An Advent Message from Jerusalem

Pastor Mark Holman has invited Dale to preach on the 1st Sunday in Advent. So here’s his sermon, for better or worse. Remember that a sermon should not be read, but rather heard.

1st Sunday in Advent

I have to say that Advent is different here in Jerusalem. Back home in Canada the meaning of Advent is lost in the commercial push to sell more, and the cultural rush to get to Christmas. It all starts right after Halloween. The malls resound with sentimental, or just plain wacky, Christmas songs, interspersed with the occasional premature Christmas carol. You get to observe Advent at church on Sunday if you’re lucky.

In my 1st parish I joined the more reformed Protestant congregations in the neighbourhood for an annual Advent service. This was a tradition that preceded me. My reformed Protestant neighbours really had no sense of what Advent is all about. When I was the host at Holy Trinity Lutheran, I had to fight with them to sing Advent hymns. They wanted to sing Christmas carols. The same thing happened at our joint Good Friday service. They wanted to sing Easter hymns. Ecumenism can be a challenge sometimes.

Advent in Jerusalem is different. Here a commercial and secular Christmas isn’t getting in the way. We have the space to get our minds around the meaning of Advent.

The lessons of the past few weeks have given us a foretaste of what Advent is all about. They’ve got us ready to think about Jesus’ promise to return. Today, on the 1st Sunday of Advent, and on the next three Sundays, we turn our attention to the statement in the Apostles’ Creed that reminds us that one of the things we believe is that Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead.

We call this the second coming, the parousia, and it’s a part of our Christian theology we call eschatology – the teaching about the end of history. Aren’t those ten-dollar theological text book terms wonderful?

Advent was once called the “winter Lent”. It used to be six weeks long, just like regular Lent. And the liturgy took on a more sombre tone, just like in Lent. And just as Lent is a time to prepare our hearts and minds for the Resurrection, so Advent is a time to prepare our hearts and minds, not just for Jesus’ birth, but for the time in history when Jesus will return and make creation perfect, as it was in the beginning. During Advent we prepare for, and watch for, and wait for a new creation in Jesus Christ.

Christmas is the “already” of our faith journey. We’re getting ready to celebrate Jesus’ birth which has already happened. But the focus of Advent is on Jesus’ promised return – the “not yet” of our faith journey. Our Advent readings remind us to be alert, to prepare, to watch for Jesus’ return. As our Gospel lesson told us this morning, not even Jesus could say when he would return in glory. Only God knows the day and the hour. Matthew told us that Jesus’ return would be at the most unexpected hour and so we must always be ready, we must always have oil in our lamps with the wicks trimmed.

My homiletics professor – the person who tried to teach us the art of preaching – said in one of his sermons: We are all invited to the heavenly banquet, and we don’t want to miss the host’s arrival because we’re too busy reaching for the mustard. Watch and wait and be prepared is the Advent message.

I said a few moments ago that this Advent is different for me because I’m in Jerusalem, and because I know that Jerusalem is the place where the traditions of all three Abrahamic and monotheistic religions hold that history will come to an end. Jerusalem is the place where there will be, on a day chosen by God, a new creation.

We all know that Jerusalem is an integral part of the traditions of all three religions. For the Jews the Temple Mount is the place where Adam was created from dust, where Cain murdered Abel, where Abraham bound Isaac for sacrifice, the place where Solomon built the First Temple and where it was destroyed, where the 2nd temple was razed by the Romans, and where the 3rd Temple, as tradition tells us, will be built, ushering in the Messiah and End Times. The Western Wall or Wailing Wall is all that remains of the 2nd Temple and is sacred to the Jews. This is where 1000’s of Jews, religious and secular, gathered just hours after East Jerusalem had been taken from the Jordanian army in 1967, where they gather every Shabat. Jews had been kept away from the Wailing Wall since 1948.

Jerusalem is where the Messiah, for both Christians and Jews, will come in through the Golden Gate.

For the Muslims the Temple Mount is the destination of Mohammed’s night flight from Mecca and the spot from which he ascended into heaven where God revealed the future to him. This event is as central to Islam as the Exodus is to Judaism.

Another tradition holds that Mohammed tied his winged horse, Al Buraq, to the Western Wall. On the last day, according to Muslim tradition, the Kaaba, the cube-like dwelling believed to have been built by Abraham and Ishmael that lies in Mecca, will miraculously appear on the Temple Mount. The Kaaba must be visited by a Muslim at least once in his lifetime when he makes the Haaj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.

For us Christians the places where Jesus was crucified, and buried, and raised from the dead, lie just a few meters away from the Temple Mount. We Christians don’t have the same feeling about the Temple Mount as our Muslim and Jewish sisters and brothers. But Jerusalem, the city, is very much part of our vocabulary when we talk about Christ’s return. At the end of history, we say in Revelation, the New Jerusalem will descend from heaven, and Jesus will be sitting on a throne in the midst of the city.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have a sense of a New Jerusalem. The old Jerusalem has had such a bloody history. Christian Crusaders murdered Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem. Muslims have slaughtered Christians and Jews in Jerusalem. In several recent wars Muslims and Jews have killed each other in this beleaguered city. There has to be something better. So, there has to be another Jerusalem. In fact, one of the Hebrew spellings of Jerusalem has an ending that indicates duality – a pair of Jerusalems.

Well, the old Jerusalem was so mean and brazen and sinful that a duplicate - a sublime Jerusalem - was raised up to heaven, 18 miles up according to Jewish lore, and 12 miles up according to Muslim lore. The good and saintly will go up to live forever in the sublime, heavenly Jerusalem.

Our Christian tradition doesn’t speak of a physical New Jerusalem a certain distance above the earthly Jerusalem, but, in the Book of Revelation, we do couch our expression of the end of time and the return of Jesus in the metaphor of a New Jerusalem descending from heaven. And this is exactly what we are preparing ourselves for; this is what we are watching for during the season of Advent.

Our anticipation of Christ’s return takes on more urgency here in this troubled Old Jerusalem where we watch and wait for the New Jerusalem to come down from heaven – here in the old Jerusalem where every blood-stained stone has a story to tell.
Dear friends, we watch and wait and long for Jesus to come and make things right. But how do we prepare? Easy answer! We get as much of Jesus’ work done as we can before he comes back.

Jesus made it very clear in Matthew 25 what we are expected to do as disciples. We are to feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty and clothe the naked and house the homeless and visit the prisoner. Jesus has commissioned us to bring justice to those places where there is no justice. There is no end of those places. Here in this less than holy land all we need to do is go to an East Jerusalem or to a check point or to a house demolition to see where justice is needed.
When Jesus returns, may he find us working to make this raggedy old world a happy and just place for all people. Amen