Sermon, December 2, 2012, First Advent

First Presbyterian Church – Willmar

December 2, 2012  The First Sunday in Advent

“Standing Before the Son of Man”

Luke 21:25–36

Advent is the time when we anticipate the celebration of Jesus’ birth:  His first appearance on this earth.  Advent is not meant to be the beginning of the birthday celebration.  It’s meant to be a time of preparing ourselves for the presence of God with us.  It’s meant to be a time during which we reflect on how the world has changed, will change, since God took on human flesh and lived among us.  It’s meant to be a time during which we examine ourselves and our own willingness to change and be changed by the presence of God among us. 

It’s also a time when we anticipate Christ’s second appearance on this earth.  The most fervent hope of the New Testament is that the day is coming when we shall stand before the Son of Man.  Do you share that hope?  Will you be able to stand when that day comes?  Is there something that you should be doing to prepare for that? 

I had a professor in seminary who felt that one of the greatest problems that we – preachers – create for ourselves in the church is our unwillingness to recognize that there have been some pretty good preachers that came before us.  He advocated that once in a while we ought to publically announce that we are going to present someone else’s sermon from out of history.  I’m not going to do that today, but I do enjoy reading old sermons.  It’s an exercise that can humble you, if you are honest. Reading old sermons also tends to take me away from my very strong denominational underpinnings.  There are some pretty good Methodist and Baptist preachers out there, and there always have been.

One of the great Baptist preachers of the 19^th Century was Adoniram Judson Gordon.  What a wonderful name.  He was a pastor in Boston who had an amazing ministry that included the founding of a theological college.  But first and foremost he was a pastor who preached the Bible’s vision of hope and insisted that prayer formed the basis of all Christian faith and action.  He said:  "You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed."

One day he met a young boy in front of the Clarendon Street Baptist Church carrying a rusty cage in which several birds fluttered nervously. Gordon inquired, "Son, where did you get those birds?" The boy replied, "I trapped them out in the field." "What are you going to do with them?" "I'm going to play with them, and then I guess I'll just feed them to an old cat we have at home." When Gordon offered to buy them, the lad exclaimed, "Mister, you don't want them, they're just little old wild birds and can't sing very well." Gordon replied, "I'll give you $2 for the cage and the birds." "Okay, it's a deal, but you're making a bad bargain." The exchange was made and the boy went away whistling, happy with the money. Gordon walked around to the back of the church, opened the door of the cage, and let the struggling creatures soar into the blue.

The next Sunday he took the empty cage into the pulpit and used it to illustrate his sermon about Christ's coming to seek and to save the lost -- paying for them with His own precious blood. "That boy told me the birds were not songsters," said Gordon, "but when I released them and they winged their way heavenward, it seemed to me they were singing,

'Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed!'"

This is Advent. There are a lot of reasons why our anticipation of Christ’s arrival could cause us anxiety, fear and trembling.  The notion of “standing” before the Son of Man might not be the first response that comes to mind.  Hiding might be more appropriate. 

But the reason for God being among us, the reason that God put on flesh and walked among us is in the song that Gordon says those freed birds were singing: Redeemed! We have been trapped by sin in a cage – sometimes a very beautiful cage, but a cage nonetheless – but Christ came to purchase our release. If you have this hope in your heart you will sing, and you know the song: "Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed!"

In this morning’s Gospel lesson Jesus advises us to not let our hearts be weighed down with the worries of this life.  Make yourself ready for the reappearance of the Son of Man.  Don’t throw your life away on trivial, selfish things.

Some people spend so much time trying to interpret the signs and events, hoping that they will be able to know precisely when Christ will be back among us.  Martin Luther was convinced that he would witness the end times in his lifetime.  In the 1960’s people thought that we were entering the end times.  I have former classmates who are convinced that the direction that our President wants to take this country is a sign of the end times.   (One way or the other that strikes me as a pretty egocentric view of the cosmic importance of this blessed nation.) 

Jesus said don’t get wrapped up in the foolishness of this world.  Prepare your heart for God’s arrival and live today like you know He will be back!  Someday those signs will appear in the heavens and will be written large across the face of this earth.  All of that is secondary because in that first coming, that day which we shall remember in 23 days, Christmas tells us our redemption is wrapped in our hearts. We have been purchased.  We have been set free, redeemed.

Over the next few weeks, take the time to look into your heart, not up in the skies or at the lights on the trees.  Jesus came to set us free so that we might live our lives loving God. 

Love isn’t always easy.  Love takes courage and commitment.  Love changes our lives.  The birth of Christ is the acknowledgment that God loves us.  The anticipation of His return is our chance, our time, to allow God’s love to change us and give us the courage, the strength, the commitment to love God as God as loves us.

We pray that it will give us the courage – and the faith – to stand up before the Son of Man.

Jesus warned his disciples to be careful with their hearts. Don't let them get weighed down with the anxieties of life or you will get snared in a trap and you'll miss your redemption. Be watchful, prayerful, look heavenward, but even more look inward.

At Christmas God sends us the greatest gift we will ever receive. It is wrapped in our heart.  God kept His promises to us and we celebrate the day that those promises were realized in the birth of a human who was God with us.  Now we live in the hope of God’s return, when again He will make His home here among us.   

Use this wonderful opportunity that we call the season of Advent to reflect on what God has done for us; what God does for us; and what God has promised He will do for us.  Live your life knowing what He has done; knowing what He daily does for you; and living in the freedom, the redemption, of what He has already done, live your life in gratitude knowing that the perfection of His promises await us. 

Our next hymn says: “Jesus with all Your church I long to see Your kingdom come: show me Your way of righting wrong and turning sorrow into song until You bring me home.”

Because He came among us; because He will return to live among us:  because we love Him; because we live our lives every day as people whom God loves and who love God with the acts of their lives, whenever that day comes, we will always have the courage by His grace to stand before the Son of Man.

Amen.