Advent I 2015 - Karen McIntyre's sermon

Jeremiah 33:14-16 New International Version (NIV)

¹⁴ ‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah.

¹⁵ ‘In those days and at that time
    I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line;
    he will do what is just and right in the land.
¹⁶ In those days Judah will be saved
    and Jerusalem will live in safety.
This is the name by which it^[a] will be called:
    The Lord Our Righteous Savior.'

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 New International Version (NIV)

⁹ How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you? ¹⁰ Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.

¹¹ Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. ¹² May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. ¹³ May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

Luke 21:25-36 New International Version (NIV)

²⁵ “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. ²⁶ People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. ²⁷ At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. ²⁸ When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

²⁹ He told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. ³⁰ When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. ³¹ Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.

³² “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. ³³ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

³⁴ “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. ³⁵ For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. ³⁶ Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”

 

Well, what a way to start this Advent season! The word advent means coming. You thought you were coming here this Sunday to begin focusing on the first coming of Jesus - with images of "Peace" - "Righteousness" - "Safety" - and instead our Gospel lesson skips right to the end of the story, to the second coming of Christ - with images of "Anguish" - "Terror" - "Death". In light of what's happening in our world today, I believe that what we need this morning is to hear the wonderful Advent messages from the angels, "Fear Not" and "Peace on Earth, goodwill toward Man." And so, that is the message I promise you. I'm going to challenge you to imagine and think and feel, as I take you to uncomfortable places, in order to get from "Fear" to "Fear Not," from "Death" to "Life," from the ending back to the beginning.

As we work our way through, we're going to look at reactions, so first let's look at the types of instinctual reactions. In the face of danger, there are three primal reactions for self-preservation: FIGHT, FLIGHT, and FREEZE. Each of us has one reaction that tends to dominate.

So back to our first lesson… What did people expect from the promised Messiah? They were expecting a righteous branch from David, a king that would deliver the people of Judah & Israel to safety. They didn't get what they expected, did they? Almost as soon as we hear the angels telling the shepherds “do not be afraid,” we have the story of them telling Joseph, “your family is in danger, flee to Egypt;” and of Herod ordering the murder of male children under two in the region surrounding Bethlehem. Can you imagine the chaos? What instinct can be stronger than self-preservation? The instinct of a parent to protect their child. Do you think that some of the parents got wind of the annihilation and tried to flee or hide to keep their sons alive? Wouldn’t you? And you would pray that a distant relative or stranger would assist you, give you or your child food and shelter, help you to find a safe place to live… perhaps to wait out the danger or perhaps to start anew.

Our only clue, to how few of the boys survived, is the passage from Jeremiah chapter 31, “Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” Perhaps those who might have helped were afraid to put themselves and their own families at risk.

Mary & Joseph were the lucky ones. They began to flee early enough to make it out of the region before the murder began. But picture this... First Mary and Joseph travel 90 miles by foot from Nazareth to Bethlehem; they leave their home and all they know behind. And when they get to what was once the home of Joseph’s ancestors, they don’t have any family or friends to stay with; they can’t find anyone to take them in. They end up accepting a shelter fit for livestock, because it’s better than no shelter at all. Now they face another journey of 300-400 miles to Egypt with no idea of how or where they will live; or when, even if, they can return to the home they left behind in Nazareth. That’s daunting. But you would do that if you believed it was the only way to save your child, wouldn’t you? And you would pray that you could gain entry to this foreign land and find foreigners that would assist you, give your family food and shelter, help you to find a safe place to live while you wait out the danger.

Let’s flash forward about 1940 years, when Jews, not unlike Jesus’ family, are trying desperately to flee, first Hitler’s Germany, and then other Nazi-occupied territories. Some acted on their initial instinct to flee or to send family members to safety when the unrest first began. Anne Frank’s uncles were among those that were able to obtain visas to the US and re-settled in the Boston area. Her immediate family, however, first fled to the Netherlands where they had family ties. It wasn't until later that they began the application process for visas to the US. By this time, American anxieties and suspicions towards European immigrants had increased, and the US government enacted restrictions that made an already difficult process, impossible for most. Despite family members already in the country and highly-connected people making appeals to the National Refugee Service on their behalf, Anne Frank’s family was not able to obtain visas to the US. They later were forced into hiding, but were eventually discovered. Anne, her sister, and her mother, together with millions of other Jews, died in a concentration camp.

Who remembers Anne’s words from a 1944 entry in her diary, "It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."

While the Franks, and other like them in occupied Europe, were trying to fight, flee, or hide to protect themselves and their families – And wouldn’t you? – here in the US, people were also filled with fear. They were afraid of these foreigners: maybe there were spies among them, or a relative back in Germany that could be used as leverage to force them into actions that could put us, and our families, at risk.

Now I’ve really sunk this message into an ugly place, this pit where everyone is reacting out of fear. Our reactions to fear, as I’ve said, are primal – preservation of self and family, and sometimes, of family over self.

But, thank God we have heroes. These are the amazing people that seem to be programmed with a heightened altruistic instinct to put themselves in harm’s way to save or protect fellow human beings - often complete strangers:  firefighters, the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, military, humanitarian workers.

These are the trained emergency workers that ran towards danger on the morning of 9/11, when others followed their instincts to run out. And those fleeing, who put themselves at risk, because they came upon a person that couldn’t make it out without their help. Or those that initially seemed to freeze, and then weighed options and came up with plans that involved working with or assisting others to save one another.

These are the men and women that hid Jews, sharing meagre food rations, often for years – despite the ever-present danger to their own families. The ones that ran networks to smuggle Jews to safety. The ones that snuck back into the Warsaw ghetto to try to help get others out.

These are the men and women and children, like you and me, who despite our fear of strangers, remember that Jesus once was a refugee and a stranger in Egypt, and that people assisted his family in their flight and settling into a foreign land; and remember what Jesus taught us in Mark chapter 3, that every human being is our brother and our sister; and remember that Jesus died on the cross to save us, and to secure us a place in his heavenly home when we come to him in paradise.

 

So, we suppress our instinctual reaction to fight or to flight, and we freeze for a bit. We don’t react out of our fear, we pause to pray and focus on Christ, then when we chose to act – not react – we do so out of love for our human family, all of our brothers and sisters, including the refugees, who like Mary and Joseph, and the Frank’s, had no choice but to attempt to flee to a foreign land.

We believe it when the angels say “Fear Not” because we know that Christ came into this world to die for us that we no longer have to fear death, but will have eternal life.

Outside of the Bataclan Concert Hall in Paris, a discussion between a father and his little three year old son ensued when a reporter asked the boy if he understood what had happened here yesterday.

The boy says:  We have to be really careful, we have to change houses.

F:  Oh no don’t worry… we don’t need to move out. France is our home.

B:  But there’s bad guys daddy… They have guns and they can shoot us because they’re really, really mean.

F:  It’s okay, they might have guns but we have flowers.

B:  But flowers don’t do anything daddy.

F:  Of course they do, look, everyone is putting flowers here. It’s to fight the guns.

B:  And the candles, too?

F:  Yes son, it’s to remember the people who are gone yesterday.

B:  The flowers and candles are here to protect us, daddy?

F:  Yes.

Yes indeed, the flowers and candles are there [point to altar] to remember the people who are gone – and right in the middle of them is the Cross… our reminder that they may be gone to us, but they are alive with Christ. Fear Not, through that Cross, Christ conquered death, and in turn, will bring us to a new life in his kingdom.

And that is the message this morning: we can move from "Fear" to "Fear Not," from "Death" to "Life," from an ending to a new beginning, when we invite Christ into our home and our hearts.

Amen