The 3rd Sunday of Advent
December 16, 2012
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
December 16, 2012
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
Good morning! So I start with a confession and the confession is that if ever there was a weekend where I enter this pulpit just a little unsteady and unsure it’s today. You want to know that on Friday morning I set about my discipline of trying . . . well actually Thursday night I set about a discipline of beginning to prayerfully consider what might be preached this day and then Friday morning the circumstances of that day quite frankly turned the page to another place.
So it’s the third Sunday of Advent in our ritual, we being a ritual people. The third Sunday of Advent the scripture is and particularly the Old Testament and the canticle and the New Testament reading are about rejoicing. The hymn, the gospel hymn, we just sang, “Life Up Your Hearts Rejoice.” The third Sunday of Advent we light the pink candle or the rose-colored candle and in the Advent ritual, this is the Sunday we often call stir-up Sunday because of the collect that we pray today, or, rejoice Sunday. And, clearly that’s just not going to do today. That just doesn’t work. It just doesn’t fit. It’s not real life today.
So I just have a few words because quite frankly as I struggle to bring speech I’m quite aware of Walter Bruggerman who said we often come to church to bring to speech our pain--and I know that’s exactly where we are today. What I want to be careful about today is my words, so I want them to be less rather than more. I want them to be less because I don’t want to add to the fervor of the anxiety and the shock that is. I’ve intentionally not watched a lot of news. I have seen a few things posted and written and I want to be careful not to offer any platitudes and I want to be more than careful not to grind any political ax. But, instead I just want to stand with you my brothers and sisters of the light and say that with you our hearts are broken because none of us can begin to wrap ourselves around the events of what happened among the innocents on Friday in Newtown, Connecticut. And, in fact, in our liturgical life we have left, we have been pulled from the third Sunday in Advent to that day that we remember a few days after the feast of the incarnation, that is the feast The Remembrance of the Holy Innocents that day when we remember Herod’s slaughtering of the children. The truth of the matter is that it’s a dark dark day. The truth of the matter is, and I wish it were different, God knows we cry out that it would be different and God knows that we hope that it will be different. But the truth of the matter is every day in this sinful and broken world, there are innocents losing their lives, every day. It has come abruptly to us and it has come in great awfulness to us, in a small suburban town in Connecticut. But here’s the word, if there’s one word, the one word is that we, brothers and sisters, are the children of the light. And if there’s any time ever for us to make our journey together through this Advent season where we slowly light the candles in the shadows of darkness so that they will grow brighter until that bright and shining star settle over God’s promise to us that will visit in that crèche that God’s very being will be with us. Now is the time to be children of the light again. Because we’re people of the incarnation our hearts are broken as we can only begin to imagine the horror that is for those families in Connecticut. But let your heart be broken. Break open your heart. And if ever there was a time when you, because I know this is true for many of you—whenever there’s been a time for you when you have tasted a bit of salvation in your darkest hour through the prayers, through the support, through the love of strangers and friends, if you have tasted a bit of salvation in your darkest hour, then shine that light of salvation this day for those who were connected to, even in Connecticut. If ever there is a time for us to reach out and grab on to what we know and what we trust and that is one another, this is it.
So my simple message to you in this dark dark time is please find the courage to continue to be the children of light. And, if there is brokenness in your world or in a relationship, then shine a little light there today. And when you go to bed each night, drop to your knees and pray prayers of healing and hope for people you might not even know. Because it’s their darkest hour. And, if you can carry a bit of hope and light for them now until they can find it on their own through God’s grace and mercy. And pray it. And be it. Because we can’t find words to appropriately speak about such things, come today at 4 o’clock and if we can’t say it let’s sing it. Come and join in the singing of the Messiah. Place our hope in the singing of those songs. And if you want, there is a group meeting later today between 5 and 5:30 over at Central Moravian Church on the green and bring a candle and light it. A simple candle of hope. Because that’s what we need to say to each other in difficult times. Be children of the light. That’s all we can do. Because our hearts break on this day, let us be quite and silent and then let us welcome our choir who wishes to sing a song of God’s grace and tears as they shed.
Amen.
