Sermon: Proper Preparation
Text: Ro 13:8-14
Where: Arbor House
When: Sunday, November 28, 2004
Occasion: Advent I
Where: TI
When: Dec 10
Occasion: Morning Prayer
Who: Mark Woolsey
I. Intro.
Happy New Year! Did any of you stay up all night to welcome it in? Aren’t you all glad it’s four more weeks until the Christmas season starts? Oh, wait a minute; I forget. Most people don’t realize that Episcopalians live in a kind of time warp called the church calendar. In our reality the year starts today with what’s known not as Christmas season, but Advent. It is a time of preparation to ready ourselves for our Lord’s coming. I heard someone once say that you can tell a person’s God by looking at his calendar. In the civil calendar we remember the two-faced god Janus in January, the warmongering Mars in March, conniving Juno in June, and so on. However, the church calendar starts with 4 weeks of Advent, then 12 days of Christmas, and follows with around 2 months of Ephiphany, which means the revelation of . God. Next is the penitential 6 weeks of Lent which in turn preceeds the joyful month of Easter. After that is Pentecost Sunday and finally the 25 or so weeks of Trinity. Sprinkled throughout are various feast days, saints days, etc, that remind us of various themes in the Bible. The whole year is saturated with Christ and His Lordship. Each season reflects a different aspect of His life on earth. These seasons come with their own colors, commemorations, and liturgy. They impart a rhythm to our life. I love the church year and highly recommend its observance to all of you.
II. Advent.
A. Contrast
Curiously, there is some overlap between the civil and church calendars. Civily we call this time the Christmas season. It is festive, colorful, and joyful. It is Christmas lights, Christmas trees, presents, family, Santa Claus, turkey dinner, carols, and much, much more. And this is good. However, it is not Advent. It overlaps Advent, but it is not Advent. Advent is contemplative & serious. It is a time to prepare ourselves for the appearing of the Lord Himself. Instead of encouraging frivolity and feasting, its nature is such that it has been called a mini-Lent. Our Lord is holy and righteous and pure, a consuming fire. His appearance is serious business; if we have any sense at all we will treat it that way. He tolerates no sin, no imperfection, no dissent. If these are characteristic of Advent, then what is it?
B. Definition
Advent derives from the Latin words that mean, "to come. And most of us realize that the person coming is Jesus Christ Himself. But we forget that there are at least four "comings" of the Lord. The first, called the first coming or first advent, was His birth in the manger. The last, called the second coming, will be the consummation of the ages when he creates a new heaven and new earth, finishes the salvation of all His elect, and passes final sentence on all the damned. But there are at least two other "between advents" that are mentioned in Scripture. One is described n Mat 24; it is entirely taken up with judgement and occurred when Christ came with the Roman armies and destroyed Jerusalem, ending the old covenant. The other "between advent" is when He comes each Lord’s Day in the bread and wine. We can’t pepare for His nativity, His first coming, or His coming to Jerusalem because they have already happened. We can celebrate them in rememberence, but we cannot anticipate them. However, we can celebrate His coming in grace in the bread and wine, and His coming in both grace and judgement at the end of the ages. Are you prepared for those comings? Your state determines whether they will be judgement or blessing.
III. Preparation
Let’s look back at the first coming. How well did the world prepare for His birth? Surely for the king of kings the biggest palace, the most attentive servants, the softest bed, and the highest officials were made ready. But no. His palace was a barn, His attendants farm animals, His bed a feeding trough, and His official receptors were shephards. We are stumbled by the incompetence and neglect of the world to her king, yet were we not in the same boat before our baptism and faith? Did we acknowledge His Lordship and present to Him a clean life for Him to rule beside? Or perhaps even we fell short of the requirements of a holy life. As Romans 2 says,
"There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God."
You see, not only did Christ come to a world 2000 years ago that did not want Him, He also comes to you and me before we desire Him. Indeed, if He did not, there would be no hope for us. He comes in spite of our lack of desire and lack of invitation. And what a coming! Once we were children of darkness, idolaters, lovers of self. But He comes in grace and starts a renovation that cannot be stopped until He comes finally at the consumation. This is where He commands us to work. As it says in our Epistle reading today,
"Let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not n revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. "
Prepare for His coming again. Prepare for His coming in judgement at then end of time, and prepare for His coming in grace in the bread and wine. How can you prepare? Again listen to Romans:
"But put on the Lord Jesus Christ"
Put Him on like a garment. Let His righteousness clothe you and be your only protection against the mighty wrath of God. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. And, I might add, you will be prepared for His coming again.
Listen to what one of the greatest theologians, John Calvin, said about our Lord’s birth:
This, then, is how we must practice this doctrine, that we do not fail to come to our Lord Jesus Christ, although at first sight we do not find Him what our flesh, that is, our natural senses, desire. But although He was wrapped in rags at His birth, and although He had been laid there in the manger, may we know and be resolved that He did not, however, cease to be Mediator to draw us to God His Father, to give us an entrance into the Kingdom of heaven from which we were entirely shut out. Still more today, although He does not rule in pomp, and although His Church is despised, and although there is a simplicity in His Word which the great men of this world rejhect, as for us, may we never cease on that account to cling to Him and to subject ourselves to His dominion in a true obedience of faith. John Calvin, The Nativity of Jesus Christ
