Mary sings of the coming of God’s reign as if it is a complete overturning of the world and our lives, which frightens us at times, but we are reminded that, like times of pregnancy, we wait for God’s coming and healing with fear but ultimately joy.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Fourth Sunday of Advent, year C; text: Luke 1:39-55

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

On the First Sunday of Advent I preached that we should be careful what we pray for when we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus,” because we just might get it.  If we’re asking God to come and change the world, God will also change us, something for which we might not be ready.  At one point that week I thought the sermon would go further down that path, and get into some specific concerns I personally had with the coming of God as promised, bringing justice and peace.  As it turned out, the sermon didn’t go fully in the direction I expected.  But now, as this Gospel reading came into our Advent this year, those concerns moved back to the front of my mind.

It’s because of Mary’s song, the Magnificat, which we sang and now just heard read.

I love Mary’s song.  I just don’t know if I can or should sing it anymore.  I’ve always loved this canticle, and the many beautiful musical settings of it.  But this week it occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t sing it.  Not if I want to have integrity.  Not if I value honesty.  Because there is at least a part of me that isn’t sure I want these things to happen, these things Mary sings about so boldly, so beautifully.

And it also seems to me that I can only speak for myself here.  There are parts of this song that appear to strike me very close to home.  But for me to take that and assume you all share those concerns or sins, or worse, to turn it into a harangue against all of us, feels unfair.  So this is going to be an odd sermon, in that what I think I need to do is invite you into my thoughts to hear them as you will, and then you all can see if they’re helpful or instructive for you, if the Holy Spirit has words for you in all this.

Because I really would like to sing Mary’s song again.  And my hope this Advent truly is that God will make that possible for me, and also for you, even if I think I’m resistant to that.

My first problem is this: I’m not certain that I want Mary to be right in what she says.

Listen to her sing:  “God has scattered the proud in their conceit; God has cast down the mighty from their thrones; and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

And as I think about those words, I begin to wonder if I really want that to happen.  Mary’s describing something that sounds very much like a revolution, the world turned upside down.  The whole social order will be transformed: rulers will be thrown down, people in the lowest places lifted up.  The rich will have nothing and the poor will be fed.  The proud will have their thoughts scattered in the wind, for they will have nothing to be proud of.

This is the language of almost every revolution.  There was an English song from the mid-1600s called “The World Turned Upside Down,” and tradition says that the British army played it a century later at Yorktown when Cornwallis surrendered to Washington.  They couldn’t believe they’d lost; it felt as if literally everything was upside down, the whole world overturned.

In our current political climate, there are some groups in our society who would scream “socialism” or “communism” to hear Mary’s hopes laid out in modern terms.  They might be the most honest of all, because she is describing a world turned upside down, a revolution led by God.  There’s no other way to see her words, her hopes.

Now, if you are poor, or lowly, or humble, or hungry, this probably sounds like really good news.  But I don’t know if I want it to happen fully.  Or, at least I know I’m a little afraid of it.

Because, and I know I’ve said this before, I think that I’m one whom Mary would call rich.  Mind you, I don’t usually think of myself as rich.  But I can’t escape the facts.

A couple weeks ago – and be prepared, this is shocking – a couple weeks ago there was a day when I didn’t get to have lunch until about 2:00 in the afternoon.  And as I left the office I thought to myself, “I’m starving to death.”  Now, that’s kind of funny.  But it’s also pathetic and ridiculous, if you take the time to think about it.  I’ve never been forced to miss a meal in my life, never had a day where I worried about what I would eat.

I’ve always had at least two or more good pairs of shoes, a good coat, warm clothes, shelter.  I have a house, a stereo, TVs, several cars, a healthy family with a good medical plan and good life insurance.  I live better than 99% of the world.  Of course I’m rich.  And for that matter, Mary would probably also count me among the proud and the mighty.

So if Mary’s hope is that God’s going to overturn it all, I stand to lose.  Now, there are millions starving to death who will gain considerably.  Millions of suffering people, poor people, oppressed people.  And that’s good.  But we know that our lifestyle in the U.S. cannot be sustained world-wide.  It’s inevitable that my lifestyle will decrease in a new divine order, so that others might simply have life.

Now, I know this, too: I give to Lutheran World Relief, to ELCA World Hunger.  I give a tithe of 10% to God’s work here at Mount Olive, and more beyond.  I recycle and try not to waste.  I turn off lights.  I’m doing things.  It’s just that I really don’t know if I want to lose everything about the style of life to which I am accustomed.

So I’m torn between wanting God to do what Mary says, and not wanting God to do it.  It’s one of those common things in life, that we vacillate between what we know to be good and holy and what our human nature would prefer.  Paul talks about that a lot in Romans 7, of course.

So I know that this is good, what Mary promises, and that in the long run it’s crucial to the life of this world.  But there’s that sinful part of me that wants to resist.

But there’s a second problem I have with her song:  I wonder if God will ever do it anyway.

Has there been any progress toward this kind of vision?  Ever?  Not if tens of thousands still die of hunger each day.  And they do.

Hannah, the prophet Samuel’s mother, sang virtually the same song 1,100 years before Mary.  Look it up: 1 Samuel 2.  And nothing changed.  Then Mary sang it.  And now 3,100 years after Hannah and 2,000 years after Mary, still nothing.

Still there are rich and poor.  Still people like me watching their weight while others starve to death.  Still proud oppressors and beaten-down oppressed.

After awhile, maybe I should get the hint, and realize it’s not happening.  The inevitable question I ask is: were these just nice, beautiful songs, or did these articulate, musical women actually believe they would come to pass?

So I don’t know if I can sing her song anymore if I don’t think it’s any more than hyperbole of joy over the birth of a child, the catalyst for both Hannah’s and Mary’s songs.  I don’t know if I can sing their songs if I don’t actually expect God will do this thing.  It doesn’t feel any more honest than singing it if I don’t want God to do these things.

And then, thinking about all this, I realized something interesting: there is a thread that connects Hannah and Mary beyond their songs, and also connects to today’s other wonderful woman, Elizabeth.  Pregnancy.  Mary and Elizabeth in our Gospel today are pregnant, and Hannah had finally given birth to a child after years of waiting.

And that image of pregnancy, an experience I have only ever lived second hand (except, I suppose, for my own birth) seemed to give me an answer.

It is for me, and perhaps for you, too, as if I am, we are, pregnant.

My fears and struggles with Mary’s song are very much like the fears and struggles of pregnancy. Even with the most wanted birth, pregnancy is frightening.

There is fear of the outcome: Will this be a healthy baby, a happy baby?  Just as I fear the outcome of God’s transformation: will it be a good place, a place of joy even for me?

There is fear of the change in life: Even if the baby is healthy, wanted, hoped for, there is this reality that the parents’ lives will irrevocably change.  Their lifestyle will move from self-centered to other-centered.  They will sacrifice many things for their child, and that’s frightening.  Just as I fear that if God does bring about this change, my life will irrevocably change as well.  I will sacrifice, I will not have the same lifestyle.

And there is fear of the delay: Every pregnant mother I have known, including the mother of my children, has had impatience at some point, or some variation of the fear at least once during the pregnancy that this birth will never happen, that she will be the first woman in history to carry a child for years.  Just as I fear that God may never bring about this age of equality, of peace, of shared wealth.  The difference is one of time, nine months versus several millennia.  But in God’s eyes, is that such a temporal difference?

And as in pregnancy, all these fears subside when one considers the end result: a miraculous gift of life.  Whether you are old like Elizabeth, long-suffering like Hannah, or barely out of childhood like Mary.

And so my fears begin to subside when I realize that I really do want God’s new kingdom, regardless of the cost to me.  That the alternative is much worse than any fears I might have.

And there is one more thing to remember.  Something has changed, with this baby of 2,000 years ago.  The baby of whom Mary sang, her son Jesus, did in fact live a life that revealed that transformed kingdom of God his mother envisioned.  He died for it, as a matter of fact.

But his resurrection began the process of transformation for us all.  It has already turned the world upside down.  In his life, and ever since, whoever met Jesus and followed began to live transformed lives, and changed the world.

Zacchaeus spontaneously returned all he had cheated, and more.

Matthew left his tax booth, Peter his fishing, and both brought the Good News to the world.

Mary Magdalene lost her demons and began to be a disciple, and was the first apostle, the first one sent to proclaim the resurrection.

Martin Luther King started a revolution.  Mother Teresa cared for thousands in one of the worst places in the world.  And millions more lesser-known disciples were shaped by the sacrificial love of Jesus which enfolded them and made a difference in this world, began working Mary’s vision in the world.

And so God works this change now.  As we each meet Jesus in his Word, in this Meal, in our lives, Jesus changes us.  We begin to live lives that reflect Mary’s vision.

More and more we do not fear losing our lifestyle because we have gained so much more: the peace of a heart that trusts in God alone, and sees the pain of the world with God’s loving, compassionate eyes.  A peace that longs for the world to be turned upside down, even if that means I who am on the top am also turned over.

So as it turns out, I not only can sing with Mary, I really want to.

And I invite you to sing with her as often as you can.  Share her pregnancy as an image of our life here, waiting, afraid, expectant, hopeful, nervous.

For God has come to make things new.  In our pregnant lives, this is already happening.  The gift the Church gives in Advent each year is to remind us of what we already know but sometimes forget, and to help us find our desire for it anew.  God give us faith to hold this hope, and live changed lives, until the day of the birth of this new thing God is making in us and in the world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Life in the kingdom of God, living as Jesus in the world, is joy for us, even if repentance and giving up of our sinful ways is the pathway to that joy, that new life Jesus gives.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Third Sunday of Advent, year C; texts: Luke 3:7-18; Zephaniah 3:14-20; Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

I don’t much care for cauliflower, especially when it’s cooked.  Or split-pea soup, for that matter.  In this, my wife and I agree to disagree.  In fact, the smell of those two foods cooking makes me queasy, uncomfortable.  I lose my appetite.  Yet I am told by people who should know that both these foods are good for me, healthy for me.  They tell me that though this seems like a bad thing, it is a good thing.

That’s Luke’s job for us today.  Did you hear what he said, after expounding at length the deeply angry rants of John the Baptist toward his hearers?  Luke adds a phrase the other evangelists do not.  He comments, “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”  Good news you say, Luke?  Must we go back and read those harsh words again?

Given my experience with foods I detest but which no doubt are good for me, I wonder if it might be possible that Luke is telling the truth.  Granted, this second Advent Sunday in a row of hearing from John the Baptist is always a difficult one for us.  Who wants to come to church and be called a “brood of vipers”?
But Luke says it’s good news.  So let’s give him the benefit of the doubt for a moment.

It may be important to do this, if only for the sake of the other readings from God’s Word today, all of which speak beautifully to us of joy.  And they don’t call sadness joy, they don’t do what Luke does.  These readings positively radiate with joy.  In a season of Advent which speaks of watching, preparing, being ready, the third Sunday of Advent is always about joy.  A burst of joy and grace in a more contemplative, serious season, that’s Advent 3.  But along with this, we get that John the Baptist.  What in the world are we to do with him?  His message of fire and axes and destruction sounds like an off-key screech in an otherwise exquisite choral song of joy.

He claims that the world is in dire need of repentance, that we each are in dire need.  He warns that there are so many things that are not of God, that need changing, that the only answer is an utter turning around.  And after the events of this past week in Connecticut, who among us would dare to contradict John’s evaluation?

So what in the world are we to do today?  Do we talk of joy, or do we face John and his view of a broken world, the reality we see ourselves?  Or do we consider that Luke might be right, that they’re the same thing?  Can we find good news for us and for the world here?

Now, Zephaniah and Paul (and really the song from Isaiah we sang today) call us to jubilation, to joy, in God’s grace for us.

Zephaniah spoke in the time of King Josiah of Judah, and called for reform of the worship and faithfulness of the people.  So much of his prophecy is warnings to the people to turn to God from their awful behavior and lives that in fact, it sounds a lot like John the Baptist.

But the section we hear today seems to come from later, from the time of exile, after the punishment.  God promises to take away the shame and the judgments against God’s people, and God is in their midst.  And the only thing to do is rejoice and exult at God’s grace and love.

Paul writes to perhaps his favorite congregation, his beloved Philippians, and urges them to rejoice always in all things, to give thanks even while they are making requests of God.  And this joy is in living in Christ, having faith that God’s grace is ours.

This is the letter where Paul says he considers all things rubbish compared to knowing Christ, and that to live is Christ and to die is gain.  For Paul, the joy comes from a life that models, as he says earlier in the letter, the life of Jesus, who gave up everything to be a servant to us.

So we notice this: even though Zephaniah and Paul speak of unadulterated joy which pervades our whole existence, they both come from a context where they understand our lives to have turned toward God and away from the things that draw us from God.  They assume a life lived in God’s way, with God’s priorities.

In short, they are describing a life of repentance, a life where God’s people have turned from their sin and selfishness and have given their lives to God.  And that actually sounds a lot like John the Baptist, doesn’t it?

Now, John sounds angry.  He sounds terrifying, in spite of Luke’s editorial comment.  Still, Luke says it: “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”

Good news, Luke calls it.  For Zephaniah, the fact that God is in the midst of the people is a reason to end their shame, a reason for hope and joy.

John also says the Lord is near, but that means people need to shape up and change.  He calls those who come for baptism “children of snakes” and asks who warned them to flee from God’s wrath which is coming.  He says the axe is laid to the root of the tree that will not bear fruit, and it will be cut down.

For this to be good news, we need to understand a few things.

First, John apparently thinks that some of the crowds who have come are there just for the show, just for a ritual perhaps, thinking the baptism will fix what’s wrong with them, and they can go back to their lives.  Sort of like coming to church week after week but not wanting to change anything about our lives or our choices.  And at that John levels his angry rhetoric.  So John wants the people to take this seriously and not look for easy ways out of their messy lives.

But another thing to remember is that John takes his role seriously, the preparer for the Messiah.  And he sees people who live and create injustice, folks whose lives oppress others, whose lives don’t show the fruits of people who are turned toward God and God’s way.  He sees a world that is out of balance, and a mess, one that needs serious cleansing.

And John’s only approach, the only thing he can think of, is to shock them out of complacency, to get them to take as seriously as he does the coming of the Messiah and their need to shape up.  Because their joy will be found in the repentance, in the new life.  Just as Zephaniah and Paul know, too.

The fruits of repentance John calls for are specific and concrete, each group gets a clear idea of what to do.  Only Luke tells us this part of John’s message, and it’s critical to his understanding of why John’s preaching was good news.

Note first, that the people aren’t turned off by John’s rhetoric.  They actually want to know what they can do to be different, to repent.

If you have two coats, and someone has none, give them one, John says.

If you have food, and others are hungry, share.

If you’re a tax collector and you’re charging extra to line your pockets, stop it.

If you’re a soldier and you’re extorting for money, stop that, too.

And the beauty of these examples is that it leaves us open to consider what John would say to us.  Since each group had specific things they were doing to contribute to injustice and oppression and suffering, each had specific things to change.  And so do we.

And the joy is found, the new life in Christ is found, when we discover those things and change them.  When we turn to God.  When we discover the joy of life lived for God and not ourselves.

Joy is found when people without coats have coats.  When hungry people get to eat.  When people who’ve been cheated are restored what is theirs.  When children can live safely without fear of death or hunger or abuse.  There’s the joy.

And there’s joy for us when we make that happen, when we are God’s agents for justice and peace.

This is the good news: true joy comes from facing the ugly truth about ourselves and finding God’s love healing us, restoring us.

We can be selfish people, and tend to care only for ourselves, and getting beyond ourselves, as John calls, turning to God and God’s way, is our way not only to joy but to life.  To get to God’s joy, we have to go through John the Baptist and his truth, which cleans us and returns us to God.

Think of our good friend Ebenezer Scrooge, whose story hovers over this month each year.  The spirits who visit him are his John the Baptist, helping him see the ugly truth that he had hurt others, shut off love from others, abused others, and wasted his life.

He starts to learn that he’d have been happier had he lived differently.  Certainly others would have.  So when he wakes on Christmas morning, he wakes to joy.  Joy that he is still alive.  Joy that he still has a chance.  Joy that he has been forgiven.  Joy that it is still Christmas Day, he hasn’t missed another opportunity to be gracious to others.  So he brought joy to others in his new life, and he is filled with it himself.

In a life of repentance, with the Lord in our midst, near at hand, we, too, find joy.

Joy in loving others, not for its reward, but because it makes our heart grow.

Joy in caring for the children of God who are in need of our help, because it makes us alive and real.

Joy in being changed into new people by God who have a mission and a purpose in this world.  And wonder of wonders, still enough time to do it.  There’s still a chance to do something.

“So with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”

I’m grateful that Luke helps us see this as good news.  From here, we each might want to bring John the Baptist along into our day, our week ahead, and think what he might answer us when we say, “What should we do?”  What is it that he would say hinders us from the joy of following Jesus?  What is selfish in me, in you, that if we let it go we would find God’s joy?  What are we doing that is not of God, that needs forgiveness and turning?  What is God calling me, calling you, to be and to do?  What is our call to make this world a better place, a just place, as God would have it?  These are the questions we need to bring to John the Baptist, so that he can show us the path to joy.

This is the good news that Luke sees in John, the good news that belongs to all who hear these words from God’s servant: that though we are part of the problem of the world, and contribute in our selfishness to the very things Jesus came to remove and eliminate, we need not remain the problem.  Rather, by turning our lives to God we become part of God’s solution, God’s grace, God’s love.

And if that doesn’t bring us all a little joy, we’re just not paying attention.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

They say that Advent is a time of waiting, but what are we waiting for?  God calls us to live here and now in this world, between the first and second advent of Christ, and is refining us right now so that we may joyously anticipate the coming of Christ.

Vicar Neal Cannon, Second Sunday of Advent, year C; texts: Malachi 3:1-4, Luke 1:68-69, Luke 3:1-6

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock

What you’re hearing is the sound of a ticking clock that you only hear in the in-between moments; it’s the sound of waiting.  It’s the sound of nervously waiting in the lobby of the dentist’s office. It’s the sound of joyous waiting on your couch before friends arrive for the party, and it’s the sound you hear in the quiet moments, when you clear your thoughts and take stock of your life.

Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock . . .  The sound of waiting.

They say that the Advent season is a time of waiting and anticipation for the birth of Jesus, the Son of God.  Advent is the time where people put out their nativity scenes, and light candles, and if you grew up like me, you pop chocolates out of the advent calendar.

But these practices never really helped me understand Advent because we aren’t really waiting for a child in a manger anymore.  Jesus was already born, it happened about 2,000 years ago.  And of course we remember it and celebrate it, and we can even anticipate it, but we don’t really wait for it because it’s already come to us.

So what are we waiting for?

The term “advent” comes from the Latin word “adventus,” which means “coming.”  And in the Christian faith we use this word to mean that we are anticipating the “advent” or coming of a Savior.

In our Gospel lesson today, Luke writes that John the Baptist is called to “prepare the way of the Lord,” and, “make his paths straight.”  In other words, he is called to prepare people for the advent, or coming, of the Savior.

But here’s the thing.  For us, this advent has happened.  The Savior has come.  Our salvation is complete.  It was done once and for all for us through the cross and resurrection.  There is no salvific work left to do.

And as Christians we claim that Jesus’ first advent was not only about salvation, but also about how we live now.  It didn’t end all suffering, and pain, and sin.  Jesus didn’t overthrow the powers of this world.  But he showed us how to live our lives with love, and grace and compassion for our neighbor.

Luke says in our Psalm today that this salvation has left us “free to worship (God) without fear, holy and righteous before you, all the days of our life.”

In other words, because we’ve been made righteous we’re now free to worship and serve God without fear from our enemies; without fear of not being good enough; without the fear that if we don’t serve or worship God in just the right way, we won’t be saved.

So what are we waiting for?

We look around today and we see so much suffering, and pain, and sin in the world.  People are starving to death.  Women are being trafficked as slaves.  Bloody wars occur all over the world and vicious dictators suppress their people.  All the while our own apathy reminds us that sin remains.

But as we learned last week in Pastor Joseph’s sermon, we also we believe that Jesus will come again.  There will be a second “advent” where Jesus will return to us to abolish sin and transform the world into a place of peace, and righteousness and justice.

But this advent is not here yet.

Right now we are waiting in-between these two advents. We celebrate the birth and first coming of Jesus into this world, but we also wait and anticipate when Jesus will return and end sorrow, and death, and sin.

This is the tension of Advent.  Salvation is here but the world is not sinless.  We celebrate what has come, and we anticipate what is coming, and we live somewhere in-between.

This is important for us today because it allows us to say both something true and hopeful about the world.  It says that while the world isn’t there yet, that horrible things still occur, the Triune God has come to this world and to us and is working to make them better.

God’s continued work in the world is confirmed as Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.”  Notice that Paul doesn’t say that Jesus Christ has finished a work among you, or that there is some expectation that you are perfect now.

No, this work that Jesus does in our lives is just beginning.  One day, during the second advent, that work will be complete. But for now, we say that work has just begun.  And we wait.

For me, the question that still remains.  What are we waiting for? 

Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock

One kind of waiting is very difficult.  It’s a nervous anticipation.

Imagine that you are waiting for your name to be called in a dentist’s office.  You’re sitting nervously on an uncomfortable couch reading some innocuous magazine called Lifestyle.

You’re nervous because you’ve only flossed twice in the past six months, usually the day before, and you know you’re in for a physical and verbal assault on the gums.

It’s not the dentist’s fault.  The dentist is there to remove the stains and cavities from your teeth.  You know that.  But in you heart, you know that if you had prepared yourself better for this day, it would have been less painful.  And in your head you keep thinking, what was I waiting for?

It’s not that our intentions were bad. The last time we saw the dentist we swore we’d floss more, we just messed up the time in-between.

One night, we’re too tired to floss.  Maybe the next day we chew a bunch of hard candies.   Then one thing led to another, we just didn’t do the everyday preparation we should have.  And now, all we can do, is sit there nervously in the lobby, and wait.

Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock

But there is also another kind of waiting. Waiting with joyous anticipation.

Imagine you’re throwing a party.  You have all the food and drink ready to go.  You have games planned and music going in the background.  You’ve decorated your home and cleaned up your house.  Now you’re sitting on your comfortable couch at home, excitedly waiting for the guests to arrive. You’re excited because you know that when the guests come, you’ve done everything you can to be a good host.

Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock

It feels different, doesn’t it?

Either scenario can be what waiting in the church feels like, or what Advent feels like.  In one scenario, we know that Jesus is coming again and we know we’re not living right now in the way that Jesus calls us to live.

In our day-to-day living, it’s easy to get complacent.  It’s easy to forget to pray at night or to skip worship on Sunday.  It’s easy to forget how important it is to serve to the poor and needy and fight for justice in this world.  One thing leads to another and before you know it we’re not doing what we’re called to do.

Expecting Jesus to come feels like waiting in the dentist’s office when we haven’t flossed for months.  Like a dentist, Jesus cleans us up now matter how much or how little we’ve done to prepare for the visit.  It’s not that our salvation is incomplete.  That work is done on the cross.

But we end up wondering, what was I waiting for?

In the other scenario, we know that Jesus is coming again and we’ve done what we’ve been called to.

Like any party, we know that we haven’t planned things perfectly, and there is always something we forgot to do, but we’ve done what we can to be ready.  We didn’t just wait.  We’ve spent time in prayer and worship.  We’ve served the poor and needy.  We’ve fought for justice, and now we’re excited for the guest of honor to arrive.

In reality, we are always living out both scenarios.  There are times when we do what we are called to do, and there are times where we wish we had done more.

I think this is what messengers like John the Baptist and Malachi do in our lives, they remind us of what God has done and what God will do, and tell us to be ready when the time comes.  They remind us that we are called to places in this world and in our lives that are still a work in progress.

There is still work to be done before the guest arrives.

Malachi says that the Messenger of God refines us like silver, which by the way is a really awful prospect.  Refining silver means placing raw silver in nitric acid and heating it to 1,200 degrees.  Then the silver is churned over and over until it becomes pure silver.

The change that needs to happen in our lives isn’t easy.  It’s painful.  It requires a hard look into our lives.  It requires an honest word from a friend, or a life-changing situation.  It happens in that quiet moment when we realize, I’ve done something to hurt someone else, I only care about myself, my life isn’t what it should be …

Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock

This could cripple us with guilt until we remember the first advent where we were already forgiven and freed by a child in a manger.  And a second advent is coming where God will make us pure.  So we say that until Jesus comes back again that work of being made pure, of being refined, has just begun. And Jesus is always calling us to a new way of living.

So how do we discern that call?

I have to admit, I don’t think I can answer this question for you because it’s a personal question.  Everyone is called to something different.  We are being refined in different ways.  But I think the answer lies in the work that the Holy Spirit is doing in us and has been doing since our baptism.  That refining that has been happening our whole life.

Maybe you’ve been given a sense of love for the people in Africa.
Maybe you have a heart for the environment.
Maybe you’ve always wanted to invite a friend into this loving and grace filled world we call the church but haven’t yet had the courage.
Maybe God is calling you back to prayer and to worship.
Maybe God is calling you to seek forgiveness from a friend, or to give it to an enemy.

We are all called to do something different.  The question we have is, what are we waiting for? God is calling us to live here and now in this world.

However God calls us to prepare for this second advent, know that the child in a manger has already come and freed us from guilt and fear, and it is grace to know that the Spirit is refining/working in us even now so that we may live in joyous anticipation of Jesus Christ.

The only question that remains is, what are we waiting for?

Thanks be to God.