Sermon for Advent 1 Year C
Jeremiah 33:14-16
Audio file can be found here
Audio file can be found here
“Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.” –Hamilton Wright Mabie

Advent is the beginning of the church year. It comes as we prepare for one of the most important feast days of our faith and it comes when everything outside of church is happening at a sprint. Our challenge as people of faith is to slow down our hearts so we can fully live into this season of hopeful anticipation.
We are invited to live in the passage we heard this morning from Jeremiah during Advent. We live in the promise of the days that are coming. We live in the hope. Jeremiah is speaking to the people in a time of tragedy and pain. They are at war and there has been much destruction and devastation. The people of Judah and Israel are feeling hopeless. They are feeling abandoned by God. They are feeling as though the covenant has been broken and that they are left to fend for themselves. But Jeremiah’s prophecy tells the people to keep heart: despite all that is broken around them, hope is coming – God has not forgotten God’s people.
Advent is a season of expectant waiting. We are waiting for God who was born, is born, and will be born. We are waiting for God who is the messiah sent as a branch on David’s own tree. But, what is more, I believe God is also waiting for us. God is waiting for us to use all that we’ve been given to further God’s message of love and hope in this broken world. God is waiting for us, the humans created in God’s own imagine, to live into our potential to be an extension of God’s incarnate Love in the world. We are given the season of Advent in which we can choose to be active seekers of the kingdom of God in the here and now.

Advent can be an exceedingly stressful time of year because it falls at the time when all of the outside influences start beating down our doors and tell us we must prepare for Christmas NOW, we must decorate NOW, we must be merry NOW: we must, we must, we must. Sometimes it can feel like life is falling apart when the pressures mount in this way; but when that happens we are being invited to stop, allow all of the sound to be sucked out of the room, and -if only for a moment- to live in that in-between space of dazzling white. That place where the only interruptions come from the voice on our heart, and if we listen closely enough we will find that voice comes not from within ourselves, but from the Spirit of God who is singing into our silence.
Living in that in-between space is living on a blank canvas just waiting for the wonder and colors that we will bring to it with the help of the Living God. Living in that in-between space is trusting that if we delay our celebration until the appointed time, it will be even more joyous than if we’d jumped ahead. So I invite you to slow down and listen with me. Listen as all of the raucous shouts and confused noises die down. Watch as all of the bold colors and chaotic swirls of pattern fade away and leave you with a canvas of dazzling white. Let’s make a decision to actively and intentionally seek the Christ child in our everyday lives and in our every interaction. I’ll bet, if we try hard enough, we will discover the Christ waiting for us in some of the most peculiar places.
Amen….. thank you for this blessing Audrey!
Peace
~ Teresa
Love to you, Teresa!