. The idea that I would need a handgun to attend the birth of a baby had never crossed my mind. I was driving off to the hospital to be with a couple for the most sacred event of their lives! Furthermore, they had enlisted me, a doula, to join them, to help ensure the experience was healthy and peaceful. I knew for a fact that guns had no place in their birth plan. 

But it was no use arguing with Ed. After a few more instructions, I drove off in my father-in-law’s truck, armed and ready to welcome a new life into the world.

Robert gave me permission to tell this story about his dad, who died not long after this took place. We both agreed, however, that in the telling, it’s important to acknowledge that Ed was acting out of a sense of duty to protect his family. He wanted to be sure I was safe. He wanted to be sure his whole family lived secure. 

But this story begs to be told today, as we prepare for the birth of another baby—Jesus, the Prince of Peace—and all around us the world is debating whether we should be armed for the occasion.

In the interest of security, some would like us to be armed for every occasion.

The NRA has called for “armed police officers in every school in this nation” before the kids return to class in January. 

Others have suggested we arm the teachers, or at least the principals.

Here in Illinois, a federal appeals court has just overturned the last state law banning citizens from carrying guns concealed on their bodies. 

And in Michigan, the governor has vetoed a law that would allow concealed weapons even in schools, daycare centers, and churches—but only after intense public pressure in the days following the Sandy Hook massacre.

Please understand: my job as pastor is to preach the Gospel, not politics, and I confess that I don’t know any easy policy answers to the problem of our culture of violence. But as a preacher, I most certainly have a responsibility to preach the truth. Micah chapter 3, which comes just before our reading for today, gives a harsh warning to prophets who would stand and preach “peace” to those who are hungry, when they themselves have enough to eat. And the prophet Jeremiah bemoans: “From prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, ‘Peace, peace’, when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 8:11, 6:14)

And so I cannot stand here, at the end of an Advent season in which our worship and prayer focus has been “Imagine: Peace”, and preach to you “peace” when there is no peace. I cannot, after the deaths of 20 children and 6 teachers, one mother and one disturbed young man, ignore the fact that we have a problem in our country. We are afraid. We have lots of guns. But we have no peace.  

In this morning’s lesson from Micah chapter 5, we heard that “the one of peace” shall come out of Bethlehem, and with his arrival Jerusalem “shall live secure.” Our reading starts with verse 2, but if we step back just one more verse, we learn more about the situation of those who were hearing those prophetic words:

“Now you are walled around with a wall; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike the ruler of Israel upon the cheek.” (Micah 5:1)

This is a description of Jerusalem’s situation around 800 B.C.E, but when I hear these words, I think of how we, today, are walled around with a wall. We live behind a wall of weapons, nearly 90 guns for every 100 American citizens. And yet we are not secure, no matter how many guns we acquire, for we are under siege by our own fear. 

The Israelites had no reason to think tomorrow would be a better day, or that the future would bring anything new. Our predicament seems just as hopeless. Just one week after Sandy Hook, with the funerals nearly done and the news crews withdrawing their attention from Connecticut and on to the next top story, we have every reason to think tomorrow won’t be any better, either. More guns will be purchased. More shootings will happen. More children will die! And we will still be afraid.

But then, into our hopelessness, into our fear, and into our sinful idolatry of guns and might and power over others, comes a tiny baby. He is the one we’ve been waiting for. He’s the ruler the prophet Micah prophesied would come out of Bethlehem: a new kind of king, bringing a new kind of peace. His name is Jesus, and he comes carrying a cross, not a conceal carry permit.  

The Prince of Peace, the one the world’s been waiting for, has finally come! But instead of bringing his army with him, we find him in an animal’s feeding trough. Instead of being encircled by guns and guards, we find him surrounded by a ragtag bunch of farm animals, field workers, and foreigners. By coming near to us in Jesus, a defenseless human baby, God thwarts the plans of those who would attempt to bring peace and security through gunpowder and assault rifles and weapons of mass destruction. God has done a new thing! He “has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:49-53) The day God showed up in a manger, the world was given a new path to peace and security.

No longer do we find our security behind a wall, or in our ever-growing stash of weapons; nor do we find it in power over others. Now, we can beat our “swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks” (Micah 4:3) Micah chapter 4 even says we can “study war no more” because we’re no longer seeking our own defense. Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, who was born of a virgin and laid in a manger; who ultimately died on a cross only to be raised the third day, brings the peace that passes all understanding: Peace between us and the One who created us. 

My fellow Christians, we know this to be true, but we so easily forget. If you listen carefully, though, it’s there—even in our Christmas carols: "Peace on earth, and mercy mild. God and sinners reconciled." (Hark the Herald Angels sing) 

The Christian witness, especially at Christmas, is one the world desperately needs to hear: Guns do not bring peace. Arming ourselves will never make us live secure. The only chance at peace this world has is to live into the gift of peace given through Jesus Christ. Only when we fully receive the gift of being at peace with God will we be at peace with ourselves—and with each other.

My father-in-law, in his attempts to bring security and peace to his family, instead gave birth to more fear. No matter how many guns he bought, he was always afraid.  And the presence of so many weapons only made his family afraid, too. On the day he died, the last phone call we made before starting on the road to Oklahoma was to Robert’s mom. We had to ask her to remove the guns before we brought our toddlers into the house. “Move them all, Mom,” said Robert. “Yes, the one in the coffee table, and the one behind the recliner, and the one in the nightstand. And all the rest.” 

Today, poised as we are on this last day of Advent, with Christmas just hours away, we rejoice that Mary is in labor. God is about to do something new, and we have been invited to the birth! We have an open invitation to the stable tomorrow, to kneel at the manger where the newborn Jesus is laid. Are we going to welcome this new life with a gun under our seat? Will we approach the manger armed, or with open arms, ready to receive the gift of peace God has sent to the world? 

Come now, O Prince of Peace. In your mercy, forgive us, and show us your Way to live together in peace. Amen.

Christmas Eve Sermon: December 24, 2011

Preacher: Pastor Carrie B. Smith

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

This year, there are no fewer than eight nativity scenes in my home.

There’s the large, delicate, painted set we received as a wedding gift from Robert’s grandmother, which we’re always afraid to touch, and there’s the simple wooden one we bought for our kids several years later. We have a Guatemalan nativity, purchased by my mother from a Ten Thousand Villages shop. There’s a really unusual one Robert brought home from Senegal a few years ago—it actually casts a shadow of the nativity on the wall when you light its three candles. And this year, we were excited to put out the olive wood set purchased on my first trip to the Holy Land in August.

And then, there’s the nativity scene we bought at Walgreens.

That one is made of molded plastic, and with the push of a button, the star on top lights up, and while a variety of Christmas carols play in the background, a deep, Paul Harvey-like voice tells the story: “While shepherds watched their flocks that night, an angel came to say…in the city of David a Savior is born this day.”

This Walgreen’s nativity isn’t particularly meaningful to anyone in the family. And yet, as tacky as it is, it finds its way out of the Christmas decorations box and under our tree every year, without fail. One day, if we aren’t careful, it may also find itself on one of my favorite Christmas websites: The Cavalcade of Bad Nativities.

The Cavalcade of Bad Nativities is just what it sounds like: a collection of the most unfortunate representations of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus ever found. Here you can find the holy family made out of marshmallows or fashioned out of chocolate. You can see the stable and manger backlit with neon lights. Mary and Joseph, Jesus and the shepherds, and even the wise men can be found depicted as geese, chickens, bears or yellow rubber ducks.

Why do we do this? What is our fascination with turning the holy story of the birth of Jesus, the Savior of the world, into a Precious Moment or a lawn ornament?

And why do you suppose we decorate our homes with tiny mangers—whether tacky or tasteful? The manger, after all, was no holy object. It was a feeding trough. And when you think of it that way, it seems even funnier to fashion it out of marshmallows, or chocolate, or Lenox china.

The manger was nothing more than an animal feeding trough and a slop bowl. It was literally the last place one would think to look for a baby, much less a king. But Mary and Joseph had to make do with what they had—and what they had was a warm, dry place to stay, some animals to keep them company, and exactly one place to put a newborn baby. And so it was that a manger became a baby’s bed, and thereby a cradle for the Savior of the world.

Simply because there was no room in the inn, this utterly functional, decidedly common object suddenly became a receptacle that held the divine. And perhaps this explains why we love nativity scenes so much!

There’s something about this detail of the story—the fact that God came near to us in the form of a baby, and that baby slept his first night not in a palace, or even a boarding house, but in an animal’s feed dish—that fascinates us. It draws us in! We love to sing “Away in a Manger” and to decorate our homes with tiny nativity scenes because the manger is central to our understanding of the meaning of Christmas.

At Christmas, we gather around the manger to celebrate how common places are made holy by the appearance of God in Christ Jesus. It happened on that first Christmas night in Bethlehem, and it happens every day where and when we least expect it.

Martin Luther once said “the Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid.” Perhaps the Bible is not such an unexpected place to find God! In fact, we’re so accustomed to thinking of the Bible as a “holy book”, that some of us think it’s too holy to pick up and read! But the fact is that the Bible, in itself, is just a book. Whether we read it in print or on our iPhones, Holy Scripture is holy for only one reason: because when we read it, we meet Christ there. The Bible, like the manger, is an object made holy by the presence of Emmanuel, God with us.

“Emmanuel” is one of those words that seems “Christmas-y”, for it is on this night especially that we celebrate “God with us” in the baby Jesus, and in the manger. But it’s also true that each time we gather for communion, we encounter Emmanuel, God with us. Each time we come to the table and receive the bread and wine, we are part of the Christmas miracle, for we meet Jesus there. Here at the table, in these everyday foods, we are fed and forgiven, through the presence of God in Christ Jesus.

But there are other, even less obvious places which are made holy by the presence of God in Jesus Christ.

If the manger was an unlikely place for God to show up in Bethlehem, I would say the layaway counter at Kmart would be on the list of unlikely places to find Jesus today. And yet the story that has captivated my attention all week is the news that anonymous donors have been paying off layaway accounts at Kmart stores.

Kmart is one of the few places that still offer layaway, and it can be a great help to families with small budgets who don’t have the privilege of using credit cards. As I understand it, anonymous donors have been asking especially for accounts that include toys or clothes for children, and are paying off the entire balance.

This is the sort of story news stations love to report at this time of year! But this time, the story goes beyond charity and sentimentality for me. As I see it, the layaway counter is the manger: a common place made holy through an unexpected gift, undeserved grace, and divine love—not
to mention an account that was paid in full! This year, Jesus was also born in Kmart.

On that first Christmas night, God showed up in the commonest of places—a manger—and made it holy through the presence of Jesus, the Savior of the world. And so we gather again on this Christmas night, around the manger wherein Jesus was laid. We light candles. We sing “Silent night, holy night.” And for this one night, even if we haven’t been to church all year, we feel the presence of Emmanuel, God-with-us, deep in our bones. This is the miracle of Christmas. This is what Christmas is all about!

But when we leave this holy place, and when the manger and the shepherds and the wise men are packed away for another year, we can expect that God will continue to show up in unexpected places. For who would have thought to look for a baby in a feeding trough?

A simple manger became a cradle for the Messiah, and in the same way Jesus makes the commonest parts of our lives into holy places. He is with us on the Metra, and in your cubicle. He is at the dentist’s office and at the Jewel-Osco check-out. Jesus is present during that conversation in the car with your teenager. And he is born again today at the Kmart layaway counter.

And so, with the angel and the multitude of the heavenly host, we sing, “Glory to God in the highest heaven!” For unto us is born this day—and every day—a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

Jesus, our Savior is born. God is with us. Merry Christmas!

2nd Sunday of Advent: Instant Christmas?

2nd Sunday of Advent: December 4, 2011

Mark 1:1-8
Preacher: Pastor Carrie B. Smith

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

One day earlier this week, the first week in Advent, I saw a television commercial that caught my attention. As I remember it, it features a family finishing up Thanksgiving dinner. As Grandma and Grandpa are being walked to the door, they comment on the perfection of the turkey and the quality of the stuffing and pie. “Wonderful, as always!” they say, “Happy Thanksgiving!” As the front door shuts behind them, a visibly tired wife turns and leans on the door, no doubt thinking about the work of cleaning up that delicious Thanksgiving feast. But then, she notices that her house has been magically transformed from a Thanksgiving feast into a Christmas paradise! The tree is up and lit, the rooms are decorated, and the husband (in a red and green holiday sweater, of course) sits in front of the roaring fire with two glasses of wine—one for him, one for her. Instant Christmas! And the tagline of the commercial is: “Santa has elves; you have Target.”

On a similar note, just yesterday a Texas friend commented on Facebook that she had received an email coupon from Hallmark, to be used on the “5th and 6th days of Christmas”. According to Hallmark, the 5th and 6th days of Christmas are tomorrow and the day after. Now I know we call this entire time between Halloween and New Year’s the holiday season, but I wasn’t aware that this year we were skipping all the weeks of December! This year, it seems, we’ve already arrived at Christmas—instant Christmas!

Lest you think I am an Advent Grinch, out to steal your Christmas joy, let me assure you: my Christmas tree is up at my house, too. I have lights on my house and holiday CDs playing in my car. What’s more, I’ve already worked my way through a goodly portion of a bottle of my favorite holiday drink (Bailey’s Irish Cream) as well as several packages of Christmas-colored Oreo cookies and an embarrassing number of Starbucks Peppermint Mochas. I love Christmas!

But I also love Advent, and here’s why: Advent prepares me for the joy Christmas brings. The decorating, the planning, the shopping, the baking, the candles on the wreath, the chocolates in the calendar, the singing, the wrapping…and the waiting—are all important parts of being ready. If elves did arrive after our Thanksgiving meal to magically deliver “instant Christmas” to our house, it just wouldn’t be the same! Time for preparation is a gift. Advent is a gift.

What’s more, Advent is a gift we receive nowhere else, except for in church. That’s why, today, things might look a little barren behind the altar. Gone is the vibrant greenery of the Epiphany season. We don’t yet see the baby Jesus or the shepherds or the angel announcing the good news. Red and green light bulbs and placemats and sweaters and Oreos may be populating our homes, but here in Sunday worship, we are welcomed by blue, the color of hope and expectation. The “Instant Christmas” outside is about having it all, and having it now—no waiting period required. Advent, on the other hand, is about expectation and anticipation. And so for these few weeks we sing “Prepare the royal highway, the king of kings is near” rather than “Noel, noel, born is the king of Israel.”

Advent is about expecting Jesus, and that’s why when you leave worship today, you will also see a new image of Mary hanging on Bethany’s art wall. This new painting, part of a series called “The Nativity Project”, is surprising in that it doesn’t show a traditional nativity scene at all. Instead, it portrays Mary cradling a very pregnant belly. It’s not “Away in a manger”, but rather “Come, thou long-expected Jesus, born to set thy people free.” It is hope and expectation. It is Advent, not instant Christmas.

It’s also true that “instant Christmas” isn’t to be found in the Gospel according to Mark. Today’s gospel reading starts off this way: “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” We might expect the next verse to be: “Then the baby Jesus was born in a manger.” But instead, we hear that the beginning of the Good News came long before the stable and the manger. The beginning was even before John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching repentance. The beginning, according to Mark’s Gospel, is just as it was written in the prophet Isaiah, who said: “See, I am sending a messenger ahead of you, to prepare the way. A voice crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight!” In other words, the Good News of Jesus Christ began long ago, when God began preparing the world for the birth of the Messiah.

The incarnation was not instant! God has been preparing the world for Jesus—through the prophets, through the Word, and through the saints of all times and places. Today we especially remember John the baptizer and his important role in preaching repentance. His was the voice crying out in the wilderness that the people could not ignore.

But there were others, too. There was Abraham, and Sarah. There was Noah and Jacob, Rachel and Miriam. God didn’t start working in history on that holy night in Bethlehem. God has been at work throughout history, in all times and places, from creation to Bethlehem to Jerusalem and Golgotha and, ultimately, to the New Jerusalem. Christmas is not the beginning of the story, but it’s also good to remember that it’s not the end of the story, either! Amen!

Just as God has been at work in the world from the beginning of time, and has prepared us for the birth of the Messiah, so also God is always at work in our lives, preparing us for Christ to be born again in our hearts. God prepares us for new things, and this preparation time can be difficult. Darkness before there is light, and there is time in the wilderness before we hear a voice calling us out. When the rest of the world is celebrating Christmas, the Advent journey can be lonely, even when we trust that God is indeed preparing us for a new thing. Advent is a gift—but sometimes it’s a gift we’d rather not receive!

In preparing the world for Jesus, God sent John to preach the need for repentance, and I’m certain that was a gift not all were happy to receive. Indeed, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it seems a bit of a downer to think of the need to repent, to confess sins, and to straighten out our lives. Where is the Christmas joy in that? Where is the magic and the glitter in that message?

And yet repentance and confession are important parts of being prepared to receive Christ. I wonder if you’ve ever noticed that one of our favorite Christmas hymns, “Joy to the World”, actually resides in the Advent section of our hymnal. I suspect it finds its home there largely because of this phrase: “Let every heart prepare him room…”. And indeed, this is a wonderful Advent message, because this could be the call of John the baptizer! Let every heart prepare him room—let every sinner turn back to God—let every person be honest about her shortcomings—let all who are filled with hate make room for love—let all who are empty be filled with God’s grace and forgiveness.

God prepares us for Jesus, making room in our hearts for the Good News, and for the new possibilities that Good News brings. This Advent, consider the ways in which God is at work in your life. How is God preparing you for new things? Where are there paths in your life that need to be straightened out for Jesus to arrive? How can you make room for Christ in your heart or in your home? Above all, what gifts can this Advent season bring, that will prepare you to more fully experience the joy of Christmas?

Let us pray:
We praise and thank you, Creator God, for you have not left us alone. Each year you come to us, Emmanuel, God with us in a manger. Each time you come to us in the broken bread and the cup we share. In time or out of time, you will be revealed, and we shall see you face to face. Prepare our hearts to receive you. Amen.

Advent, Week 1: How Many More Minutes?

First Sunday in Advent:
November 27, 2011
Mark 13:24-37
Preacher: Pastor Carrie B. Smith

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

I can’t wait!
How many more minutes?
I’m bored!
When are we going to get there?

Such were the comments from the backseat of the car when I was a little girl as we drove “over the river and through the woods” to my grandparents’ home in northwest Iowa. It wasn’t a very long drive—two or three hours—but as a child, it seemed like an eternity. It didn’t help that my little brother and the cocker spaniel were also in the backseat, surrounded often by piles of presents and coolers of food. There were always arguments about whose side the dog would sit on, who had more legroom, who got to choose the radio station, and my parents’ favorite: “Mooooom....tell him to stop looking at me!”

Waiting is hard.

Anticipating the arrival at Grandma’s house was agonizing. It seemed we would never get there.

And yet, we always knew we would get there eventually—and we knew the signs that we were getting close.

On the way to my grandma’s house, there were four towns in a row whose names started with the letter “D”, and we became ever more excited as we counted them down: Dow City, Dunlap, Denison, Deloit. And then, after we passed that fourth “D”, we were in the homestretch. Only a little bit of farmland lay between us and our destination! Soon we came to the last three hills: one…two…three…and when we reached the top of the third hill, we could see it lying there below us: Kiron, Iowa, population 300. There was my grandpa’s store, Nelson Hardware! And in the center of town, across from Bethel Lutheran Church, was my grandma’s house. Paradise!
Waiting…is hard.

Today, as we enter the season of Advent, we begin awaiting with joyful anticipation the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, son of God, the Messiah, the one the world had been longing to see. All around us are signs that we’re getting closer: lights on our neighbor’s houses, holiday music on the radio, and of course the Advent wreath here at church with the first candle now lit. At home, you may have an Advent calendar to help you wait. (My favorites are the ones with little chocolates behind each window!) Yes, waiting is hard…but the waiting we do in Advent is made easier and more joyful by these familiar ways of marking time.

And perhaps the more important point is this: The waiting of Advent is joyful because we know, without a doubt, we will get to our destination. We know the baby Jesus will be born, the angels will sing, the shepherds will see the star, and the kings will arrive—and we know exactly when! Christmas is coming exactly four Sundays from now. These four Sundays of Advent remind me of those four towns starting with the letter “D” on the way to my grandmother’s house. Those towns appeared on the map every single time we drove to Grandma’s, and in the same way these four Sundays of Advent are trustworthy landmarks, guiding us on the journey toward Christmas. We wait with joy and confidence for the Christ child to be born again in our hearts! Amen!

But our Gospel text for today speaks of a different kind of waiting. In Mark chapter 13, we experience a vision not of Jesus’ birth, but of his second coming. Jesus describes how everything will be different on that day: the sun and moon will be dark, the stars will be falling from the sky, and the very powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then we will see him: Jesus, the Son of Man, coming in clouds with great power and glory, and his angels gathering the elect from the far reaches of both heaven and earth.

It will be a day of judgment, a day when all things will be set right, a day when everything will finally make sense. It’s a day worth waiting for.

And naturally, the next question is: “When? When will this happen?” The disciples had asked this exact question at the beginning of the chapter. Mark chapter 13 begins like this: “When Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, ‘Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?’”
And Jesus answers by way of painting pictures of wars and rumors of wars; of nations rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom; of famine and persecution, of families torn apart and false messiahs. These are the signs that he is about to come. And then we hear the words we least want to hear: “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
In other words: No one—apart from God—knows when Jesus will come again.

Christmas comes, unfailingly, at the same time every year...but we don't know when Jesus will come again. There’s a reason we hear this particular Gospel text on the first Sunday of Advent—it reminds us that we are also waiting for the second coming of Christ. The disciples were certain it would happen in their lifetime. Countless Christians have watched for signs. TV evangelists comb the newspaper headlines and decode the Bible for a sense of when, exactly, Jesus will come again. But for more than two thousand years, we have been living in Advent. We wait, and we wait, and we wait.

And waiting….is hard.

Indeed, this is a different kind of waiting. There is no wreath with candles to light for the second coming. There is no calendar with little chocolates behind each window (though that would be an impressive amount of chocolate, now wouldn’t it?) Waiting for the second coming…which doesn’t seem to be coming…is a test of faith and endurance and patience.

Jesus doesn’t tell us how to make the wait any easier. But he does tell the disciples to “Keep awake”.

“Beware, keep alert” he said, “for you do not know when the time will come.”

I have a friend who knows what it means to wait—and also what it means to stay awake and alert. She and her husband were married sixteen years ago, the same year I married my husband. But in these sixteen years, while we were having babies and raising our family, Dawn and her husband were waiting. The pregnancies never happened.

And so they chose to adopt, and they threw themselves joyfully and whole-heartedly into the adoption process. Dawn joined an online adoption support community, ministering to others who were waiting. One by one, these families brought their babies home. And still, Dawn and her husband waited.

They waited, and not without a fair amount of discouragement. One country ended their adoption program. A new job forced them to stop the process for awhile. But still, Dawn and her husband stayed awake. They were ready at any moment for their baby to arrive—and kept a room in their home ready for that very purpose. In spite of many discouragements, they waited with hope for the day when that nursery would be filled with life.

And that day came, one month ago. The day before Halloween, they received a phone call that a baby was being born that night, and they had been chosen to be the parents. Sixteen years of waiting, sixteen years of being awake and ready, and it all came down to that one night, when a little baby was born.

His name is Isaac, and this Christmas he will be filling that nursery with sounds of joy for Dawn and her husband.

Waiting...is hard. Keeping alert—and hopeful—in spite of many years of darkness is even harder.

But we have heard the Good News: that even though heaven and earth pass away, the words of Jesus will not pass away. The word of God stands forever! Amen!

The words of Jesus will not pass away, thanks be to God! And so we can stand firm on his word, trusting in the one who said, “Behold, I am coming soon!’ and especially “Lo, I will be with you always, to the end of the age.”

And so we Christians wait in joyful anticipation for Jesus to come again. And while we wait, we keep awake and alert! Like house-sitters, hired to care for the house while the master is away, we go about God’s business in the world until Jesus comes again. We care for God’s children at Head start and the Bethany preschool. We feed God’s family at PADS and at the food pantry. We care for God’s house—not just this house of worship, but all of creation!

Chiefly, we stay awake, waiting in anticipation of the day we know is coming, the day when the master will return and make things right. Like children with noses pressed against icy windows, waiting for the grandparents to arrive, we wait for headlights to round the corner, filling the dark night with light. Like hopeful parents-to-be, we keep a room ready for the day when the long-awaited child will arrive.

This Advent season, may you wait in hope and with joyful anticipation, not only for Christmas, but for Jesus, the light of the world, to come again into our dark world. Amen.