Second Sunday of Advent (Year B)

4 December 2011

St Matthew’s Episcopal Church, St Paul, MN

Entering into Promise and Driving towards Fulfillment

Dr Michael W. DeLashmutt

Who as a child doesn’t remember the Feast of Obligation that is the summer road trip? As a kid, my sisters and I would be packed into the van so that mom or dad could drag us to some half-deteriorating dinosaur theme park in South Dakota, or the Bridges of Madison County in IA, or the site of the Battle of Little Big Horn in Wyoming. As we would begin the day’s journey, three of the most important pieces information that we kids could be told at the outset were 1) the name of the town where we would stop for the night, 2) the distance to that town, and 3) whether or not the hotel we were staying at had a pool. Given that information, we would sit in the back seats of our family van and stare at the spot on the map where the town was and we would will ourselves there with all the energy we could muster.

When the place-names of Wall, SD or Des Moines, IA or Sheridan, WY would finally start showing up on the mileage signs, the relief in knowing that our day’s journey was finally coming to its end was intoxicating. And when at long last we would pass by one of those little green road signs that hailed our arrival into town (‘Welcome to Bozeman, MT population 34,321’), we kids would struggle to jut our hands or feet or heads to the front of the van so that we could claim the bragging rights of being the first person in the family to officially enter the city.

However, after crossing the city limits that joy of arriving would soon be replaced with a familiar feeling of waiting. Even though we had reached our destination, we still had to find the hotel, check in, get our room keys, franticly change into our swimming suits, and wait for our parents to order their much needed gins and tonic at the hotel bar, all before we kids could finally jump into the swimming pool and truly enjoy the end of our day.

In the Church’s year, Advent is kind of like a childhood road trip. Ordinary time is that flat stretch of I-80 between Lincoln, NE and Denver, CO where the road hardly bends and the horizon seems to stretch on for miles. Yet from the first Sunday of Advent – which is the New Years day of the Church’s calendar – we celebrate that our long wait is nearing its end! And so, as we cross into a new year and anticipate arriving at our destination City, our readings during this season focus our minds into two key directions: promise and fulfillment.

First, we are encouraged to celebrate the good promise of God concerning human history and the cosmos: Every tear will be wiped away, every lonely heart will be filled with love, God will fix a broken Universe. In Isaiah and in our Psalm, the prophetic and hymnic imaginations draw for us a picture of the coming of God's Kingdom, where every human need is met by the God who brings us into a world so perfected that 'righteousness and peace will kiss each other.' Isaiah speaks of the Character of this God as the one who will:

“feed his flock like a shepherd; … gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep’

And the Psalter speaks of this coming as a time of favor marked by renewal and growth:

The LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.

As Christians, we look at the Isaiah and Psalm texts from the perspective set by Mark’s interpretive lenses. Following Mark’s cue, we see the Isaiah text as being uniquely fulfilled in the birth of Christ.

“As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, "See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'" (Mark 1.2-3)

I like to think that if St Mark could have met Charles Wesley, the hymn writer of one of our hymns today, he would have asked him to put the following into John the Baptist’s mouth:

Come, Thou long-expected Jesus,
Born to set Thy people free.
From our fears and sins release us;
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel's Strength and Consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art--
Dear desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.

It’s Advent, Church. Throughout ordinary time, in the midst of wars, droughts, floods, and recessions, we’ve been on one hell of a summer road trip. Looking towards God’s promises, as we cross into a new year, let us all jut our hands and hearts towards that invisible city limit so we can celebrate our arrival into promise!

But wait, where’s the hotel? the pool? the Gins and Tonic? You’ll recall that this journey that is Advent points our minds into two directions (promise and fulfillment). How do we understand the fulfillment of these promises, especially when the valleys aren’t yet raised and the hills aren’t yet lowered; love and faithfulness have yet to meet; ghteousness and mercy haven’t even gotten close to first base (to use the language of our readings today).

It is here, I think, that dialoguing with our Epistle is helpful.

But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.” (2 Peter 3:8-15a)

The members of the congregation to whom the author of 2 Peter was writing were wrestling with the tension between promise and fulfillment, the yes/no and now/later paradox that Advent brings to our attention.

The earliest Christians staked their lives on the hope that Jesus would return at any time and upon returning he would set the world aright. Many literally believed that they would not die before his coming again in Glory. As the first Christians did die, either through martyrdom or more disturbingly through old age, the Church needed to rethink the nature of how the promise of the kingdom is fulfilled in the here and now. The author of 2 Peter is showing us three ways (three Ps) that can help us deal with the tension or paradox of promise of fulfillment:

1. Perspective: He or she appeals to the difference between the God’s time and our time (‘a day is like a thousand years’),

2. Patience: He or she reads the delay as an act of God’s favor ( the lord is…patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance’) and

3. Piety: He or she sees this delay as an opportunity for us to excel in pious living (‘strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish’).

Clearly perspective, patience and piety are helpful ways of navigating the distance between God’s promise and our experience of fulfulment, but if I’m honest with you – I need something more, not something different from, but something in addition to perspective, patience and piety. I want us to conclude by thinking about how we can live the journey of promise to fulfillment in the here and now, both in here, in this place, and out there beyond these walls.

Three ways the kingdom has come and is coming: Matter, Model and Means

1. Image: God can be found in the world around us

To help me make this first point, I’m going to enlist the help of the Saint who we remember today, St John of Damascus.

Saint John of Damascus was the last Father of the Early Church period. Born in the 8th century in Damascus, John was of the tradition of the Church which we refer to as Iconodules – those who venerated icons. The opposite of an Iconodule is an Iconoclast – one who seeks to destroy icons or images. This debate raged in the 8th century of the Church and divided the church between those who believed that to represent god in artistic forms would break the first commandment and be tantamount to idolatry and those who believed that God can and should be represented in art. I should say, Iconoclasm is a reactionary tendency in the church which crops up periodically and is not at all confined to the early church or late medieval church periods. If you visit the Lady Chapel (or the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary) in Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire, you’ll find a 16th century English equivalent of Iconoclasm. After the Dissolution of the Monesteries by Henry VIII, The Iconoclast General William Dowsing had the stained glass of the lady chapel destroyed and the many statues of our lady defaced. To this day, the stark white walls of the chapel and the craggy and broken pocks on the walls remind us of our fear of images.

Going back to John of Damascus in the 8^th century – the wisdom which he has given us is a value of images in particular and the value of matter in general. He reminds us that in Christ something has really changed about God and god’s relationship to the world. Speaking to the allegation by the Iconoclasts that representations of God broke the first commandment, he writes:

Before the Incarnation, it had indeed been improper to portray the invisible God in visible form; but God, by taking fleshly form in the person of Jesus Christ, had blessed the whole realm of matter and made it a fit instrument for manifesting the Divine Splendor. He had reclaimed everything in heaven and earth for His service, and had made water and oil, bread and wine, means of conveying His grace to men. He had made painting and sculpture and music and the spoken word, and indeed all our daily tasks and pleasures, the common round of everyday life, a means whereby man might glorify God and be made aware of Him.

So, matter matters. We know God’s kingdom is here because God is revealing godself to us. Chiefly through the advent of his blessed son, our lord Jesus Christ, and then also through the sacraments which he has given us to bring him present to us in ways mysterious, but also through sculpture, music, and everyday life. God shows himself to us in the stuff all around us, and we, who are illuminated by his Spirit (remember back to the end of the Gospel reading today that the one of whom John the Baptizer proclaimed will baptize us with the Holy Spirit), are able to see and discern God’s presence in the world. And seeing God and his kingdom enable us to live out the second ‘m’ – modeling.

2. The Church Models the Kingdom (Back to 2 Peter and the End of Mark)

I think because we can see God present in the world, we are encouraged and (through the spirit, enabled) to model the kingdom of which the prophets promised. As Church, we have the responsibility in our dealings with one another (both within local congregations, and ecumenically across church lines) to model characteristics of justice, equality, forgiveness, and peace which are marks of the Kingdom. In so modeling, we point to the God who is present in and to the world through Christ.

3. The Church is the Means of the Kingdom

Finally, by being models of God’s Kingdom, I believe we act as a means of its coming. Some may read 2 Peter 3.11 (, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God) to mean that the Church can somehow make that big apocalyptic day of the Lord happen quicker if we just do the right kinds of things. This is one of the theologies that sits behind the popularity of ‘Left Behind’ theology. I don’t think this is at all what it means for us to hasten or to be a means of the fulfillment of God’s promise. I think, however, that as the Church is an agent for the kind of kingdom which god has disclosed in Christ (a kingdom marked by justice, equality, forgiveness and peace), the world around us changes and so benefits from the coming of God’s kingdom. It is god’s action in his church which enacts his peaceable kingdom.