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Sermon: Sunday, December 9, 2007

THREE MEANINGS OF ADVENT



Introduction:

A. The biblical texts for today ring with a note of preparation.
B. They are texts the church has set before us in the Advent season, the beginning of the Christian liturgical year.
C. What is the season of Advent about?
D. Advent means "coming" or "arrival."
    1. We celebrate Christ's first coming-birth and incarnation and humanity.
    2. We celebrate Christ's second coming-the end of history, Christ the judge Of the living and the dead, the savior of the world.
E. I want to suggest three things about this season for the rhythm of our spiritual lives.

I.
ADVENT IS A NEW BEGINNING

A. The beginning of what?
    1. The liturgical year, the beginning of the story of Jesus.
    2. The beginning of the church year in which we live into the meaning of the gospel in our lives.
B. We all need new beginnings. We all need second chances. We all need fresh starts.
    1. Advent gives us an opportunity to begin again in our spiritual lives.
        a. To look for new births, new visions, new opportunities.
        b. To live in a fresh way into the memory of what Christ has done for us.
    2. Advent gives us an opportunity, therefore to live with new hope.
        a. To live in the hope of what Jesus will do in our lives.
        b. To live in the hope of what Jesus will do through our lives for and with others.

II.

ADVENT IS A TIME OF WAITING

A. We, in America, don't wait very well. We are into instant gratification. Or as Woody Allen once said, "We live in a culture in which instant gratification is not quick enough.
B. But one of the very crucial elements of the spiritual life is to learn to wait.
    1. Not everything that is important comes to us easily or with immediacy.
    2. We can't really just grab life by the throat and shake from it what we want.
C. Wait for what?
    1. The real coming of Christ into our lives.
    2. Christ the word-present in God's creation.
    3. Christ the long awaited Messiah, the anointed one, whose coming is hinted at in the prophets.
    3. Christ the babe in Bethlehem, fully clothed in our humanity-frail and vulnerable.
    4. Christ the teacher and healer-the comforter in our midst as guide and friend.
    5. Christ the man of wisdom and spirituality, lifting our humanity.
    6. Christ on the cross-the one who is with us in our own suffering, the savior of the world.
C. Advent reminds us not only that as we can begin again, we begin by waiting for the acts of God in our lives.
We do not live simply after the acts of God, or between the acts of God, but in them with them.

III.

ADVENT IS A TIME OF PREPARATION

A. None of us is prepared for the coming of God as we are.
B. Advent is a time of repentance and renewal.
C. It is a time of preparation for the Christ-centered and Christ-shaped life.

Conclusion:

Fred Craddock at the Charlotte General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in 2003 told us the most popular painting in the country churches in Appalachia was Divinci's The Last Supper. Accept for one church, where they held a contest in their church for their own people to do their own thing. The contest was won by a little girl of ten. Her picture hangs in that church. It was of a Bull Dog! When asked why she painted a Bull Dog she simply replied: "Keep a tight grip on your faith." Advent gives us the opportunity to get a "tight grip on our faith." What are the moods of Advent? Beginnings require closure and expectation. Also faith. Waiting requires solitude and community. Also faith. Preparation requires joy and discipline. Also faith.


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