IS THIS REALLY MY
LIFE?
December 23, 2007
sermon given at St. Thomas Episcopal Church,
Medina, Washington
This year, in anticipation of the pre-Halloween onslaught of Christmas ditties on the radio and in stores, I put together a collection of Advent songs. No, not Christmas songs – Advent songs.
Granted, I had to get a little creative. My special mp3 playlist includes such holiday favorites as “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)” by R.E.M. and “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord,” from “Godspell.” It also includes a Beatles classic with a double entendre: “Here Comes the Sun.”
Spread throughout the list are Peter Hallock settings of all seven ancient “O Antiphons” and no fewer than five different recordings of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” The two-hour extravaganza ends with several songs about Mary, including Sting’s recording of “Gabriel’s Message,” Franz Biebl’s “Ave Maria,” and a Bach “Magnificat.” I have often complained about how few Advent songs there are, but you know, I didn’t do too badly.
To the casual observer, this project may have seemed like mere procrastination from buying Christmas presents. But no, it was my way of getting ready—not in a mad rush to the mall, but in musical reflection on the season of Advent.
In the chapel three weeks ago, I told the Sunday school kids that people can walk right through the mystery of Christmas every year and not even know what’s there. Advent is our appointed time to get ready. Shape up. Get all your ducks in a row. Clean house. Then brace yourself. Something BIG is going to happen.
But what if I’m not ready? What if I thought I’d have plenty of time to get ready, only to find the time has slipped away before my eyes? What if it’s ten minutes ’til the guests arrive, and the meat still isn’t defrosted? What if I still have a long list of presents to buy? What if the curtain is about to rise, and I don’t know my lines? What if the organ prelude is over, and the acolytes haven’t shown up yet? What if the rector is leaving, and I don’t know what’s coming next? Aaaahhhh!!!
Shhh. I don’t need to panic. It’s so easy to forget that the guest is also the host.
“Prepare the way of the Lord!” John cries at the Jordan River. “Get ready! Clean up your lives! God is going to burn the chaff!”
Was John the Baptist prepared for Jesus? I doubt it. John saw the evils of the world as clearly as anyone could, but he was awfully preoccupied with punishing those who had fallen short. And Jesus clearly wasn’t.
We read John’s doubts in the message he sent to Jesus after his arrest: “Are you really the one we’ve been waiting for? Or should we wait for another?” In that prison, John must have been asking himself, “Is this really my life? How can what God wants be better than what I had planned?”
Thirty years earlier, was Mary prepared for Jesus? I really doubt it. Can anyone be prepared to give birth, let alone without any legitimate father? If I were a photographer, I’d stage a shot of a frightened-looking 14-year-old girl in her bathroom, leaning heavily against the sink, a test strip in her hand. And I’d call it “The Annunciation.”
And how about Joseph? Confused, jilted … the only rational explanation for Mary’s pregnancy was another man. Joseph could have publicly exposed Mary, but instead, he planned to “dismiss her quietly” and lessen the impact on her. He must have loved Mary so much.
Mary and Joseph must have asked themselves again and again, “Is this really my life? How can what God wants be better than what I had planned?”
We do our best to prepare for Jesus, don’t we? We untangle the Christmas lights and put on the Bing Crosby Christmas CD. We saw the bottom off the tree and try for two hours to set it up straight. We dutifully check off our Christmas lists. And these are good things to do, but we’re not really preparing for Jesus, are we? We’re just preparing for the generic American winter holiday, with its triune message: “Giving is good; receiving is good; boosting the economy is VERY good, and it’s up to YOU to make it happen!”
So we try to free ourselves from commercialism. We take on a daily devotional reading, but then we berate ourselves for falling six days behind. We make time for quiet, only to find that the baby isn’t going to nap today after all. We swear that this year, we’re not going to do as much! But we actually do more. We become obsessed with self-improvement, and this, too, saps our energy.
When we realize our anxious attempts to be perfect aren’t working, we all too often replace them with anxious attempts to do just a little better. But it’s not our level of productiveness or our ability to catch the Christmas spirit that’s the problem. The real enemy is anxiety. It still feels like it’s all up to us.
We seem to have forgotten that the guest is also the host.
What do we want from this season of Advent bleeding into Christmas? A feeling we had in childhood? A perfect home ready to receive guests? A functional family with each member showing love to every other? At the very least, a sense that our friends and family won’t humiliate us for being negligent about sending out Christmas cards? (I’m sorry, but if you don’t notice who doesn’t send you a card, you can bet you’re not alone!) So what are we running ourselves ragged to achieve?
In today’s prayer known as the Collect, we prayed, “Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself.”
A pure conscience is hard to come by, isn’t it? But note that we’re asking God to purify it for us, as part of God’s everyday work. We don’t have the time or the ability to purify our own consciences. And luckily, we don’t have the responsibility either.
We also asserted that Jesus is coming. And isn’t Jesus always coming? Already here? Not here yet? That’s the funny thing when we talk about Jesus—he’s always with us, he’s always arriving, and he’s going to come again in the future. Some call this a puzzle to be solved. But I call it a mystery to be savored.
As John saw Jesus coming to the Jordan River, he said, “Hold it. I can’t baptize you; you should be baptizing me.” But Jesus insisted.
When Jesus, the guest, arrives on our doorstep, we say, “I’m sorry, Lord. I’ve been preparing a mansion for you, and I’ve failed miserably. The house is a wreck. The kids have been no help at all. The food isn’t ready. And yes, that’s a jack-o-lantern frozen on the front step. Please don’t come in; I’m not ready for you yet!”
But Jesus insists. Jesus insists. He doesn’t care how clean your house is—you can just move that pile of unsorted bills so he has a chair to sit in.
Oh, and by the way, you didn’t need to prepare food; Jesus himself IS the main course. He is the guest, the host, and the meal.
We want perfection, but we’re not going to get it. Instead, we need to listen to today’s Psalmist, who cries out, “Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved!” So don’t pray for perfection. Pray for restoration of your relationship with God and salvation from fear and doubt. Understand that Jesus is here, and that through him, you are God’s beloved child. You are succeeding at some things and failing at others. In short, you are learning.
Yes, this really is your life. And what God wants for you is far better than you can possibly imagine. You’ll never get there. And you’ll get there. And you’re already there. It’s not a puzzle to be solved; it’s a mystery to be savored. Amen.