Hope

Welcome to Advent.  The start of the new church year.  And Advent is the time where the church changes gears dramatically, and begins to think about the coming of the messiah.

But there is a bigger question ahead than just 'is there going to be a baby born into the world?'  And that question that doesn't get asked on Christmas Eve, really, is 'why?'  That question is of dynamic importance, you know, not just for Advent, but for most of the year.  Knowing why something is happening, knowing why you do what you do, is extremely important, to have worked out why something matters, so that you may always stand ready to give a reason for the hope that dwells within you.  

And the birth of Christ is no different.  It's not enough to know that Christ was born, you should also know why.  Knowing why, knowing that he was a savior who was born for you changes everything about Christmas, you know, in the same what that your baby is very different to you from a baby.  If it's just a regular ol' baby, then you can like it, certainly, it can make you smile, you can tickle it under its little chin and admire its tiny fingernails, but when it's your baby then everything means something different.  That smile, that chin, those fingernails, they are of such fearful and dreadful importance for you that you may very well never get over it.  Holding your baby is one of those things that changes your entire outlook on life, dramatically alters how you see the world and your place in it.  Holding a regular ol' baby for a friend, or a relative or whatever, even a very new very cute baby doesn't do that. It's nice, but it's not world changing.

The readings at this time of the year really do bring to mind the reason for the birth of the baby in the manger.  The readings that we hear go out of their way to generate within you the knowledge that unto YOU a child is born, and unto YOU a son is given.  This only really works if you understand the key of the Christian faith, which is forgiveness of sins.  Whose sins? Why yours of course.

The readings that we had from Sunday were all about living in a state of readiness constantly, so we can be ready for the coming of the Lord whenever that happens.  When will that happen?  Who knows!  That's why you have to be always ready, because it will be happening whether you're ready or not.  And that's reasonably key, you know, because Christ's return will be as Lord and judge, and he is going to be a lawyer arguing on your behalf.  If you'll let him.  If not, then your sins will be arguing against you.  And that's not a situation that any of us want to be in.

Now, it is only once you understand that you have sins that you've committed that Christmas can really truly mean anything, you know.  It's only once you've moved through the thoughts from Isaiah that we had from Sunday that you can make any progress.  When Isaiah writes

Behold, you were angry, and we sinned;

in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?

We have all become like one who is unclean,

and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.

We all fade like a leaf,

and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

we can feel it.  His writing comes from a real place, from a man who has examined himself, from a man who has examined his people, from a man who has taken a long, hard look at the way things are, and has realized that things aren't what they want them to be. This is someone who knows that things aren't working out properly, that the greatness of God is at a heck of a contrast to the misery of humanity. And this is someone who is asking, with some urgency, if they can be saved.  Most of us have never been in that state of panic, because most of us tend to measure good by ourselves, with us as a 1:1 metric of what is good.  But Isaiah is measuring things by a different metric.  Isaiah is measuring things that he and his people have done next to the ineffable goodness of God himself. And they are weighed in the balance and found wanting.  

I hate to go back to this, but it reminds me for all the world of when Peter Hitchens observed the painting 'the last judgment,' and in doing so, was shocked perhaps for the first time in his entire life, into considering that if there were some who would be damned, that he would likely be among them.

“I gaped, my mouth actually hanging open. These people did not appear remote or from the ancient past; they were my own generation. Because they were naked, they were not imprisoned in their own age by time-bound fashions. On the contrary, their hair and, in an odd way, the set of their faces were entirely in the style of my own time. They were me and the people I knew. … I had a sudden strong sense of religion being a thing of the present day, not imprisoned under thick layers of time. My large catalogue of misdeeds replayed themselves rapidly in my head. I had absolutely no doubt that I was among the damned, if there were any damned.”

That understanding is the same as that of Isaiah, rightly concluding that if there was truth and righteousness, if there was peace and goodwill, if any of those things were available, then he, and all his people, would be on the wrong side of it.  And after generations of calling for and seeking a savior, imagine the relief when he arrives.

Like Isaiah or Hitchens, we get to consider our own sinfulness, and to realize that there is a good side to things that we are on the wrong side of.  We have not been alert and awake, about our Father's business. We have been drunk, disobedient, mistrustful and wicked.  We have lived as though we were the measure of all things, and as though God did not matter at all. And the more and closer we look into this moral enterprise, the more we are weighed in that balance and found wanting.

So what does Christ do? Does he come to condemn us, or to urge us all the more into actions that we weren't taking anyway? Or does he come to tip the scales in our favor? That's what he actually comes to do, you know.  And that's why we Christians are so excited to see him, both in the manger, and when he comes in glory.  Because this is your advocate, your friend, your helper and your redeemer.  The one who breaks the chains that you have placed on yourself, who tips the scales in your favor, who rebuffs every claim the devil has on you and said that through his blood he, Christ has claimed your for his own.  Because he wanted to.  Because he was desperate to. 

So be awake.  Be watchful for his coming.  Not just that he comes, of course, but why he comes. Remember why it is that Jesus stepped into the world, and rejoice at the news of his birth.  For it heralds the moment when God and sinners will be reconciled.