I preached this sermon on Sunday, December 1, 2024, the First Sunday of Advent. The lectionary text cited is Luke 21:25-36.
If you are relatively new to the Episcopal Church, one thing you will learn very quickly at this time of year is that Episcopalians really want you to know that Advent is not the same as Christmas. And once you begin to profess, in hushed, knowing tones, your particular love for Advent…I guarantee you are well on your way to becoming a bonafide Episcopalian!
The world around us might be playing Christmas carols at full volume and decking the halls with boughs of holly, but we, by God, we are the select few who know that Advent is not all fun and games. It’s serious business. It has apocalyptic Scripture readings for us to enjoy(!) and hymns about the Second Coming of Christ(!) and a decided lack of frivolity.
And for all that, I do love it. Advent is the slow, thoughtful descent into winter darkness, as candle flames tremble in the night and our souls reach out towards the cold, silent stars, looking for a sign of hope.
But let’s be honest with ourselves—a lot of us sort of do Advent and Christmas at the same time. We alternate between cozy cheer and prayerful pondering depending on when and where we find ourselves. Matt and I put up our Christmas tree this past weekend and we did some Black Friday shopping with the best of them.
And yet he is engaged to an Episcopal priest, the poor guy. As we were driving, Matt put on some cheerful Christmas tunes and then it was my turn to pick a song and I put on that absolute Advent banger, “Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending.” I wildly waved my arms around in the car, conducting the unseen choir of King’s College, Cambridge while Matt patiently drove and listened. And…that really sums up our relationship, now that I think about it.
But I do find it restful and gratifying that here, in church, we embrace a bit of reflective, anticipatory energy in these weeks. We let Advent be what it is- we let it be its intense, quiet self. We allow it to make us squirm a bit with wonder and and longing and even a little fearfulness, if only so that when Christmas does arrive, we are fully prepared to be undone by the simple, gentle loveliness of a baby in a manger.
I think the pairing of these two seasons right alongside each other is helpful in developing our spiritual palates, because, to be honest, life is an acquired taste…most often bitter and sweet on the tongue at the same time. And we are learning, as we grow in faith, to appreciate the more complex flavors.
As I was thinking the other day about the bitter and the sweet, and the peculiar blessings of Advent, all of the sudden I thought of my great uncle Dick—my grandma’s brother. Now, Dick was a unique character. I think I would describe him as Advent in the flesh—pale and slim and serious; a man of very few, yet very deliberate words. And when Dick came to visit, it always made me a little nervous because, although a kind man, he was not like other people. You would come into my grandma’s kitchen and suddenly there he’d be, sitting in the lamplight at the kitchen table with a cup of weak coffee, surveying the room, saying nothing. If I’m honest, Uncle Dick was a complete mystery and as a kid he scared me a little— I just didn’t know what to make of him.
Then one day, without any explanation, when I was about 8 or 9, he told me to come with him, and we walked down the street to a little restaurant and he bought me a strawberry shortcake and we ate it in silence. And on the way home, we stopped at the dime store and he bought me a package of those old fashioned Ticonderoga pencils, the kind you have to sharpen. The whole time he said almost nothing at all.
I can’t tell you why, but of the many gifts I’ve received in my life, for some reason that outing with the shortcake and the pencils sticks with me. It haunts me with its quiet sweetness to this very day.
I think Advent is sort of like that—kind, stern, a bit hidden from view, and very precious as the years go by, especially once you realize that life is more than just bright lights and loud noise. Because it is the quiet moments and the quiet people and the quiet revelations of love that often make everything else make sense.
We need those Advent people, the Uncle Dicks of this world, to tether us to the value of that which is unadorned and profound. For it is their arrival which prepares our hearts for the winter seasons of life, when we cannot see clearly and when we need to rely on that something which is deep and dim and cool, long buried in our souls beneath the striving and the haste.
And this is exactly what Jesus is trying to convey to his disciples in this morning’s Gospel and what he wants us to realize, too. We might hear all of the imagery he speaks of—the roaring sea and the shaken heavens—and think that the apocalypse is the part of the story that matters most to Jesus. We might think that war and ruin are his chosen manner of appearing. But that is a misreading of his words.
Jesus is not apocalyptic noise; he is the quiet revelation who comes afterwards. That’s why Jesus tells his disciples over and over again to stay alert, aware, attentive, suggesting that, just like when he came the first time as a baby in a manger, perhaps his second coming will also be easy to miss. Like a thief in the night or a light in the darkness or…like a quiet visitor who slips in unannounced, gazing at you across the kitchen table over a cup of weak coffee. We must be ready to recognize him when he comes.
Because here’s the thing—apocalypse and noise are always around us. They’re nothing special. No, it is the cool, clear, quiet of grace and peace and the advent of those who bear these things which is transformative. It is ones such as these who reveal to us something worth knowing: that God will conquer the world and will conquer our hearts not through sword and terror but through strawberry shortcakes. And Ticonderoga pencils.
Jesus is many things, and he asks us to be many things, but above all he wishes for us to be unprovoked by fear and satisfied by the simplicity of love. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away, he says to us. My authority will not crumble like a temple, my hope will not decay like a body in the tomb, because true authority and true hope is here, in the advent of another sort of kingdom. The kind we are baptized into. The kind that indeed comes descending upon the clouds and lo, it is quiet, and it is gracious, and it is love.
Which is exactly what I hope each of us will seek, in our own way, during the next few weeks. It’s ok—do Advent and Christmas all at once if you need to. Go ahead and listen to all the songs and trim your trees and attend your parties and engage in whatever deeds of goodwill you can.
But also stop, every once in a while, and be quiet, and tend to that hidden corner of yourself where festiveness gives way to something deeper, something more substantive and kind than anything that can be written on a greeting card. Learn to savor that bittersweetness at the bottom of your heart, that mixture of weak coffee and shortcake, where God abides in us.
My Uncle Dick died years ago, but every time I happen to a sharpen a pencil, I am reminded of him, and I feel a twinge of gratitude for his grave, lonely gentleness. Thanks to him, I know what Advent looks and feels like. And thanks to him and his visits, I think that, should God come again in my own life, my heart will be attentive and ready and a little less afraid of an unexpected visitor.
And we’ll stare at one another across the table, God and I, as the winter shadows lengthen, and the lamplight burns and the world at last comes home to itself. And we’ll pour another cup of coffee. And no words will be necessary.
By Another Road 