Happy New Year

Sermon for Nov. 29th 2009

Jeremiah 33: 14-16 Luke 21:25-36

St. Cyril of Jerusalem, The Two-Fold Coming of Christ

Apocalypse Explained 187b

Happy New Year!

This is the time when we get to boggle those around us by marking a year which
begins, not the day when the Romans inaugurated their officials, but the Sunday which
brings us into the four weeks of Advent.

For the first half of the yearly cycle in Christian liturgy is structured around the
life of Jesus Christ. Plainly, that life starts with his earthly birth. But rather than plunging
into the celebration of Christmas, the season of Advent comes before that.

What would startle so many of our friends and neighbors is that according to
traditions, Advent was not a time for starting the Christmas jubilation early. No, it was
observed as a “penitential” season. Like Lent, it was a time for fasting and prayer, and
one when the church furnishings were draped in purple (with rose-pink to mark a Sunday
of relaxation when folk expressed their relief that it was half done with.) Weddings were
avoided, and “dancing and similar festivities were forbidden.” (In some places, the fast
was already begun after Martinmas at November 11th, known as “St. Martin’s Lent”.)

It was certainly not characterized by ostentatious rejoicing of “the most wonderful

time of the year.” A recent commentator laments:
 …the disappearance of Advent seems especially disturbing,
for it's injured even the secular Christmas season: opening a
hole, from Thanksgiving on, that can be filled only with
fiercer, madder, and wilder attempts to anticipate
Christmas.

More Christmas trees. More Christmas lights. More tinsel,

more tassels, more glitter, more glee -- until the glut of
candies and carols, ornaments and trimmings, has left
almost nothing for Christmas Day. For much of America,
Christmas itself arrives nearly as an afterthought: not the
fulfillment, but only the end, of the long Yule season that
has burned without stop since the stores began their
Christmas sales.1

At this point, it would be easy for me to deliver a rant blaming things on

“commercialism”. But there is more going on here. The confusion comes from regarding
“Advent” as a preparation for Christmas (or “the holidays”). But in truth it is an
observation and meditation on the Lord’s Coming.

As our readings reminded us, there are TWO comings of Our Lord and Saviour.
First, His advent into the natural world, as a child outwardly resembling all others.
Second, His advent in glory, proclaiming the establishment of His new Kingdom.

As most of us are aware, this might almost be called “the Church of the Second
Advent”. And it is fitting for us to bear in mind, not “the very craziest of Second
Comings”, but His long-awaited Second Coming even more than for those who, like St.
Cyril, looked to it (or still look to it) only as a future hope. For it is true already that not
only has Jesus come to redeem the world, but that NOW the Lord Jesus Christ reigns,
whose Kingdom shall be for ages of ages.

In an attempt to do my part in defending the spirit of Advent against the

premature Christmas onslaught, I will conclude by reading a familiar poem by Lawrence
Ferlinghetti:

Christ Climbed Down

William Linden
1
Joseph Bottums, "The End of Advent"