First Sunday of Advent 2017 Readings Lutheran Church

The Rev'd Margery Kennelly is the Episcopal Chaplain at Harvard University.

What a joy it is to exist with yous here today on your Feast ofTitle.

I know your beautiful church building – although non because I take been able to attend many of your Sunday services.

I am familiar with your church building- with its closets and passages, its cats and upper stories and strange things that squeak in the night considering well-nigh six years agone I prevailed on your dear male parent Sammy Wood and Father Warren to let me bring my confirmation course here for an overnight.

The offset time was a bit raucous. Nosotros didn't deserve to exist invited back…but mercy prevailed.

We created a partnership with some other Church of the Appearance glory – the Reverend Marc Eames who was formerly a parishioner here before becoming a priest.

For these past five years we all ended our year-long confirmation classes with an overnight hither in your wonderful church whose walls are truly steeped in the fragrance of prayers. We called our overnight Awake – because – well because we knew nobody would become much sleep – but also considering we believed in this idea that in that location is something securely life giving in keeping watch. In praying belatedly at dark.

While our Awake overnight was not during the season of Appearance, information technology would take been seasonally advisable.

The intent of that retreat was to give our confirmands an opportunity to invite Jesus to come into their lives. And that of course is a very Appearance theme!

The ancient prayer of the early church was Marana tha. It is an Aramaic phrase which we detect in i Corinthians and in an early on church building manuscript called the Didache. It means  "Our Lord come."

The whole center of Appearance is expressed in this text bulletin of a prayer which is most simply understood as an expression of our deepest Longing. Longing….

What is longing?

When yous think about it there are ii necessary ingreients to experiencing longing:

The starting time is: dissatisfaction:

Yous can't really feel longing if you are already satisfied.

The 2nd is Waiting: You can't really experience longing if yous don't accept to expect.

The Season of Advent asks us to focus on two things most of us do not similar to experience: Dissatisfaction and waiting.

Yikes! No wonder it is then tempting to take refuge in chocolate and carousal…during Advent.

Who wants to wait?

Who wants to be dissatisfied?

Just temptation aside, the deep call of the season is to appoint in that difficult country of longing…not to skip over to the happy cozy baby Jesus in the manger silent nighttime moment followed by cookies.

 Not yet.

 It is actually important to wait in the dark space before. Actually to have in the dark space and let it frame your prayers.

But why?

I don't have the full reply.

Merely hither is part of it…

During Advent we are actually encountering 3 different Advents.

The first is the ane that already happened – Jesus being built-in. We're getting set up to remember that with lessons and carols – with pageants and crèches. That part involves remembering and wrapping our minds around what CS Lewis called the master miracle that all other miracles signal to the phenomenon of a holy beyond our understanding God becoming a baby – taking on flesh and home among us.

The second Advent nosotros prepare for is Christ'southward render in glorious majesty – one solar day in the future… the timing of which no one- non even Jesus knows…that is an event we are supposed to long for also. More about that in a infinitesimal.

The 3rd Advent is Jesus beingness born in our own heart. That of course is the only Appearance over which nosotros have whatsoever real say.

These three Advents are all strands running through the scriptures over the Advent season.

Now I don't know about y'all, but for a dandy deal of my Episcopal life, I had no idea about the 2d one! I didn't know that Advent had anything to do with Jesus returning! Christmas was about Jesus the baby. But the scriptures for Appearance point frontwards in time besides every bit astern.

 Yep, they talk virtually the birth of Jesus, but they also talk about his eventual return in glorious majesty. That is what Jesus refers to when in our passage he talks about "concerning that twenty-four hour period or hr no one knows."

God's rule on earth is not complete every bit we can see looking at the news or our own lives for that matter. But Jesus says that one day he volition return to finish what he began.

Nosotros live during the in between time – we live later on Jesus came, merely earlier he has put all things correct.

We have some instructions for how God's dominion is supposed to be – just and merciful, and equally God's people we are supposed to be unsatisfied with how things are.

So if you feel distraught and powerless and frustrated about the state of the world, you are exactly in the right identify to begin Advent.

You can check that little box on your Christmas to do list:

Feel dissatisfied with how the world is…bank check

In Advent nosotros are invited into longing…and longing is about dissatisfaction with the way things are.

We are supposed to desire God's justice and dazzler and goodness and mercy enough that we long for God himself – For him to return in glorious majesty … as our collect says, to guess both the living and the dead.

To be honest, I tin find the whole idea of Jesus really returning as approximate dreadfully nervus-wracking. I'm not proud of that fact, it'south simply true.  For that reason, when I have prayed "Come Lord Jesus!", I think from God'southward point of view I must sound pretty uncertain – I might have fifty-fifty said subliminally, No demand to rush.

But this year – well, this twelvemonth is dissimilar.

For the kickoff time, I tin can actually pray "Come Lord Jesus."

Perhaps that is truthful for you also.

At some points in history it is easier to come across how much we need a savior.

We see the political upheavals, the damage washed in natural disasters, the huge numbers of people suffering and we tin can pray with conviction "Come Lord Jesus!" That is longing for the second Advent.

But I alluded to a 3rd strand of preparation. That is the Advent of Jesus being born in our ain heart. This is the just Advent over which we have any real say.

Jesus gives us a wonderful image to consider in our Gospel today. It is of a doorkeeper waiting for the return of the master of the house. So let's recall for a minute about the role of a doorkeeper.

The doorkeeper has several duties but the most significant one is to welcome abode the resident- to open the door, to carry in any baggage, to greet with warmth. Jesus emphasizes that the doorkeeper must be ready at whatsoever time – in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows or in the morning (these were the 4 watches of the solar day). The doorkeeper must not autumn asleep – the doorkeeper ought not slap a sticky note on the door saying "back in five."

The doorkeeper's master duty is to wait for the return of some other…in club to welcome him or her in.  It is quite a deferential role.  A proficient doorkeeper would not be talking on his or her cell phone while opening the door. The whole demeanor of the doorkeeper is undistracted considerateness.

And that is a snapshot of who we are to be in Advent. We are supposed to exist a doorkeeper waiting to welcome Christ himself into our middle.

How do we do that? How do we – masters of over scheduling, victims of a consumer culture aptitude on lark – proud badge carriers of the I did too much lodge… How could we even offset to arroyo the waiting humble posture of the doorman?

Hither's a thought. What if you permit your dissatisfaction prompt your prayer of welcome?

This is well-nigh using your actual life – the ane you are living now – and welcoming Christ into it.

What if you started saying/ praying at any point in the day, Welcome Lord Jesus.

It is quite simple. It is so curt you lot can practise it almost anywhere. You lot tin welcome him into your morn commute, you tin welcome him equally you begin your desk work, your time writing checks to charity – that's a dangerous one – but it volition anoint you. You tin welcome him as yous wash up dishes after dinner or you can welcome him into your sadness when you miss someone who is no longer with you, welcome Lord Jesus into this weary world… Welcome Lord Jesus into your weary cocky. This week try it out. Sometime this afternoon – waiting in line somewhere – just pray it silently.  "Welcome Jesus." See what happens when you do it.

Because simply every bit Advent holds our longing for God, information technology also holds God's longing for the states. Jesus says equally he looks over Jerusalem – non long earlier he knows he is going to the cantankerous – he says, "how much I wished to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you were not willing."  God longs for us…through thick and thin.

Welcome Jesus, welcome.

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Source: https://www.theadventboston.org/sermon-by-the-revd-margery-kennelly-december-3-2017-the-first-sunday-of-advent/

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