Second Sunday in Advent
December 7, 2008
The Rev. Charles Henrickson
“An Advent Inventory, Invitation, and Intent” (Mark 1:1-8)
He has been called “the great forerunner of the morn.” He called himself “a
voice crying in the wilderness.” Most of us know him as John the Baptist. But
coming as he does in the midst of the world’s Christmas season, he might as
well be called, “John the Killjoy.” For this is the season of merriment and
mirth, office parties, and liquid cheer. We want to put aside any gloom and
doom, and it irks us to run into anything or anyone who would ruin our good
time. But every year, as predictable as credit-card bills, here comes John the
Baptist, the church’s version of the “Grinch who stole Christmas.” A wild sort
of man, a little rough around the edges. Ate locusts and wild honey. Wore
camel’s hair and a leather belt. John would be out of place at one of our
Christmas parties, where everyone is decked out in festive holiday attire. He
might even be out of place in church--the ushers might ask him to leave. And
if his
appearance and diet were not bizarre enough, John’s message seems to be the
ultimate killjoy. “Repent!” he cries out. “Change your whole way of thinking,
and prepare the way of the Lord.”
How out of sync with the world’s view of Christmas! Yet, ironically, if
Christmas is to have its full tidings of comfort and joy, John must be heard
first. John the Baptist is the forerunner of the Lord, and he knows that in
order to receive aright the blessings Christ would give us, we must first
change our whole approach. “Repent! Prepare the way of the Lord.” We need to
take inventory and rid ourselves of any sinful barriers to Christ’s coming in
our lives. John just won’t let us off the hook. “Repent!” he keeps on crying,
because as long as we’re doing “business as usual,” we can ignore the sin
within. But in repentance we meet the sinful self, the self we’ve tried to
ignore, the self that keeps its distance from God. John would have us confront
that sinful self at the banks of the Jordan, before we go to meet the Messiah
in Bethlehem. We prepare for the joy of the manger by way of repentance at the
river.
The church has long recognized this need for repentance in preparing for the
coming of Christ. And so Advent is a kind of “little Lent,” a penitential
season that prepares us for Christmas in much the same way that Lent prepares
us for Easter. These purple paraments signify repentance. Many Advent hymns
have a reflective, yearning quality about them. There even used to be
pre-Christmas fasting in preparation for our Lord’s coming. Can you imagine
that today--fasting in December in the weeks leading up to Christmas? Many
churches have pretty much lost the penitential emphasis in their Advent
preparation. They want to jump right to Christmas, without letting Advent be
Advent. The church has a hard time fighting a culture that demands joy--even a
shallow, superficial joy--at this time of year.
But John--John the Baptist will not let us forget. “Repent,” John demands of
us. And so today let me suggest a repentance that takes shape in three ways:
“An Advent Inventory, Invitation, and Intent.”
First, repentance means that we take an Advent inventory. Each year, somewhere
around this time, families descend to the basement to retrieve their boxes of
Christmas decorations. There they find long treasured ornaments, trinkets, and
strings of lights that were hastily stuffed away last year, the old pine
needles still clinging to the clips. We dig into these boxes, and often we’re
surprised by what we find, even if we’ve gone through this routine a dozen
times or more. The inventory of our Christmas decorations is new to us every
season.
That’s the way it is with an Advent repentance inventory, as well. You see,
the problem is, we become so accustomed to living with our sins that we simply
pack them away. We tend not to look at them, or we deny them when others point
them out to us. But now, during Advent, as we await our Lord’s coming, John
insists that we unpack our boxes and examine our sins: the pride by which I
lift myself up above others, the insensitivity to the hurts around me, the
jealousy and anger that keep me apart from others and build up a wall of
resentment toward God. Decorating our lives with anger, jealousy, pride, and
resentment--like we decorate our trees with Christmas ornaments--that may seem
rather silly, but that’s what we do. An Advent inventory, then, helps us to
take stock of ourselves, to take an honest look at our lives, and to clean
house.
One way to do an Advent inventory is to use the Ten Commandments as a
checklist. As Luther writes in the Catechism: “Consider your place in life
according to the Ten Commandments: Are you a father, mother, son, daughter,
husband, wife, or worker? Have you been disobedient, unfaithful, or lazy?
Have you been hot-tempered, rude, or quarrelsome? Have you hurt someone by
your words or deeds? Have you stolen, been negligent, wasted anything, or done
any harm?” This kind of honest self-examination will help you to see your sins
in the light of God’s law. Poor miserable sinners actually do poor miserable
sins, and taking stock of specifics in this way moves our confession out of the
abstract and into the concrete.
So repentance means taking that Advent inventory. It means getting out those
boxes and unpacking them. But John the Baptist would have us do something
else. Remember that John came preaching a baptism of repentance “for the
forgiveness of sins.” The forgiveness of sins--that is what repentance
prepares us to receive. And so we not only take an Advent inventory, we also
receive an Advent invitation. It is an invitation to forgiveness. It is an
invitation offered to us by the God who will heal and restore us, who will
rescue and redeem us.
The Old Testament reading today captures it well. Isaiah speaks of our God as
a restoring, merciful Lord: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak
tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her
iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all
her sins.” Here is comfort for troubled sinners! Here is forgiveness given as
a free gift! What a wonderful Advent invitation!
The God we meet in Advent is a gracious God, who yearns to redeem his people.
He is a God who lifts up his people and comforts them. What we wait for in
Advent, then, is the forgiving grace of God in Jesus Christ. For what began in
Bethlehem’s manger was completed on Calvary’s cross and then announced by
angels at the empty tomb. The herald of good news has proclaimed this gospel
into your ears: “Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having
salvation.” Salvation won and bestowed by your coming king, Jesus Christ. You
and I were submerged into his cleansing grace in our baptism, where we were
clothed with the righteousness of Christ. To be washed anew and afresh in that
forgiveness, in that baptismal grace--this is the Advent invitation we receive
during this holy season.
An Advent inventory, an Advent invitation--third, an Advent intent. Our final
response to John’s cry for repentance is a holy intent to live the new life
that is ours in Christ.
Sometime over the course of the holiday season you can bet we’ll hear the wish
that the “spirit of Christmas” would extend beyond this season. It’s a noble
wish. Yet we seem to know better. We know that the warm cheer of December
will yield to the cold, gray reality of January.
It doesn’t have to be that way for Christ’s repentant people. The Messiah who
comes to us at Christmas will not go away, he will not abandon us. Jesus
promises to be with us always, to abide with us, his forgiving and restoring
presence a constant in our lives. What remains for us, then, is to remember
who we are. We are God’s holy people. Therefore, let us turn away from sin.
We are God’s forgiven people. Therefore, let us forgive. We are God’s loved
ones. Therefore, let us love. We are those blessed by God. Therefore, let us
be a blessing to others. Make this your intent, your Advent intent this year.
God is faithful, and he will help you do it.
A bumper sticker in a gift shop read, “Repent!” Underneath, in small letters,
it said, “If you have already repented, please disregard this notice.” Well,
the fact is, we poor sinners are always in need of repenting. That is the
ongoing life of God’s baptized people. Dying and rising, daily. Always taking
inventory of our sins. Always receiving God’s invitation to forgiveness.
Always being renewed by the Holy Spirit in our intent to live as God’s
children. “An Advent Inventory, Invitation, and Intent.”
Today we can say, “Killjoy was here”--John the Killjoy, that is, better known
as John the Baptist. John the Party-pooper, the old sourpuss, comes this way
every Advent, it seems, crying in the wilderness, preaching repentance, calling
us to confess our sins at the banks of the Jordan. But rather than being a
killjoy, John is actually a “filljoy”--calling us to empty out the junk in our
souls so they can then be filled with the joy of Jesus. John is preparing us
to receive the joy to come--the joy that comes in the person of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ.
On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry
Announces that the Lord is nigh;
Awake and hearken, for he brings
Glad tidings of the King of kings!
Charles Henrickson
4749 Melissa Jo Ln
St. Louis, MO 63128
(314) 845-8811 (home)
(314) 779-8108 (cell)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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