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"Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” Gospel of Matthew, 24:42-44.

Advent has arrived.  Advent means arrival or coming.  So when we talk of Advent we are talking about an arrival.  This is a strange idea for most. The arrival of what or whom?  Advent is, for us, a season of the church’s year in preparation for Christmas.  For most people it does not exist on their calendars.  It has been replaced by decorating and shopping, Christmas music and food.  Chocolate.  That’s my holiday season.  Its characterized by the amount of chocolate I consume.  How awful is that?    The circle comes back around each year and we follow a pattern of tradition.  How many of you were innovative with thanksgiving this year?  Did something totally different than ever before, broke with tradition?  Like a program that keeps running, we simply do what we’ve done.  Lulled into the coma that is the holiday season.  We expect the same things.  That same person that was hard to shop for last year, still a pain in the rear.  Those lights you failed to put away properly last year, you’ll get them out again and fuss with them for four hours to hang them on the house.  There is monotony in these things.  And yet ,we are driven to do them.  Black Friday shopping.  We avoided it.  But millions of others are lured into that trainwreck of consumer frenzy.  Confess, some of you did it.   

For we too have largely joined the fray.  What is the difference between the secular observance of the holidays and the Christian observance?  After Thanksgiving, Christmas is pounding at our doors. Prepare for the birth of Jesus. This is what faithful Christians are doing, right?  We may even feel like our neighbors who are not practicing Christians have gotten on board the train, right?  They have that blow up lighted nativity in the yard already.  Complete with baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes.  It often feels like your trying to catch the Christmas train.  Get on board or you’ll miss it.  Get ready, hang on, its coming.  Only 28 days.   

We rush ahead in preparation for the wrong thing.  How does one prepare for an event that already happened?  This is why the first Sunday in Advent looks ahead, addresses future reality, offers up a vision for what has not yet come.  We are still waiting for something or someone.  And this is of dire importance.  For if all that God can do has already been done, then we are where we will be.  This is it, all we can expect, all we can hope for, the current state of things is just as they must and shall be.  And for some of us who know Christ and his mission, this is unacceptable nonsense.  Surely God is not finished yet with creation, with me, with you, with the great work of setting things right, with the restoration of justice and the doling out of divine mercy.  Surely, murder, mayhem, war and poverty, disease and hunger---surely this is not the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven.  

Think of a thing that you would like to set right but can’t.  Something that saddens you, frightens you, angers you.  For me, this is global hunger.  People, children, should not be hungry.  No one should suffer and die from hunger.  But they do.   It may be sex trafficking or refugees or homelessness or addiction or bank fraud.  What is the thing that haunts you, keeps you up at night?  If you had the magic wand, what would you fix, heal, change?  You and I have heard all of the promises of politicians for our entire lives.  No one, no elected leader has ended hunger, poverty, war, disease.  In fact, most have exacerbated these things.  Perpetual war.  That’s what we are in.  We are weary of their unkept promises.  No wonder there is such distaste for government.  And maybe even for church.  Does God keep promises?  Are there promises God has not kept?  For those of us who wait for the kingdom of God, there are.  Isaiah foretells them.  Matthew and Paul persuade the Christian community to keep awake, to be vigilant, to watch for God to act, to fulfill promise, to bring about that that for which we must hope.  They promise a day of crisis, like a thief in the night, a sudden disruption.  And yet, here we are.  Still waiting.  Might as well participate in the culture’s perpetual motion machine, do what they all do.  Decorate, Shop, eat.  Comfort, comfort my people.  Decorate, shop, eat.  Perhaps, we have lost our distinctive witness, our holy character, our faith in the Lord’s promises.  Perhaps this is why fewer people participate with us in Advent.  We do what they do and have to get up on Sunday mornings?  We have been lulled to sleep by cheap goods, shiny things, and rich foods.  We have been put in the coma of low expectations and acceptance of this world and all its sufferings.  We have been knocked unconscious by accepting reality as it is.  Idealism, hope---lost.  We fail to see that in every crisis, every disruption, every subtle change, Christ comes for us to awaken us to His saving work.   

Advent calls to us with this mystery.  His coming again.  Jesus’ work is incomplete, unfinished.  He has destroyed the power of sin, but has not erased its consequences---injustice, suffering, death.  We live in between what was and what will be.  We are those called to embody God’s promised future by faith.  We are those called to reveal a hope that is so unreal, so charming, so imaginative that we might be called dreamers, prophets, saints of God.  We are light in darkness. We are peace in the midst of violence.  We are sanctuary in times of chaos and despair.  We are love and joy.  Advent means arrival.  What if, instead of us waiting for Jesus to come back, advent is about the world waiting for the church to show up and be the church?  What if the second coming is about the body of Christ arriving on the scene here and now?  What if we wait for Christ to live through us for the sake of the world?  We are called to daring, bold service. Our worship is peace-making, light-shining, sanctuary for the anxious mind, food and drink for the hungry soul.  So dear friends, Advent means arrival.  So, show up.  Be present in worship and in service.  Be present to those who are struggling this season. Be present through inexplicable generosity.   Be present and alert to the inbreaking of God’s kingdom around us and through us.  Be present with hope on your lips to tell others of God’s promised reign.  Be present as Christ is present.  They are waiting for Christ to arrive in us.   Amen.