“Stand Up And Raise Your Heads!”

Southern Ring Nebula (NIRCam Image) – Webb Telescope

December 1, 2024: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen.

Welcome back from the great Thanksgiving feast-a-thon! I hope yours was as wonderful as mine was – filled with good food, good friends, and a rainy parade.

In the gospel (cheery again, right) Jesus says “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars…People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world…Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because it’s December at the malls!”

Okay, maybe not what Jesus was talking about in the gospel passage from Luke today, but if you have ever been in those crowds, it can seem like the world is coming to an end, right?

Now, I know the stores are already in Christmas, but we are still in Advent. For us it is Advent 4, and we are well into that state of reflection and expectancy. But because the whole church has not yet taken on the original 7 week Advent, those folks are just trying to enter into that Advent space, and we welcome them. It is also the change over to a new lectionary year. It is Year C now – the year we hear my favorite gospel, Luke.

Now, as I mentioned before, Advent, whether 7 or 4 weeks, always begins with the end, and we sure have heard a lot of that in the gospel readings the past several weeks, right? The thing is though, these end times readings are not really about an end at all, because the end brings about the beginning.

That may sound like I have been nipping at the egg nog this morning, but that cyclical life that I was just referring to is exactly what Jesus is telling us in the gospel, and what we experience every day and every year. This passage from Luke, like the ones in the other synoptic gospels of Matthew and Mark, is about the return of Christ.

Unfortunately, there are some who have taken this second coming in quite a linear way, predicting certain dates for the end times. These folks miss what Jesus is saying by taking a very linear view of this birth, death, resurrection, ascension, and return. But look at what Jesus is saying here: “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.”

And they did! Now, that may seem strange to hear, but the truth is, Jesus has returned, and is coming today, and will come tomorrow. Of course, if we think about it, it makes perfect sense. I mean we do proclaim the mystery of faith, right? You know, “Christ has died. Christ IS risen. Christ will come again.” But have you thought about what that really means?

In his death, his disciples thought they lost him (the Romans thought he was gone forever too), but Jesus returned for his followers and for the world. In their ministry, in becoming the body of Christ alive in the world in their time, Jesus returned continually through them. And Jesus returns continually through the ages in us – the saints of our day. It is a never ending cycle of love and relationship, of beginnings and endings and beginnings again. The incarnation is not a straight line thing, but a circle – a continuous circle of love.

How does that change Advent for you – to realize that this isn’t some sort of remembrance play we act out each year about something that happened long ago – but that Jesus is continually born in us?

How does it feel to consider that this return of Christ we hear about isn’t far off in some distant future – but that it IS happening now, happened yesterday, and happens tomorrow – and each of you are active agents in that continual returning incarnation of God?

I don’t know about you, but it sure makes coming here, and then living my life out in the world, something more powerful than I could ever have imagined. And THAT – THAT is what Jesus was hoping he could bring to all of us – that realization of who we are – beloved children of God – partners with the Holy Spirit in the work God is continually doing.

And this ever evolving truth is something we experience liturgically in the church – we wait for Jesus in Advent, celebrate his birth during the twelve days of Christmas, he is revealed to us in Epiphany as the Incarnate One, we follow him to Jerusalem in Lent, and stand at the Cross on Good Friday. We celebrate his resurrection and ascension in Eastertide, and the birth of the church at Pentecost. We experience the workings of the Holy Spirit in the early church in Ordinary Time. On All Saints, we celebrate the communion of Saints – those whose lives were lived in the knowledge of Christ. And then we are back in Advent, hearing about the second coming before we experience the first one once more.

We begin with the end, and then the end brings about the beginning. This so called second coming isn’t an ending, but a beginning, and it happens all the time. It is a cycle of love and grace that continually sustains us.

But before we get all cozy in this never ending story, let’s consider for a moment what this really means for us, because we aren’t called to treat this like a syndicated TV show – watching it over and over again from the comfort of our couches, or even our pews. No, Advent portends the coming of Christ, but as Jesus made clear, it’s going to shake the world up a lot. It did centuries ago, and still through to today. It is a proclamation of something big coming.

Now, that might sound like something you’d hear on Game of Thrones, and the weather sure feels like someone is warning us that “Winter is coming!” I suppose that is apt, because, if you really think about it, we in the northern hemisphere are fortunate that Advent isn’t in July. It is in this season when it is darker and colder. It serves as a symbol of what is happening across our nation and around the world, and why we must always keep watch, as Jesus said. Because people are living in the darkness of fear and hate. So many are weighed down by the coldness of oppression, and the bitter storm of violence. And about all of this, Jesus says “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

“Stand up and raise your heads!”

Now, how it is that Jesus could have known about our addiction to our mobile devices I will never know. I mean, we do literally need to raise our heads from whatever is distracting us from those we love, and from those we are called to love and serve in his name. We need to set aside the TV, text messages and email – whatever it is – and look instead at the Christ in your neighbor, in all of creation…and in yourself. The Christ that was, and is again – in you and in all the world. Because darkness hopes we don’t.

Darkness hopes we don’t stand up – don’t raise our heads – don’t see what is happening to the children of God, don’t see the Jesus in our midst. Because that is how darkness and evil grows.

There is a story I read about a pastor who felt lost and adrift spiritually. He said, “Once my spiritual foundation was gone, I no longer knew if God existed…[then I remembered a story told to me by a man I met in Russia]…

Serge was living in a small village in the countryside and worked as a blacksmith, [and had grown up in the Soviet system of atheism]. One day, a man came to him and asked him to make a number of weapons – swords and knives. This man had very detailed specifications as to what metals he wanted used and how he wanted the weapons made.

As Serge made these weapons, this man would sit in the corner of his shop and watch him. Serge recalled that there was this darkness or evil that seemed to emanate from the man, and he could feel that this man was going to use these weapons to do evil. As he pondered on this thought, it dawned on him that there was a definite evil spirit or aura about this man that he could not deny. After more thought on the subject, he resolved that if there was an evil spirit in the world, there must be a good or light spirit as well. This was the beginning of his faith in God.

I’d had similar experiences in my life, the pastor said. I could not deny that I had felt light and dark, good and evil in different people and in different circumstances. Evil did and does exist. I have felt and witnessed it. But so does light and good, I have witnessed and felt this firsthand too! I also [knew]… I’d had experiences in my life I could not explain or deny, moments when I had felt God’s love for me. After some time, I resolved that God did in fact exist, that we are not here by accident but that we all have a [God] who loves us and that we were created in God’s image. You are not alone. We are not alone.”

No, we are not alone. That is why Jesus implores us to stand up and raise our heads when it seems the world is coming to an end, for then we will know his presence with us. We will feel his light shining in and through us. We will experience his love for us. And we will then be filled with the transformational power of hope.

In Christ, the incarnation of God – God present with us – Emmanuel – we are given hope in the knowledge of God’s great love for us. Hope that is always available to us – if only we are open to receiving it. Hope that can save – not only us, but the world.

So we must be alert.

We must stand up.

We must raise our heads.

And when we do, we will see Jesus, who has already returned, and he is right where he said he could be found – in the poor, the immigrant, the outcast, the imprisoned physically, spiritually, and mentally, those who suffer, those who fear, those who mourn. And if we raise our heads and see him, we will also know the work we are to do.

That is what Jesus is telling us. And it is going to demand a lot of us once we do – once we stand up as we called to do, and see the Jesus who yearns to be known in our midst.

Yet, do not be afraid. Listen again to the Collect of the Day that we prayed this morning. It began this way – “Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life.”

Our call to love and serve Jesus today, to cast away the works of darkness by his light, we won’t do it alone – we couldn’t even if we tried. And thankfully, we don’t have to. Just allow God’s grace to enter in, and we will have all that we need for the work we are called to do.

So let us stand up, raise our heads, and open our hearts to God’s grace, that we might cast away the works of darkness in our time.

Let us put on the armor of Christ’s light, that we may be beacons of hope for a world who needs it so very much.

The hope of Christ is coming – is here – and will always be!

That is the expectant joy of Advent – the knowledge that what feels like end times, are the beginning of new life, and that we, who sometimes feel so overwhelmed by all that swirls around us in these dark days, are not alone or powerless, but are agents of God’s transformative love.

And because of that – there is no darkness that his light, working in us, cannot overcome. There is no hate, that his love, pouring out from us, cannot defeat.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

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