Advent 2 C Nativity Cathedral December 6, 2015
By
Archdeacon Rick Cluett
Today is St Nicholas’ Day. He has a reputation as a
bringer of gifts. What would you like him to bring to you today? Cookies,
bling, a toy, a sweater? Or what would you like him to bring to the world
today? Something like peace, security, freedom from worry or fear? Maybe
something along those lines if you are reading or watching the news.
We are living in a time of fear and anxiety. An
airliner brought down in Russia, Beirut, Paris, San Bernardino, a Planned
Parenthood clinic in Colorado, a community college in Oregon.
From the NY Times this week, the headline: “How Often
Do Mass Shootings Occur? On Average, Every Day, Records Show. More than one a
day.
We are living in a time of great conflict. The powers
of chaos seem to rule. The powers of nations and armies contend around us.
People are being murdered by 10’s, by 100’s, by the thousands. More than a
million people have fled their homes and home countries to save their lives.
Chaos reigns. We expect the worst. We expect the end of life, as we have known
it.
People are working harder and harder to make a living,
to make a life, while the corporate world seems to work harder and harder to
make a killing. Refugee companies fleeing the country to escape a tax burden.
We have a hymn that begins, Look around you, can you
see? Times are troubled, people grieve. See the violence, feel the hardness,
All my people – weep with me. Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison.
Lord have mercy!
We live in Biblical Times. Baruch was writing to
people whose parents and grandparents had returned from exile in Babylon. They
had come home to new futures for themselves and their families ... to find
jobs, to build homes, to build new lives, new farms, new villages, a new
Temple, a New Jerusalem.
But it had all turned sour. They were continually at
war. The land was not giving forth her increase. Life was full of pain, unmet
expectations, unfulfilled dreams, and hopes not realized. Life was full, but
not the fulfillment they had dreamed for, hoped for, worked for, and prayed
for. People were just trying to "hang in, hang on."
They were leaving the Promised Land in droves;
refugees seeking work and security elsewhere. (Sound familiar?) All was not
right with their world, and God seemed far distant from his people.
Into this setting came the words of Baruch. “Take off
the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem ... For God will lead
Israel with joy, ...with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.”
The question back then in those dangerous times was
and is still today, “Where is the messiah? Whose voice do we listen to? Which
call do we follow? Who do we follow? Where do we seek our salvation? Do we have
any reason at all to hope?”
Did you ever wonder why the Bible has all those
stories, the kind that inspired the Left Behind Series? All the apocalyptic
stories of the fall of the Temple and Armageddon and the end of time?
These apocalyptic stories have stood the test of time
because they point to the worst circumstances of life. The authors were reading
the signs of their times. They were writing from the context of their lives.
The stories were created out of their experience. And they resonate today.
When have you known anguish or agony? When have you
been truly afraid? When were you terrorized by demons, or powers, or forces
that you could not control? When were you lost, not knowing which way to turn,
not knowing who or what to follow to get to safety? When did you suffer a loss
and been left feeling bereft, totally alone?
That’s what these stories are about. They are about
the all too familiar perils and pitfalls of life, real life, all human life,
our lives. Forever, people have been searching; searching everywhere and
anywhere for some way through their time, this time, seeking some reason to hope.
So today I join with Baruch and John in proclaiming
the Word of God, the Promise of God. There will come a time when wars and
rumors of wars will cease. There will be a time when swords are turned into
plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. There will come a time when anguish
will end. There will come a time when God will reign. And so we live in hope,
even in the worst of times.
Today’s scripture readings are a call, a reminder, a
warning to stay close to the one who is the source of strength, the one whose
way is true, the one in whose image we have been created, and redeemed and
saved, and who is always present in every circumstance of life, even beyond
this life, beyond the grave, the one in whom we can trust and in whom we will
ultimately rest from all our labors, all our strivings, all our fears, all our
wanderings, all our pain – and know peace.
People, you and I, need someone to be John for us, to
point to our God, to teach us about our God, to minister to us in the name of
God, to comfort us with the promise of God, to remind us of the Hope of a life
lived with God – we need some person who will bring God close, very close, as
close as possible, even close enough to touch.
We need people who know the truth of Jesus Christ and
speak it to bring the Life of Jesus Christ into our lives, into all the corners
of our lives, all the dark places of our lives, into the hurt and confusion,
fear, and isolation of our lives.
We need people to keep God alive and present for us in
our lives through liturgy and music and preaching and prayers – and with bread
and wine offered and received – all in the midst of the community of God’s
people.
We need a community of people where we are known and
loved, because of – and in spite of – who we are. We need to know that we are
welcome in God’s place, in God’s house – there’s room for us here. We need to
be shown that even if there is no other place for us, this is our home place.
We need God’s people to do that for us.
We need God’s people to give God some flesh and blood
– a face, some warmth, a caring presence with us. We need God’s people so that
God can physically stand up with us and stand up for us and stand by us, in all
the circumstances of our lives, especially in these dark and dangerous times in
which we live.
In Jesus Christ, God calls each of us and sends us to
one another and to the people of God’s world to physically be there when God is
needed to be there. You see, WE are to be the gift this St. Nicholas Day.
