Advent 1 - Look for God's saving help

Isaiah 64: 1-9    Mark 13: 24-37

Keep Awake sound like good advice for any sermon!

But when Jesus says ‘Beware, keep alert and keep awake’ there is clearly some kind of warning here about how we react to the things we see happening in the world around us.

There seems to be something especially cruel about hearing news of the world in turmoil as we are also preparing to celebrate Christmas.

In the Landsker Singers Christmas Concert we are singing a piece by John Rutter “The very best time of year”. I can’t believe it will feel like the very best time of year for the people of Gaza, or the Israeli families still waiting for released hostages; or the people of Ukraine nearly two years after the Russian army’s invasion; or for those of us who are acutely aware of the loved ones we will miss this Christmas.

 

How can we celebrate peace and joy on earth when the world is in such a state?

And yet, the state of the world and the coming of Christ are intricately linked.

Jesus was not born so that we could have something cheerful to look forward to in the darkness and cold of December. God became human in Jesus and came to live in our earth as it is, with all its mess and warfare and pain.. to change our world and save it from destruction.

So Jesus says stay awake – be alert – be aware of the signs of God’s work among you even when all seems dismal and lost. Even when the world seems at its worst, the coming of Jesus Christ, God with us, is the Good news we need to hear.

In November 2017 my mum received a diagnosis of heart failure. She was 91, my dad had died the month before, and she said she was happy to “fade away”. Her care home, where she’d been for just 3 months, were wonderful and assured us that they could provide all the end-of-life nursing care she needed. 

As Christmas approached we knew it would be her last, which made it all seem very strange. Susan and I visited about a week before Christmas, and Susan asked my mum, who was always very musical, which Christmas Carol she would like us to sing. She chose “Away in a manger”. Part of me was surprised she hadn’t chosen something with more theological kind of words, or something with a more demanding tune. But mum was a nursery teacher, so I thought maybe she was thinking of singing ‘Away in a manger’ with her little ones.

When we sang it, as we reached the second verse I realised what a wonderful carol it is to sing to a dying woman.

Be near me Lord Jesus, I ask you to stay close by me forever and love me, I pray

Bless all the world’s children in your tender care and fit us for heaven to live with you there.

A carol that starts with the simple story of the baby asleep in the hay under the stars, becomes a promise of eternal life for all the children of this world.

 

I spent a lot of time crying at carols that year, as I realised that so many of them do not just tell the story of the birth of Jesus, but also promise that in Jesus we see the God who will save us – both personally when we come to the end of our life, and save us as the whole world, a world that has always needed to be rescued from conflict and misery.

 

It’s a teaching we find over and over again in our Christmas Carols: 

‘See in yonder manger low’ also tells the story of the birth, and then stretches our imagination with the last verse:

Sacred Infant, all Divine what a tender love was thine,

This to come from highest bliss down to such a world as this…

 

Every year those words amaze me – ‘down to such a world as this’.

We celebrate the coming of Christ not despite the state of the world – shutting out reality to enjoy the glow of the crib – but because of the state of the world. It is precisely into this world, just because of its terrible state, that Jesus came to bring us the truth that God is with us – even in a stable, even in a new-born baby, even though we don’t deserve it.. and yet need it so badly. Down to such a world as this.

 

The prophecy from Isaiah  - spoken about 500 years before the birth of Jesus – are the words of someone who wants God to sort things out. 

This portion of Isaiah starts with rage – “oh that God would tear open the heavens and come down”.

Isaiah expresses a natural wish that God would come and sort this mess out once and for all – and leave people in no doubt about his presence and his power.

 

But Isaiah also realises that people need to expect God to act in a new way. The people of God have strayed and moved away from God’s ways, but God has not given up on them. Isaiah expresses God’s work in a different way – not the mighty and avenging God, as he says 

“Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;

we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

 

Isaiah teaches the people to expect God’s love to form them, mould them, guide them, in new ways. He describes “those who wait for God” – he is warning the people to be awake and alert for the new and unexpected ways God will work among them.

 

From where we are in human history we can see where God does precisely what Isaiah promises – comes down from heaven, rips apart time and space and steps down to be born in Bethlehem.

Humanity waited.. God came.. in human flesh to be with us in the baby of Bethlehem.

 

And Jesus wants to prepare his followers for what happens next.

The baby in the manger is not the end of the story… Jesus will grow to teach and heal.. and in the passage we heard he is preparing his followers for all the times when the world will seem like the same mess it was when he entered it as a baby.

Jesus also wants to prepare his followers for their sense of personal grief and loss when he is no longer with him in an earthly form.

 

Jesus says to his followers then and to us now “you do not know when the time will come”.

You do not know when the people of this earth will finally destroy each other.

You do not know when the world will finally become uninhabitable through global warming.

You do not know when it will be your last Christmas with the person you love.

You do not know when your life will end.

But Jesus promises he will come – we will be with him – he will fit us for heaven to live with him there.

 

As he came to Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago he will come.

He will come to be with us this (morning, in this bread and wine) afternoon.

He will come to be with us this Christmas.

He will come wherever he is needed in this world.

 

Stay Awake! Be ready. Receive the Good News – God will come to be with us.

He is our Saviour – Jesus Christ.

Amen.