Homily for the 1st Sunday in Advent, 2021

Homily for Advent 1, 2021

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The Meltons just rolled back into town yesterday at 5:30am. Over the course of our Thanksgiving travels, we drove a total of 33 hours. Normally, I avoid the news like the plague, but when you are fighting off sleep, you’ll listen to anything! What a week it has been—acts of senseless violence, untamed reactions to convictions and acquittals, the introduction of a new variant, the giant inversion of a culture of Thanksgiving in a record-breaking spending spree on Black Friday. I’m not even mentioning the political sphere, the gross injustice to the unborn, the mindless use of debt. And as I couldn’t find a decent song on the radio driving through these small Midwestern towns, I was also struck by emptiness of churches with their silly, sacrine, signs about Santa. I must admit, that I became tired of living in this broken world.

We are living in a post-Christian culture. This is a fact that we often ignore, and that’s okay. We ought not to constantly fixate on the gloomy.  There is so much glory and wonder even now! Nevertheless, it is true that we walk through the layers of disintegration every day—societal, political, ecclesial, artistic, familial. Layers of disintegration in a post-Christian society.

And as I sat in my gloom, I was thinking about our Propers for this Sunday, and especially the first verse of our Psalm, Psalm 97, “THE LORD is King, the earth may be glad thereof; * yea, the multitude of the isles may be glad thereof.” And the tiredness of living in this broken, disintegrating world, became a subtle cynicism. “The Lord is King? The earth may be glad?” The disjunct between what I believe and what I see was too much! I had to repent of it, to pray through it. I think this was God’s way of leading me into Advent, where a sense of dissonance between the already and not-yet is the springboard for our Faith.

Our topic today is the The Meaning of Advent—how in Advent we attend to the dissonance between Heaven and Earth. We stare into the brokenness of the world and allow our hearts to ache for the glory that will be revealed when Christ finally returns. For our text, I will touch on all four of the Propers for the day, specifically showing how Psalm 97 and Matthew 21 establish a dissonance that our Old Testament Lesson and our Epistle attempt to resolve.

I’ve already mentioned Psalm 97. “THE LORD is King, the earth may be glad thereof.” This theme on this 1st Sunday in Advent is doubled by our Gospel from Matthew 21. The Triumphal entry. These passages are triumphant, to say the least. The authors of the ancient lectionaries leave no doubt for the pilgrims of Advent. The Lord IS King. Jesus IS King. He was king in Psalm 97, and He is King in Matthew 21. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way. 9 And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.”

And I’ve already mentioned why this establishes a dissonance. If God is King, why this? How does this sense of dissonance result in Faith, not cynicism?

Our answer comes in the Lesson from Isaiah 28 on page 7 in your booklet. Here Isaiah speaks directly to those who have become cynical about God’s rule on the earth. “Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement.” These scornful men have lost hope that the King will triumph. They are like Saruman in Lord of the Rings. Their lack of hope turns into tyranny. They think that the Son will never return, so they revel in the darkness.

But Isaiah assures them that they will not escape the judgment. Verse 17, “Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. 18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.”

It might appear like those who are in power can never be upended. You might think that their refuge of lies cannot be dismantled. You might be tempted to think that what has fallen apart can never be repaired. But we have notes of assurance that soon, our King will return, and He will fix all of this!

This is what Advent is for. We name the disintegration of our world, and we say to one another. “Surely the Lord is coming soon. Amen! Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Advent is a time for us to pray in earnest, “On earth, as it is in heaven!” Advent has a special capacity to name the reality that we face throughout the year. In a post-Christian society, we do not get to see the triumphalism of the kingdom of God like we would have in other times. If our hearts do not acquire the virtues of Advent, will we be able to survive the dissonance of a disintegrating world? Instead of cynicism, we need hope. Instead of gloom, we need imagination. Instead of activism, we need prayer.

I mentioned in my Vicar’s Note this week that I truly believe that the Lord is preparing this church for something. We are a church that sprung up in troubled times. A part of our vocation in this time is to live out the reality of the kingdom in the midst of a disintegrating world. Our name is a reminder of the dissonance. Christ is King? Yes, Christ the King.

But there is one word that is so important for living in times such as these. The early Church flourished in an unChristian society, and they were clear that Jesus Christ was Lord and King. But they resolved the dissonance with an oft spoken word that bridged the gap between what was true in Heaven, but not yet true on earth. It is not enough to have state the Faith. The other virtue of Advent is Hope. Hope is a virtue, and historically it was nourished throughout the year through a single word. We don’t use this word much anymore, but it was once the common greeting among Christians. Without this word, our proclamations of the Lord as King sound fanciful, unrealistic, pietistic, overly spiritual. The word is, “Marantha.” Meaning, “Lord, come quickly.” Say it with me. “Maranatha.” In order to live within a post-Christian society, we must hold fast that Jesus is King, and that He will come again! We must have the virtue of Hope. We must be a “Marantha people”! Only then can we resist the cynicism and gloom of our current age. Only then will we resist the temptation to make a covenant with hell, to pretend that God will not see. Jesus will return. Surely the Lord is coming soon, and He will fix all that is broken, He will resurrect all that is dead, He will rebuild all that has disintegrated, He will correct all injustice, He will restore all that has been forgotten.

This morning, bring your whole self to the Altar. All of your frustrations, disillusionment, desperation. Whatever is broken, carry it with you as you come to God. Let all your angst for your family, cynicism over society, anger with yourself, anything that troubles your heart, be enfolded in the ancient cry of the Church. Maranatha. In fact, Christ the King, let us close out this homily by saying it together three times, “Marantha. Marantha. Marantha.” Amen.