✠ Psalmody: Isaiah 30:30a, 29a, c;Psalm 80:1a;50:2-3a, 5;85:6-7; Baruch 5:5a;4:36b
✠ Lection: Song of Songs 2:8b-14;Romans 15:4-13;St. Luke 21:25-33
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The season of Advent can easily and accidentally be absorbed into all the Christmas atmosphere and its preparations that begin earlier and earlier than most of us are used to, stretching now back into September as stores make sure that you have plenty of time to buy, buy, buy. Black Friday and Cyber Monday have also succumbed to consumer-driven elongation by now being week-long, or more, events. But, the season of Advent is another period in which the Church stands at odds with the world. Radio and TV stations, online advertisers, and all those stores who love you and your money, they work on a consumer’s schedule because they know that human mind quickly moves on and wants to prepare for the next thing to come. Fortunately, the Church Year and the seasons that it celebrates, like Trinity, Advent, and then Christmas, seeks to always keep us oriented toward the Lord and the timing eternal, not the temporary that comes and goes only to be discarded like worn out tree ornaments or discounted decorations that last only long enough for you to have to buy more next year
It’s a challenge to live in the Church season of Advent in the midst of such Christmas bombardment coming from all angles, especially if we have adopted many of the Christmas traditions in our own practices. It’s not unusual for the day after Thanksgiving to be when the Christmas tree is brought down from the attic to be decorated while more family members may still be in town visiting, or even going out together to the tree lot or for a hopeful scan at what Lowe’s or Home Depot has to select the live pine or fir to bring home. Beloved, there is no condemnation in preparing for Christmas, for setting up a tree, for joyfully baking buckets of cookies. There is no sin in setting up for Christmas early, in remembrance of Christ’s long-awaited First Coming. Do not fret or feel guilty if this is your tradition and you’d like to keep it. You have the freedom to do that. You have such freedom in Christ that you could keep your Christmas decorations up year-round, if you like, albeit with odd looks and comments from others. But, praise be to God if the birth, the coming of your Savior, would be so significant to you that your nativity set is still sitting out come June, July, or August. If that causes you to adore Jesus all-the-more in the summer, then prepare thus for eternity!
Also, in your home, you are free to decide to what degree you follow the Church Year on one hand and how much you make use of the traditions of your childhood, neighborhood, and as shared among family members on the other. As we in the Church follow these orderly seasons with some differences of how you may observe them at home, we will discover year after year, and on into eternity, the inexhaustible depth of them as their Scriptural teachings lead us from one day, and one Sunday, from one season, into the next. There are very laudable and beneficial reasons not to yet decorate the church building for Christmas when we have four Sundays of Advent to enjoy and learn from, because to treat Advent as simply the prelude to or as the warm-up for Christmas is to miss the focus of Advent and its intention as handed down to us by our Church Fathers. The Bride of Christ doesn’t reduce herself to earthly consumerism in the feel good seasons, but recalls and rejoices, yes, the true Reason for the Season, including the season of Advent. The Church is blessed because in these early weeks of December, she prepares for the joyous feast celebrating the Nativity of her coming King. Thus, Advent is much richer than just a Christmas prelude, though it is not void of such preparation, so enjoy your Christmas trees, lights, and cookies with which your great God and Savior has given you.
Many things on this second Sunday in Advent morning show the richness of it, such as even the word Advent itself. It simply means the coming, so when we celebrate the Advent of Christ, our minds and hearts are drawn to the Coming of Christ. By asking, which coming of Christ, we treats ourselves to the depth of God’s love for us, highlighted in Advent, as there are different comings of Christ to consider, all while, with it in mind that if Christ the King comes, it is always good for those Who receive Him.
Last Sunday, we heard of His coming into Jerusalem, and though that is an event that happened in our past, we are to view it in the Advent season for the benefits of how the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem set up what will happen for us this very morning. The Advent of Our King happens every time we gather in His house as He comes to us in Word and Sacrament. Your coming Savior has been proclaimed into your ears and He will soon come to you in the Holy Body and Blood that He bore upon the donkey into Jerusalem millennia ago; the Body and Blood, which just days later, He laid down of His own accord for the forgiveness of your sins, now coming to you in this holy place so that you can be strengthened in the faith that trusts in Him and His forgiveness.
Such faith is needed to continue to face not only the world’s attempt to distract us by all the cares and worries it throws at us, but also to keep us from loving it and clinging to it as if it is our home. We have the ability to thank Him for beautiful Christmas trees, safe warm buildings in which we can worship Him, and even for majestic quiet snow-covered lawns, in early December, all without loving that which will pass away on the Last Day. Our Lord warns us of the danger of loving this place too much, for signs of its imminent end will only increase as the Great Day draws nearer; an eternal day dawning from the east at the rising of the Sun of Righteousness; a day that will beam great judgement upon unbelief, but almighty, everlasting joy and deliverance upon those longing for His glorious return. Distress, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth will it be, all because this world does not know Him, so the very hint of all this coming to an end brings about great anxiety in hearts and minds void of eternal perspective. If this is all you have and count on to go right in this short life, angst and anxiety is understandable when this is threatened not to continue on as your home. But you, dear Christian, are not one who sits in the darkness with vain, fleeting hope. Your Lord Jesus says, “when these [signs of The End] begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.” He is coming! Do not grow sad that this place will be no more, for everything that your heart of faith rightly clings to and cherishes will endure. Only that which is worldly, corrupt, and wicked will be no more. Your joy and peace rely not on what this world does or does not bring about in each new day. You have a Mighty King Who has come; Who has redeemed you from your sin, so that you will not perish with the earth, but will enter into the new heavens and new earth with great relief and unending joy. You have His precious Word constantly feeding you and reminding you of this everlasting truth, for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
This season reorients us once again, as we continuously need to have done to our ever-wandering minds and hearts, that our Savior is coming again. For His coming, both at the altar in a few moments and at that great trumpet sound at the Final Judgment, let us remember not only that we are great sinners, but that we have an even greater Savior. Embrace the benefit of preparing your hearts constantly for His coming, both back then at the first Christmas, now to you in His blessed means of grace, and again in the future as mighty Judge and gracious King. For it is in His coming and His promise to come again that you have the comfort, strength, hope, and discipline while in this world to neither faint because of it, nor forebode about it, nor love it and the temporal things of it that will soon fade away, but keep them all in proper perspective. The Lord preserve your minds and hearts as you endure the signs of the times, depending always on Him, His strength, and the life and salvation He has won for you in the forgiveness of your sins, all with the hopeful anticipation of His glorious Second Coming that will usher in the life of the world to come.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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