Preached at Croydon Minster on Advent Sunday, 28 November 2021. Readings: Jeremiah 33.14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3.9-end; Luke 21.25-36
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Today,
Advent Sunday, begins a new church year.
The
cycle of the mystery of our redemption unfolds before us
again.
This
beginning puts us in touch
with
the creation of the world
and
our place within it
as
those
named,
known and loved
by the creator and
maker of all things.
time
is not an endless loop;
what
the atheist philosopher Nietzsche called the “eternal return of the same.”
the
Bible does not envisage a naïve, relentless, linear progression
where
everything turns out just fine
with
the passing of time and ticking of the clock.
For
Advent Christians time is a process of sanctification,
an
upward spiral if you like.
Eternal
mysteries are re-presented and we grow and flourish.
Life, like good music, takes us on such a journey, even repeating themes, the leitmotif,
are
different in a new context
and
our spirits are raised.
Our
lives move to a definitive purpose;
that’s what we call
the Christian Hope
Advent
takes us to the very end of things –
death,
judgement, heaven and hell –
and
to the renewed creation
such
as is described in the Revelation to John:
a new heaven and a
new earth,
where all gather around
in worship of the Lamb of God,
at
the heart of the heavenly city.
This
time in between, in which we find ourselves, which is but the fraction of a
blink in God’s eye,
is
what we are left to navigate.
It
is a precious moment in which we live.
It
is the only moment we have.
So
this is where Jesus’ description of the days that will come
before
the coming of the Son of Man
are
pretty bewildering and disorientating.
Signs in the heavens.
Distress.
Confusion.
Fainting from fear
and foreboding.
It
could almost be a description of our own days.
It’s
funny though, because that is what every age has concluded.
Every
age has seen itself, in some way, as being in the End Times –
be
it through plague,
adverse
weather,
a
significant date in the calendar like the Millennium,
or
the apparently dissolute youth.
So
how do we read today’s gospel?
We
read it knowing
that
Advent is the anticipation of the hope that is coming.
That
is Good News;
that
is Gospel, the Evangelion.
The
dramatic description of the sun and the moon and stars,
of
raging waters
and
then the sprouting of the leaves of the trees,
takes
us back to the description in Genesis of the Creation,
when
God,
with
the Word eternally present,
ordered the heavenly
bodies,
stilled the waters
of chaos
and caused plants
and trees to sprout on the earth.
The
birth pangs ‘in the Beginning…’ echo
the
birth pangs of the New Creation.
This
is not about time
as
we know it.
It
is a call to be
alert,
vigilant, expectant, hopeful.
This
is a call to centre ourselves,
orientate
ourselves,
anchor
ourselves
in Christ, the Word of God who endures through trial and tribulation.
Orientating
ourselves in Christ happens
when
we are alert at all times,
when
we pray for strength not to get entangled
in
all these things that are taking place,
when we set our sights beyond ourselves.
In
the Liturgy our focus is not one another, or even the ‘community’ we have
together,
it
is always beyond ourselves.
Positioning
the Sign of Peace
at
the heart of the communion
tells
us that ‘the peace of God which passes all understanding’
is
not generated from within a community, however good spirited,
but
is a gift from Christ, who is our peace
a
gift from beyond ourselves which we receive and share.
Likewise, Christian since early times celebrated the liturgy
facing East,
the
direction of the rising sun – s-u-n –
to
see beyond ourselves
to
see the coming Son -s-o-n – of Man, Jesus Christ
As
an ancient Advent cry goes up: ‘People Look East!’
At
the eye of the hurricane is a peaceful, still centre.
For
Advent People, the still centre is Christ;
Christ
whom we receive in the Eucharist.
Fix your eyes beyond yourselves,
beyond
any priest
to
the Body of Christ broken for you.
‘People Look
East.’
The
ancient Carthusian monastic order has the Latin motto:
‘Stat
crux dum volvitur orbis’,
meaning:
‘The Cross is steady while the world turns.’
At
the East end of the church above the High Altar; there is Christ on the Cross
for
us to behold.
This
Advent,
in
a spinning, disorientating world, where time both flies and drags,
let
us fix our eyes afresh on Christ.
Let
us centre ourselves on Christ to discern
the
‘still small voice’ of the tranquillity of the Divine Presence.
People
Look East!
