TWO SERMONS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE...

First Sunday in Advent - 27th November 2005

Kingdom Season 5  |  Year A  |  Proper 30 Track 1  |  Ordinary Time Week 35 (Year B)

Isaiah 64.1-9  |  Corinthians 1.3-9  |  Mark 13.24-37 : To see the current week's readings, click here

 8 a.m.

Happy New Year! We’re now in Advent - the four Sundays of preparation before the great festival of Christmas is upon us.

During Advent we:

• Prepare for the first coming of God amongst us as a human being in Jesus of Nazareth at Christmas;

• We look forward to the day when Christ will come again in great glory at the end of the age; and

• We look for Christ to “be born in us” today: in other words for us to increasingly know the reality of Christ in our hearts transforming our lives.

And so we are gifted this time before Christmas to prepare to welcome Christ afresh, to reflect on the judgement that welcome will bring.

Each time, every day, we invite, (or re-invite) Jesus to take the throne of our hearts the judgement is, in part, self-inflicted judgement: it’s the difference we see between our lives as they are and the lives God calls us to lead. And Advent is a chance to assess our lives, to address those stubborn sins, those attitudes which don’t honour Christ, those dark corners of of lives where we’re still harbouring hatred or lack of forgiveness for somebody...

In the Old Testament the patriarchs and matriarchs - our ancestors in the faith - looked for the Day of the Lord: not just a domestic gathering of the king and his people but an event which would impact on the whole of creation - to put right what has gone astray globally as well as individually.

There are three parts to the message of Advent:

1. Advent is not just a time to strengthen encourage and challenge the individual, but to confront and challenge institutional evil...

2. Advent is a reminder that we’ve not been abandoned by a distant or disinterested God, we’re loved by a zealous and passionate God who has come in history, comes into our lives today and will come again to wrap up history.

3. The Good News is that Jesus is coming: the bad news is that he wants to know what we’ve done with his world, his people and his creation...

 10.30am: BAPTISM OF ELLIE SAUNDERS

Today we welcome for baptism Ellie Saunders and her family, and her baptism is set in the context of a Gospel all about knowing the future...

CRYSTAL BALLS...?

Some people consult their horoscopes... Me I’m a Leprechaun... We all want to know what the future holds... BUT the gospel passage isn’t a blue print for the End of the World... It’s not a check list of count down to Doomsday, and in a sense we all have to prepare to meet with Christ each day as we rub shoulders with other human beings made in the image of God.

THREE CERTAINTIES...

So for Ellie, what can we say with any certainty about her future?

 1. Stunning visual aid number one: a pair of shoes & a mirror:

Ellie will grow up!

She’ll get bigger, Jason & Nicola will spend a fortune on shoes... she will grow taller, and more and more of the family characteristics will become evident... and her own personality will become more and more established.

And the same is true of her Christian experience. A Sunday School faith is fine for a Sunday School age, but, if we let it, our faith will grow with us as we face new challenges. We too will grow more into the likeness of Christ.

 2. Stunning visual aid number two: a photo album:

She is part of a family!

There’s a photo album waiting to be filled with memories of birthday parties, Christmases, birthdays, holidays, special events, first day in school uniform, at Brownies etc. Being part of a family is not always plain sailing - it is said that you can chose your friends but not your family... But the family will give her love and support, guidance and safety. It is here that she will learn to love and be loved.
And the same is true of her Christian experience. As part of the household of God - the Church - Ellie will gain lots of memories and friendships will develop. She will realise that it’s not always easy rubbing along with other Christians - you can chose your friends, but not your family! And she will learn to love and be loved.

 3. Stunning visual aid number three: a cross:

She will suffer!

Not such a nice thing to think about, but walking in the footsteps of Christ it’s a sobering reminder that those footsteps led to the cross... to walk in the way of Christ will be hard. It’s tempting to give up, to chose the easy option, the path of least resistance. And Ellie will find that following Jesus will mean going against the flow sometimes of what her friends think or do. It will mean coming to Church when she’d rather stay in bed! It will mean working at developing a relationship with God through prayer as her parents and godparents teach her to pray.

NOT GUIDANCE, BUT THE GUIDE...

So there are some things we can say with certainty will face Ellie... other things we can be fairly certain about; still other things we just don’t know. The Christian faith doesn’t offer a blue print for the future, and certainly not an insurance against anything going wrong - in fact it has been said that rather than offering guidance the faith introduces us to the Guide.

ALSO OUR CALL...

BUT BUT BUT the future is also in our hands.. the way we respond to events, whether we choose to take opportunities or not, how we react to things will in some sense determine what happens to us... Some things are out of our hands... but some things are tremendous opportunities for us... and we have some decisions to make about them.

THE FUTURE’S BRIGHT, THE FUTURE’S... WITH GOD!

For me I realised that there were many things I could inherit from my parents: the family fortune, the marvellous sense of humour and the startling good looks... but their faith was something I had to embrace for myself. And so with Ellie. She will have lots of opportunities and inheritances from Jason and Nicola, and part of that is their desire to have God involved in her upbringing and life, and to be able to offer her the opportunity to make their faith real for herself... and that will be the most exciting journey, the most fulfilling way - whatever the future holds!

Fr Andrew J Perry
Rector, St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea