A, The Second Sunday of Advent - Romans 15:1-7,13 "Advent Pleasure"
At this time and in this place, with this privileged
prosperity and its pleasure, people are experiencing suffering at a level never
experienced before. The pleasure,
privilege and prosperity that is our expectation from life, takes the
prosperity, the privilege, and the pleasure for granted, rather than receiving these
things as a gift with thanksgiving to God.
At this time and place we find our pleasure no longer gives
pleasure, our privilege reveals selfish partiality, and our prosperity exposes
our poverty. We suffer at the hands of
our pleasures to such a degree, people in other parts of the world would not
even be able to begin to imagine.
Advent is the season for hope and peace, joy and love. A season for waiting. A season of patience. A season to depart from the darkness and be
delivered into the light of new life.
And a season of expectation to receive and pass on the gift of
forgiveness.
John the Baptist came baptising with a baptism for
repentance. There was expectation the
Messiah, was coming. Israel and the Jews
had not experienced any revelation from God, for approximately four hundred
years.
There was hope, and where there’s hope one prepares oneself
for what one is waiting. Expectation of
the Messiah meant many were flocking to the Jordan River, where John was
baptising with a baptism of repentance.
Over the course of one thousand years, the Israelites lived
in prosperity, privilege, and pleasure, given by God through King David and
others. But in the time and place of
John the Baptist this was all just a distant memory.
The pleasures of Israel no longer gave them pleasure. The privilege given to the people of God was
lost. And the prosperity of God’s chosen
nation, was taken and tossed about between the powers that overran them.
In this time and in this place, you and I suffer at the
hand of pleasures that no longer please, you and I suffer at the hands of
prosperity that no longer prospers, and you and I suffer at the hands of privileges
that enslave.
Perhaps like the Israelites it’s time to turn from what’s within
to that which we have been without! What
is it that you have been without? Hope? Peace? Joy?
Love?
Instead of hope, our society today promotes, wanting
without the waiting. Patient expectation
through endurance and encouragement, waiting for the fullness of time, where a
community wills one in its group to grow and mature, is impatiently shoved out
of the way. Growth and development are
trampled, along with fellowship and community building, in favour of instant gratification.
The problem being since what is wanted is easily gotten,
easy come - easy go, the mirage of desire moves and something else is
wanted. Impatience prematurely gets what
it wants and wastes unripe fruit.
Without waiting, one does not learn to be satisfied with what one has
been given, by God.
Instead of peace, our society today promotes a peace that
builds walls. When these walls are built
by us in the name of peace, fellowship is broken, and individualism ends up
oppressing us. One ends up locking
oneself in on oneself. We become slaves
to the darkness within, and stuck there, find a whole bunch of loneliness and
despair.
Instead of joy, our society today promotes, sickly sweet
happiness. In one’s impatience we can’t
wait for the fullness of time. We eat unripe
fruit, and it sours the second it hits our palette. So, we go looking for artificial happiness.
Happiness is different to joy. Joy is built by people in community creating
fellowship, while happiness can be celebrated by an individual without any
outside influence. Artificial happiness
is saccharine and extreme and it’s usually found to be a cover for loneliness
and despair.
Instead of love, our society today promotes unleashed
desire. Rights revealing what is wrong with
us and our society, while our wrongs are recognised as right. Love is
no longer about sacrificed and service, but rather about satisfaction of
feelings.
However, two things are experienced when love is centred on
the self. First, confusion and chaos rules
as each person’s love competes for supremacy. Second, people seek satisfaction that’s never fulfilled. The more
one desires this kind of love, the more allusive love proves to be!
In the season of Advent, in this time and place in history,
we find ourselves between two competing realities. The hope, peace, joy and love of Christ’s
coming has been departed from and
forgotten in favour of the advent of new and renewed human ideals.
So, what have we found there? The advent of new and renewed ways of suffering!
Now we might think this is a terrible thing. It might be, if it continues to deliver us
into the darkness of ourselves. However,
this is also the time and place of great opportunity for true hope, peace, joy,
and love, in its advent through Jesus Christ.
Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” (Revelation 3:20a ESV)
Every day and in every place, Jesus, through the power of
the Holy Spirit, meets you in the suffering of those in our society. Jesus makes his Advent to them through you,
allowing the Holy Spirit to bring sufferers to the Advent of Jesus’ suffering and
death for true hope, peace, joy, and love!
Saint Paul describes Jesus’ Advent of knocking and waiting
in this way, “We who are strong have an
obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please
ourselves. Let each of us please his
neighbour for his good, to build him up.
For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, ‘The reproaches
of those who reproached you fell on me’”.
(Romans 15:1–3 ESV)
While we please ourselves, we follow the ways of the world,
in the same way as did the Israelites. One’s
suffering at the hands of seeking these pleasures, is a reminder Jesus continually
sends the Holy Spirit knocking on our doors.
To enter and forgive. To restore
and return us through Jesus’ suffering and victory on the cross. To see in our forgiveness, the pleasure of God
to forgive those who have not the will nor the way to turn to the Saviour who
suffered for humanity.
Just as those waited for the coming of a messiah in the
time and place of John the Baptist, we continually wait for the final Advent of
the Messiah, Jesus Christ. As we wait
for this final most glorious and treasured advent, like those in John’s day, we
allow ourselves to be prepared for Jesus’ final victorious Advent.
The Holy Spirit prepares us by leading us from our sinful suffering
into the Word of God, where we endure and are encouraged. This is also the place and the time in which
Jesus makes his Advent through us. He
returns us to his first Advent where he saved us through our baptism into his
death and resurrection.
As we rightly suffer reproaches for being in Christ, know the
reproaches of those who reproach you fall on Jesus. Paul points us to God and his word, “For whatever was written in former days was
written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the
encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement
grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus,
that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one
another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (Romans 15:4–7 ESV)
The strange thing that occurs when God leads us from our
suffering as a result of seeking our pleasures to suffering for the things that
please God, we find ourselves waiting in hope, living in peace with joy and
love, for those who suffer at the hands of seeking their pleasure, as well as
with those who suffer seeking to please God.
As puzzling and paradoxical as it might seem in this Advent,
this is the profound prosperity, privilege, and pleasure God seeks for all who
suffer within, without him!
May the God of hope
fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy
Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans
15:13 ESV)
Amen.
