“Advent Expectations”

Isaiah 35:4-10

Matthew 11:2-11

December 12, 2004

Last week we heard the message of warning from John the Baptist that was as about as direct as any Advent passage we read during this season. There is no doubt that John’s message is a tough message to hear, but it is a message we must hear if we are to be prepared for Christ’s coming. How we live our lives in this time of waiting has eternal implications. Our lives must be in tune with God’s coming new reality, if we are to ready for the judgment that is approaching.

Even now, God’s coming kingdom is moving toward us. Even now we stand at the threshold between two times, the time of history and the time of eternity. God’s time is approaching, absorbing all of creation until the final consummation of God’s redemption has taken place. Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The dawn of the new day is upon the horizon. The light of glory is beginning to overtake the darkness of the land. The kingdom of heaven is at hand, and there is no escape from the One who comes to judge the living and the dead.

The season of Advent is a time for us to be honest and realistic about our lives of faith. It is a time for us to reflect upon how we act as God’s people. It is a time for us to consider the decisions we must make everyday to reorder our life in the ways that are appropriate to God’s kingdom. It is a time for us to once again turn ourselves back to God and live in the way God has called us to live and bring our daily life into sync with God’s intention for life itself.

As Christians we must not take this season for granted, we cannot take this season for granted, for it points us to the good news of the gospel, to the hope of creation itself. Our Advent expectations must not be clouded by society’s desire to diminish the importance of this season and of Christmas itself and reduce it to just another holiday. There is too much at stake, and the event we are preparing to celebrate is too significant.

Driving to UVA Hospital Friday night to be with the Knott family, I peaked the Blue Ridge Mountains at Afton Mountain and headed down hill toward Charlottesvile. I looked out over the valley and was taken back by the beauty of what I say. The valley was cloaked under a veil of fog that was bathed in the dark colors of the sunset sky. Above the layer of fog, the sky was clear except for the twinkling stars of the darkening sky. It was then that I was once again was struck by the importance of the Advent season and Christmas, for what I saw was the metaphor of the Incarnation itself.

Down below the fog bank the earth stood clouded by the shroud of darkness, but above the fog bank was the heavenly light of the setting sun. As I drove I thought about what God did for the world all those years ago, when God himself came in the person of Jesus Christ to a world shrouded in darkness, to a world plagued by brokenness, sickness, and death, and brought hope, peace, joy, and the light of life. It was a reassuring vision and a comforting reminder that even in the time of grief and despair, God is with us. Advent and Christmas are to be for us more than just a time of Jingle Bells, eggnog, and holiday sales, they are to be for us the proclamation and witness to God’s intervention in human history, when God’s very word, once and for all broke the boundary between heaven and earth, and became one of us.

My friends, millions of people will pour into Christ's church this Advent and Christmas and never reflect upon the significance of this time or of Christ’s return. They will gaze with eyes of fascination upon the cute baby Messiah wrapped in swaddling clothes, but not think twice about the adult Messiah, who not only pushes us and all that we believe, but who also brings with him great acts of mercy, kindness, love, and life. John’s message to repent is a message we must hear, but it cannot be the only message we hear, it cannot be the only part of our Advent expectations. If wrath, judgment, and unquenchable fire is the only message we remember about the God who came to the world in Jesus Christ, then we are left with nothing but fear and foreboding at the thought of his return.

The great prophet John the Baptist was the messenger of God himself, the preparer of the way, but he was only a messenger with a part of the message. He did not fully grasp the significance of what God was about to do in the world or who God would be in the world. His advent expectations fell short because he expected a Messiah that would come and bring final judgment upon the world and chop down and burn every tree that does not bear fruit. In the end, John was left to wonder if Jesus was truly the one or if they would need to wait for another, because Jesus did not meet his expectations. But what he and the rest of the world found out is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news which surpasses all expectations. The One who came that night long ago did not come as a destroyer, but as the healer and life-giver and ultimately Savior of the world. Amen.