Sunday, November 25, 2012

God strengthens our hearts and raises our heads to live in freedom – Advent 1 (Yr C), Luke 21:25-28, 34-36.

Homily for preaching class on this year's Advent I readings.


What do you want for Christmas?  I want a puppy, but I know that’s not going to happen.  Realistically, I’ll be glad to get some good books, a trip to visit family, and a decent bottle of scotch from the duty free on the way back.  And I’m sure all of us have some simple things we want to get, but maybe we could each think of something we’d want to be rid of too.  For some of us… some just want to be sober for Christmas, to get through the holidays without smoking or to be free of another addiction.  Some of us want to be free of guilt when they take an extra Christmas cookie or of shame when they even contemplate seeing their body in a mirror.  Some of us want to be free of crippling social anxiety, or of a temper that erupts at the worst moments.  For others of us, what we want to be free from might be much subtler: a laziness that thwarts our best intentions, an envy that prevents us from being truly happy for someone else, a need to always be right, clumsiness.  Whatever it is, we want to be free. 

We will be.  God is bringing liberation.  Our redemption is at hand.  The Son of Man is coming with clouds and glory, for us, to bring redemption, freedom from all that enslaves.  To bring redemption is so characteristic of God’s action that that’s how Zechariah praises him after the birth of his son John the Baptist near the start of Luke’s Gospel: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, for he has come to his people and set them free.”  Redemption is the beginning and the end of God’s action, and so Luke book-ends his gospel with talk of it.  After the resurrection, the two forlorn souls walking to Emmaus will mourn the one they were hoping would bring redemption to Israel before they encounter their liberator and the liberator of the world.  He came to set prisoners free and he’s coming.  And that’s what Christmas is all about, right?

Well, kind of.  Because Christmas always seems so nice, fluffy, cute, comforting, such a perfect time for puppies, with the shepherds and the angels and all the lights.  Well, it’s not.  Shepherds smell, angels wrestle us to the ground, and the sun, moon and stars will be part of the chaotic barrage of signs promised.  Today’s gospel doesn’t promise nice, doesn’t sound fluffy and clashes with any sense of the ‘cute.’  And that’s right, because freedom isn’t cute; it’s hard.  Chains can be comfortable – ask the Israelites marching out of Egypt without bread to eat.  “Couldn’t you have left us in Egypt to die where we had plenty of food to eat?”

In his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul prays that their hearts will be strengthened so as to be found blameless in holiness when the Lord Jesus comes.  Consider how much we expect of our hearts!  In Paul’s letters we read of how many things hearts do: hearts love, they grieve, they plan, they lust, they suffer, they doubt and they believe.  We need strengthened hearts to receive the gift of redemption, something only God can give so I pray the same today.  May God strengthen our hearts that they not grow weary.  May God raise us to stand erect with heads held high. 

Here’s a picture of what it looks like when God answers that prayer, that we see in the gospel.  Picture a woman bent over, unable to stand because she had been crippled by a spirit. Hear Jesus call to her, tell her of the freedom he is granting and lay his hand on her.  She rises and gives glory to God.  “Rises and gives glory to God” – are those two actions… or one?  The glory of God is a human being fully alive – the glory of God is you, living fully in freedom in Christ.

That’s the Advent posture, waiting with strong hearts and heads held high, alert to the world and prayerfully connected to God, the God whose hand-print we still feel on our heads, pulling us up.  Because to think we can stand under our own strength is to enslave ourselves to something new – to a myth of independence, of self-sufficiency that will collapse like so much sand when the powers of the heavens are shaken.  No, all that can pull us back to our full stature is that hand, that loving hand … pierced by a nail … counting the hairs on our head and coming, coming to take us home.

That’s what I want for Christmas, and that’s what Christ is bringing.

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