First Sunday of Advent
Advent has been utilized in the church calander for thousands of years to cultivate this sense of longing. To set aside a time each year for reflection, in anticipation for God to come. not in a sentimental way. Your looking at the long view of history as God's people have marched through, some faithfully, some not, and have cried out 'How long.' under foreign oppression/domination.
You may notice a subtle differences between hymns like, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" which is an advent hymn which looks forward to Christ coming. Verses, "Joy To The World" which is a Christmas hymn. One is tension and one is release, Advent represents this tension, and Christmas represents this release the fulfillment of promise.
In our culture today we see people wanting to skip over the tension and rush to get the release. Yet within this season of longing and cultivating this ache for God to act in history that is what makes the fulfillment meaningful. How do you communicate that sense of longing in a culture such as ours? How do you cultivate this sense of anticipation in a society like this? Where we view history from the upside, that when we read the Gospels we don't have the full blown sense of what has gone on historically for 500 years in the lives and history of God's people, twice as long as we have been a nation. How do we, in a society that is just so use to instant gratification, how do we cultivate that ache for God to act?
Read the book of Revelation, where the saints cry out from under the alter (this is the tension) How long before you vindicate us? How would a group of people such as ourselves hear that when we are not the oppressed, we are not on the underside of history, how could we possibly understand the righteous cry of thousands of years waiting for God to act. How can we do that? In our society today, how can we do that?
The Gospels provide several examples of positive and negative. The question is, 'How do we live in what's real?' 'How do we recognize reality?' verses ' What is our own pretense' or 'Our own lust for power, prestige, or position.' How do we even recognize what is real and what is illusion.
Recognizing God's ideal and how much work is it to get to that place? And yet if there is not much agreement on the premiss how could we possibly move forward? How do we avoid looking at the whole view and turn inward and recognizing I'm actually part of the problem. How many of you are willing to say that? Or are we quickly going to spiritualize things because we don't want to think painfully. How do we turn inward and to start to make meaningful change? How do we recognize what is true about ourselves and move forward? It is easy to look at things from a distance.
Where does this sense of longing come from?
Exodus
four hundred years of God's people living under oppression. Waiting for four hundred years for God to do something. As you pass on to your children, generation after generation that God will act, waiting and waiting, you in your life will not see that come to pass in your lifetime, imagine the angst/tension and the ache for God to do something. Joshua leading them into the promise land waiting 40 years, creating that tension actually make the release more meaningful. Entering the promise land and doing well for a while, they are concurring, they are taking over and they are doing what God wants them to do in a righteous way and they do it and they settle into the promise land.
Then David represents the high water mark of righteousness under the old covenant, they are a United Kingdom, they are autonomous. We take that for granted living in the United States, but being self governing is a big deal being independent of foreign government living in the ancient world. David has a son, Solomon who asks the Lord for wisdom, Solomon brings in these foreign wives and with foreign wives comes with different religions and idolatry, the kingdom splits as a result of Solomon introducing idolatrous practices. Judea in the south and Israel in the north, this is the result of Solomon's sinfulness. They go into exile and they are no longer autonomous self governing people they are now living under foreign oppression. Syrians come in first then the babylonians, the babylonians cart them off and they spend 70 years or so in exile outside of their land.
How could we be God's people if we are being carted all over the known world by foreign oppressors, what kind of angst would that create people? In our culture we don't know what it is like to have our face grounded in the dirt like that, to be constantly mocked. For a thousand years this goes on and your waiting for God to definitively act and crying out. Because it wasn't universally sinful people, God preserves for himself a remnant, it is the majority that lead these nations into this idolatrous practices, and there is still a righteous remnant within that, and they go into exile. Imagine being a person who is waiting for the fulfillment of God's promise. There is the temptation to compromise.
What ever threat you are to Herod, You would end up dead, weather you were his children or not. any perceived threat to his power he would act violently.
Matthew 2
The Magi Visit the Messiah
2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
Why was Herod disturbed? Power threat. Herod recognizes the power appropriately. Jesus was a threat to him.
4 When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written:
6 "But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.'"
This is where Herod's alarm started to go off, He hears Jesus is to be a ruler.
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him."
Manipulation, How can I bend this to my advantage. Herod will not surrender his power.
9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to herod, they returned to their country by another route.
If Jesus threatens your way of being in the world, would your fist response be simple faith and obedience? Truthfully...
In fact other than Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, and The Rich Young Ruler, would you stand a chance? The people who respond to God favorably are not usually the people who are part of the religious establishment. And you see over and over again and throughout the whole Gospel, when Jesus is a threat to someone's position they will act violently. If Jesus threaten your level of comfort how would you react? Would you willingly give your check book to some stranger? Has Jesus really disrupted your pocketbook? Interrupted the middle class dream? How many of you know what want is? How many of you have gave until it hurts? Put off your retirement, you have sacrificed in some huge way for the purpose of the Gospel?
Notes taken by: Lorelllawrence@comcast.net
Any errors or miscommunication please refer to me not the pastor, the intent is for you to have the notes for review in the series, also to reflect on during the week.
God Bless,
Lorell
Service by: Pastor Peter Denio