Saturday, December 22, 2007

Sermon - Advent

Advent is a strangely beautiful season in the churches calendar . It is a time of longing and anticipation . And this longing and anticipation engages us on several levels at the same time . We seem to be pulled in different directions . First there is the simple longing for the return of light. Winter darkness and morning gloom marks these days and for many it can be a depressing time of the year. Yet the light we seek is more than the lengthening of days we are also anticipating that in the darkness a new light of incomparable beauty is about to enter our world through the birth of a child . However during Advent we also anticipate that final brilliance when the light of God`s own presence will flood the whole of creation and all things will be restored and made whole in him. Advent “adventus” means “the coming” “the arrival” and in this case the arrival of light . But how does this arrival take place in our world ? How does God make himself known ? In the Bird Psalm

The swallow said, he comes like me, longed for ; unexpectedly.
The superficial eye will pass him by, said the wren.
The best singer ever heard no one will take much notice, Said the Blackbird.
The owl said he is who , who is he who enters the heart as soft as my soundless wings as, me.
In this poem we see the rather paradoxical nature of God`s arrival in his world there is still a hidden aspect to his presence . The superficial eye will pass him by and not much notice is going to be taken when he does arrive . Longed for he comes unexpectedly. Because there is, this sense that God both reveals himself and yet at the same time remains strangely hidden watching and waiting lies at the heart of Advent it also lies at the heart of Christian spirituality . Be alert is the Advent summons for God`s presence his entry is as soft and soundless as an owl in flight. God does not enter our world with the sound of trumpets and fanfare there is a softness in his coming among us and this theme of God entering our world in ways we least would expect him is taken up in Rowan Williams poem .Advent Calendar , here God`s presence his arrival is to be found in the darkest moments of our experience. Moments of loss and death. All the images in Rowans poem are bleak and relentlessly black . He will come one night when the November wind has flayed the trees to bone he will come like frost one morning when the shrinking earth opens on mist he will come like dark one evening when the bursting red December sun draws up the sheet and penny masks its eye.These are all images of things coming to their end ,spent and finished. As Christians we often make the mistake of contrasting the light with the darkness as if darkness has nothing to do with God and is somehow alien to him. The Advent message is that God is to be found in those moments of our experience where there has been a total collapse of everything that gives meaning or support to our lives . The challenge is to wait and watch exactly where we are. Waiting and watching in the dark however can seem an almost impossible task . But it is only through this act of faith this act of trust of waiting that the true light the light we so desperately need can be given .