First Sunday of Advent 2023

May I speak in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

So it's the first Sunday of Advent, and with every year, we're going to be thinking a lot about the theme of light in the darkness.

That's one of the key themes in our Advent season.

And so you can expect to hear those words, light in the darkness, a lot over the next month or so.

And I'd like to ask what sort of light and what sort of darkness?

Now, let me offer two types of light that I think we're all going to become very familiar with over the next month or so.

Firstly, the neon light of capitalism and consumerism.

And secondly, the warming light of the living room or the family home.

Now, most of you are familiar enough with church that you know the consumerism is not the answer.

No preacher, I hope, has stood up.

Well, no preacher in the Church of England, I hope, has stood up and said, consume more, then you'll be happy.

But it is a narrative in our culture that I think we need to think about and think about a lot because it's going to surround us constantly.

Is Advent, and as the way the everyone in the mall will think of this next month, is Christmas about the neon light of consumerism?

The best uh idea I had for this was those old Coca-Cola adverts.

You remember the truck riding through the forest with the snow?

Holidays are coming, holidays are coming, holidays are coming.

That sounds a bit like Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming.

Is that what we're talking about here?

A neon truck driving through the darkness.

We know that's not the answer, don't we?

We're familiar with that.

You can tell even from the way I'm talking about it, that can't be what I'm aiming for.

This narrative sounds a little bit like this.

Yes, it's dark outside.

Maybe you're experiencing some darkness in yourself this season, but for just$9.99, you can get some relief from the darkness.

The neon light of sail now on, that that sign shines into the darkness as a beacon for weary pilgrims who need to shelter in its warmth for a reasonable fee.

It's a very familiar narrative.

Of course, it's not the one I'm aiming at.

But what about the comfort of the fireside?

This is the warmth of holiday movies, and Nat King Cole singing chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

This narrative sounds a little bit like this.

Yes, it's dark outside, but feel the warmth coming from this roaring fire, a thick cashmere blanket and a glass of wine, Michael Booblay singing Christmas songs, and you get a nice warm glow in your heart.

Is that what we mean in Advent when we say light in the darkness?

This one's a bit trickier because it's not obviously wrong.

And I honestly love this feeling.

It's one of the things I like most about December.

I cannot wait to sing Silent Night, holding a candle, and feel that glow in my heart.

It's a very wonderful thing about Christmas and about Advent.

And of course, when we think about light in the darkness, we want to talk about comfort.

But I'd like to make the case this morning that that is not what we mean when we say light in the darkness in Advent.

And I'm going to try and make the case that in Advent, what's happening is both harsher and ultimately more comforting than the examples we've seen thus far.

Harsher, more brutal, and more comforting.

And to do that, I'd like us to think about Isaiah 61.

What does I sorry 64?

Isaiah 64, our reading from this morning.

You might want to turn there.

What on earth leads Isaiah to say these words?

Oh, that you would tear open the heavens and come down.

Older translations say, Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence, as when fire kindles brushwood, as the fire causes water to boil, so make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence.

There is very little that is Christmassy about this prayer.

This prayer, what I may I suggest, would not make a good MS advert.

It would not make a good John Lewis advert.

So, to understand what Isaiah is saying in chapter 64, let's just do a quick recap of Isaiah.

What has been going on in the chapters up to this point?

What's the context?

The first section of Isaiah, chapters 1 to 39, Isaiah is shouting as loud as he can to the people of Israel, and he's warning them of judgment that's coming.

Isaiah 1 · chapter mention

He says to them again and again and in different ways, you aren't living like God has told you to, and soon you will experience the consequences of your actions.

Your lives are shaped by idol worship.

You do not care for the poor.

You live in an unjust society where the rich are oppressing the marginalized.

You do not care about the widows and the orphans and the outcast.

This is not the society I wanted to set up, says God through Isaiah.

And judgment is coming.

You will experience the consequences of your actions, and those consequences are called Babylon and Assyria, who are on their way to destroy the nation of Israel and take us into exile.

And while Isaiah is communicating that, he weaves into his message of judgment a message of hope.

He says, and these are Christmas themes that we'll come across in the coming days, a new branch will come from the stump of Jesse.

Those words sound familiar?

And as it falls over, a stump is left.

But the hope of Isaiah in these early chapters is that a new branch will come out of the stump of Jesse.

And a new king will come to Israel, and his name will be Emmanuel, God with us.

So just as Israel is denouncing, just as Isaiah is denouncing Israel and prophesying their downfall, at the same time he promises that God will be faithful to them despite their unfaithfulness and offers a message of hope.

And one of the reasons Israel Isaiah is the great prophet of the Old Testament is because what he prophesied came true.

And at the end of chapter 39, Israel is taken by Assyria and destroyed by Assyria and taken by Babylon into exile.

And then there's a pause in the text, a silence for about 200 years, until eventually exile is over and Israel can return.

And we get at the start of Isaiah 40 this famous and beautiful phrase, comfort ye, comfort my people, put beautifully to music by Handel in his Messiah.

I'm sure you can hear the tune now, and a couple of the tenors behind me can probably sing it for us later.

Comfort ye, comfort my people.

Great comfort in these chapters.

And yet, Isaiah notes there's still sin, there's still darkness.

It's tempting to think after the exile, you have a kind of happy ever after narrative.

It's the end of the fairy tale, the end of the rom com, where the couple dance off into the future and never fight again.

But the scriptures are too true to allow us that narrative.

There is no happily ever after.

The people return from exile, they're comforted by their God, they're back in the land that's theirs, and yet there's still sin and still darkness.

And so we're left with a very complex kind of comfort.

Yes, comfort my people, and yet the reality of sin and injustice and darkness remains.

And it's in that context that we get Isaiah 64.

Oh, that you would tear open the heavens and come down.

Oh, that you would make your name known to our adversaries so that the nations might tremble at your presence.

Here's my translation of those texts.

God, would you please rip open heaven and return?

We need your presence, even if it's going to leave us quaking in our boots and shaking the very foundations of our world.

Isaiah is left reflecting on the fact that he is part of the problem.

His people are part of the problem.

The darkness of this world is not just out there, it's in here and it's with me.

And secondly, the writer of Isaiah says, we need help from beyond ourselves.

We need help from the heavens above.

We need someone to come rip open the heavens and come down and be with us.

We cannot do this on our own.

I don't think anyone in contemporary society articulates this better than AA, which of course is based on Christian principles, but they say it like this.

Firstly, we admit that we are powerless over our disease, that our lives have become unmanageable.

And secondly, we have come to believe that only a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Folks, the good news of Advent is that Jesus has come to restore us to sanity, and he will come again.

The darkness is in me, and nothing I seem to do makes it any better.

So what I need is help from above, his presence to be with us.

See the problem with the two types of light that I suggested earlier, the neon light of consumerism and the warming glow of fireside comfort, is they don't take the darkness seriously enough.

They don't take the darkness seriously enough.

They think the darkness is just a little problem over there, and for$9.99 we can fix it.

Or the darkness is just something that can be resolved by nice, happy feelings on the inside, manufactured by good movies and good cashmere blankets.

Advent starts and wants us to reflect on the fact that the world is dark and broken beyond our comprehension, and that all our flailing attempts to fix it often only make it worse.

And even if we were able to fix all the crises of today, there would just be another crisis tomorrow.

And all of that is because the darkness is not out there, it's in you and it's in me.

And so even when we try to fix it, we find ourselves contributing to the darkness.

And Advent wants to lead us to a place of despair at judgment that we cannot make this right on our own.

And to offer hope that one day someone a power bigger than ourselves will make it right for us.

So let me offer a third kind of light this evening.

Uh this morning, excuse me.

A third kind of light, and that is the watchfulness of candlelight.

This came up in our gospel reading reading, didn't it?

This is Mark 13.

Beware, keep alert, for you do not know when the time will come.

It's like a man who goes on a journey and leaves his home and commands the doorkeeper to be on watch, therefore keep awake.

There is a clear allusion here, if you know your gospel stories, to the story that Jesus tells about the bridesmaids who are given a candle, and some of them don't have enough oil in their light, and so it goes out, but half of them do have enough oil in their light, and they're able to stay awake and alert for the bridegroom as he comes.

We light a candle in the darkness, yes, to push the darkness back.

But perhaps also this morning, we should be lighting a candle in the darkness to keep ourselves awake.

And we light a candle in the darkness in hope, in recognition that we cannot save ourselves from the dark, and we can only wait for the one who will save us.

Because we need help from outside ourselves and from beyond ourselves.

This is something we are doing in our family, this advent.

This was Hannah's idea, and she didn't know I was preaching on this today, and I didn't know I was going to preach on this before Hannah bought the candle.

But it's just one of those lovely moments of synergy where Hannah came home with an advent candle and said, I think we should light this during dinner time every night uh as we get ready for Christmas.

And George loves it, he's mesmerized by it, which means we can feed him whatever we like because he's not really focused on the food.

It's a great combo.

I really recommend it.

But I encourage you to do the same.

Find an Advent candle.

You're a few days late, but that's okay.

Burn it down until you get to the appropriate day, and just spend a few minutes every day lighting the candle in watchfulness and in hope of a savior who will make all things right.

That's the hope of Advent.

It's a brutal reality, the coming judgment, the recognition of the darkness that is more than we can handle.

And it's about expectation and hope in a coming salvation.

Jesus is coming back.

Amen.