“Do Your Christmas Thinking Early"
What Jesus wants from us for Christmas
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Text: Matthew 3:1-11
Back in September, I was in a discount department store when suddenly around a narrow aisle came a lady pushing a very large basket piled high with huge boxes of toys. Unfortunately, because of the size of them, she could not see where she was going, and she rammed into my shins. I was ready to castigate her, and I wondered what kind of employees this particular store hired, for I know that whenever you go in you are always greeted with a smile and welcomed to their store, which of course really means: “Leave your hard-earned money here.”
They also wear badges saying things like, “Have a good day.” So, assuming because of the quantity of boxes in her basket that she was stocking shelves, I was searching for one of these on her only to find out that rather than being an employee of the store, she was simply a shopper like me. She apologized for having gouged my shins. I asked her what she was doing with all these toys - you couldn't see her for them - and she said, “I am buying them for Christmas.”
Well, I looked down at my knees. I was wearing shorts since it was a hot day, and she was in a floral dress. I thought to myself, “What on earth is this world coming to when on a hot September day of 32 degrees someone is already buying her Christmas gifts? Isn't this a little bit ahead of time?”
Then, she said something to me that put me in my place. She said, “Actually, these are Christmas gifts, but they are not for my children. They are for the children of a mission in the places that the tsunami has devastated, and I am getting them ready to send off to make sure that they get to their location in time.” Suitably humbled was I!
The more I thought about this woman doing her Christmas shopping so early, the more I realized that there are virtues in doing that. There is the virtue in thinking first about the needs of the people you are going to buy for, rather than simply going out and making yourself feel comfortable knowing that you have completed your shopping. Here was a woman thinking of the receiver rather than herself, the giver, and surely that should be at the heart of all Christmas giving.
To buy early is to spend time thinking about the needs of the people that you are going to give to. Buying early also stops you from doing something else: impulse buying. This is buying the thing that looks so good right now because you know you have to buy something at this moment for Auntie Margaret. The reality is that often when we buy on impulse, we buy the things that we like rather than the things that people need. I am sure Auntie Margaret doesn't appreciate wheel nuts and drills as a gift for Christmas, but maybe that is a sexist comment on my part.
There is one other benefit of doing your Christmas shopping early. You actually have time later on to remember the meaning of the season and to take a step back from all the commercialism. Knowing that you have spent your money wisely, you can now spend your time wisely and think about God.
This morning, on the first Sunday of Advent, I want to talk about doing our Christmas thinking early, not our Christmas shopping early. What are we doing when we are preparing ourselves for the coming of Christ? What should be on our minds and in our hearts? Well, Advent is the season that dates back to 6 AD during the time of Gelasius, who wrote his Sacramentum, outlining prayers and readings that people should follow to prepare themselves for the coming of Christmas. For him, it was a time of preparation, of giving up things, of moderation, a time even of fasting. It was like Lent, a season to be observed by purifying oneself.
But more than that, Advent is significant because of the color purple that is worn during the season, a sign of the royalty of Christ, a time of humility before the coming of the King, a time to prepare oneself spiritually. Now, we usually time the beginning of Advent to correspond with the first Sunday before November 30th. However, in the Eastern church, they always begin it in the middle of November. Whether it is the Eastern church or the Western church, Advent has the same meaning: a time of getting ready, of “adventus,” for the coming.
No text in the whole of the Bible sets the tone for thinking about Advent and the coming of Christ quite like the one that was read for us so beautifully this morning. It is the story of John the Baptist. According to Matthew, it is the first encounter that we have with this great and majestic figure. The reason Matthew puts it in his Gospel so soon is because there was such a debate about John the Baptist, even after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Many people thought that he was the new Elijah. They thought this not only because of by his dress, not only because of the fact that he called on people to repent, but also due to the belief, dating back to the Book of Malachi, that Elijah would come again in preparation for the arrival of the Messiah.
Here are the words of Malachi himself, in Chapter 4: “Behold I am going to send you Elijah, the prophet, before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.” Now, “the great and terrible day of the Lord” is akin to what John said was coming: The arrival of the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven. However, John saw himself, not as Robert Webb, the great Biblical scholar, says “as Elijah Revivus,” in other words “revived” or “coming back,” but rather as preparing himself completely and absolutely for the coming of the Messiah who would be the Lord of Life.
John the Baptist was unique, but he was like Elijah in the sense that he prepared the way for the coming. However, he didn't want any confusion: He didn't want anyone to think that he was the Messiah. He went out of his way to say, “I baptize with water, but the One who is coming will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. I am not worthy even to put the sandals on the feet of the One who is coming after me.” So, Matthew recorded that John went to great lengths to maintain a separation among Elijah, John the Baptist and Jesus. He realized that Jesus was the one who was going to come and fulfill all that the prophets had said. The question then arises: What does John the Baptist want people to do in preparation for the adventus, the coming?
What are we to think as we prepare ourselves for Christmas? Well, I want to think of it as getting out a shopping cart. In that shopping cart we are going to put two big boxes. The first is the box of repentance. For John the Baptist, it was abundantly clear that the way in which we prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ is to repent. Now, “repent” is a heavy word. It is a word that people do not like to hear, which sounds like an old-fashioned term, dating back to another time. Repentance seems so old fashioned: The word just doesn't resonate with our generation.
Some say the world does not understand the concept of repentance from sin. I disagree: I think people do know. I think in our consciences and in our hearts we do know what sin is, and when we listen to John the Baptist we do know what repentance is. But let me tell you, this box that we have to carry around in Advent is a heavy box. It is a hard box. It is one that requires decisions, and all the great prophets throughout the Old Testament were those who called on people to repent. Sometimes, we turn their word of repentance into something light and easy.
I love a description I read of how the different leaders in the Old Testament called on us, and how they didn't call on us to have a light approach:
Noah's message from the steps going up to the ark was not: ”˜Something good is going to happen to you today.' Amos was not confronted by the High Priest of Israel for proclaiming ”˜Confession is Possession.' Jeremiah was not put in the pit for preaching ”˜I am okay; you're okay.' Daniel was not put into the lion's den for telling people ”˜Positive thinking will move mountains.' John the Baptist was not forced to preach in the wilderness and be eventually beheaded because he preached ”˜Smile! God loves you!'
No! What they all had in common was their use of the word “repent.”
Repentance is not just a little change in the way that you do things, a mild alteration to your behaviour. It is not just a sense of sorrow for something that you might have done wrong. It is not just the minor tweaking or the removal of little problems you may have in your life, here and there. Repentance, biblically, means “turning around.” It means facing not towards your self-obsession, but towards your profession in God. It means not just making minor adjustments, but it means making a major and a profound change in your whole orientation to life. That is what Advent is all about.
The great English philosopher John Locke put it beautifully:
Repentance is a heavy sorrow for our past misdeeds, and a sincere resolution and endeavour to the utmost of our power to conform all our actions to the Lord God. It does not consist in one single act of sorrow, but in doing works meek for repentance in the sincere obedience to the law of Christ for the remainder of our days.
John the Baptist, my friends, is saying “Repent!” to you and to me. So often, we want to hold onto those sins. We don't want the freedom, we don't want the power of what that repentance brings. It reminds me of the story about a little boy who got his hand stuck in a very expensive Swarovski vase. His parents didn't know how they were going to get it out. They tried everything. They put butter on it, but that didn't work. They squirted olive oil around the hand, but that didn't work. They ran cold water on it, but that didn't work. They even sprayed WD-40 on it (I spray that on everything, and by the way, it is good for arthritis), but that didn't work either. They tried everything to get that hand out of the vase, and finally, they concluded that the only way they were going to get his hand out was to smash the vase. Just before they did, the little boy piped up, “Do you think it would help if I let go of the penny that is in my hand?” My friends, our sins are like that penny. We hold on to them and they tie us down. They weigh us down, and there is no freedom of conscience, no love and no joy. Therefore, our Christmas thinking is warped, because we are holding onto the things that don't matter.
My friends, I think that the need to repent, to let go of that coin, should be applied not only to us but also to the whole world. Wherever there is violence, wherever there is danger, wherever there is discord, wherever there is materialism and greed, it seems repentance is the only word that is going to work. We are all deeply troubled, I know, by the violence occurring in our beautiful Toronto. I know in the Afro-Canadian communities in particular, there is a deep, deep sorrow and a sickness at heart about what is happening to their young people.
I was speaking this week to a friend who was a pastor in one of those black neighbourhoods. I have known him since I first came to Toronto seven-and-a-half years ago, and he was one of the people who phoned me to welcome me into this great pulpit when I arrived. He said:
Andrew, I have a broken people. We can make many modifications that can help. We can have better after-school programs. We can have more police presence. We can have better parenting. We can have better schools. We can have better social networks. But ultimately, when it comes down to it, the things that the young people consider important need to change. As long as the possession of certain material things that you can only get by nefarious means like selling drugs or selling guns continues to be so important to our young people, then this violence will continue. What the people need is to completely and totally turn around. Turn around in the things that they value most. Because, if you value drugs and you value looking cool, and if you value sneakers and nice jackets ahead of human life, you need to turn around.
It is not only the people in those situations who need to turnaround, but also the whole of our society that needs to turn around in its values. This turnaround has to come to the rich and the powerful as well. The need to turn around must come to people who are involved in governance. They need to turn around and to express truth and values that befit a society that should be living in peace. If John the Baptist were here today, he wouldn't say, “Make a few minor modifications.” He would say, “Repent!” As we approach this Christmas season, we need to repent and let go of those things we hold onto, those things that can destroy life.
Thank goodness there is the lighter box! There is a box that we need to put in our shopping cart that is light, a box that is not burdensome, a box that brings us joy whenever we open it or see it, a box that we just love to give to somebody else in their time of need. It is the box of Hope. John the Baptist knew that all he could do was say “Repent,” but the one coming after him was the one who would make the changes. He was the one who would turn people's hearts; he was the one who would change the world; that for him was the box of Hope. I agree with something that Dr. Paul Wilson said in what I thought was an outstanding sermon last Wednesday night at the Churches-on-the-Hill Advent service. He said, “Advent is not just about preparation, it is actually about Christ. It is not about what we do, rather, it is about what Christ does and has already done on our behalf.” The real joy, the real hope of Advent is the Christ event - the adventus, the Coming One.
A friend of mine who does the most beautiful Chinese calligraphy told me that in Chinese there are two characters that are needed to write the word “righteousness.” One of them is the character for “lamb,” the other is the character for “me.” He told me that when you take the character for “me” and you put on top of it the character for “lamb,” you get the word “righteousness.” With the “me” on its own, there is no righteousness. With the “lamb” superimposed - righteousness. That is precisely what Christmas is about, and why this season of Advent is so important. It is about the Lamb of God, Christ, the one who comes with the Holy Spirit and with fire to burn upon us - the me, the you, the I - and to create the righteousness, which on our own we cannot do.
This week, I have been reading a great deal by someone I have loved to read for years - Jean Vanier. I am teaching a class on him tomorrow morning. Jean Vanier worked with the disabled, with the mentally challenged, with the people in his large community in Trosly and throughout the world. It is amazing what these people can give us when they come face-to-face with the Lamb, when they come face-to-face with Christ. Vanier says that he sees Christ in them.
As I was reading Vanier, I was reminded of a time when I was a chaplain at a psychiatric hospital in Nova Scotia. I was on a ward in the months leading up to Christmas. Something staggered me every day. In the morning when they would bring the medication tray in, all the patients would have to line up to receive their medications. It was always a time of great stress and anxiety. Many people did not like the idea that they had to take medications, and they found it difficult and painful. For new patients, in particular, it was distressing to realize they were going to be on medications. They didn't like it, and they didn't want it. There was a man named Gareth on the ward, however, whom I will never forget. He had been on that ward for 20 years. Every day that he received his medication, he took it gladly. Whenever he took the medication and drank the water after it, he said the same thing: “Jesus wants me to be better. Jesus wants me to be well.” Whenever he said that, all those who were lining up to receive their meds had a greater sense of peace about them. It seemed that the closer we got to Christmas, the more the words that he was speaking had an impact on those who were there. The name Jesus was being mentioned all over the place - in hymns and psalms and scriptures and readings and poems and Christmas cards. His words were a comfort: “Jesus wants me to be better.”
This is exactly what Advent is about. Jesus wants humanity to be better. Jesus wants humanity to live in righteousness. Jesus wants humanity to live in peace. What John the Baptist could only begin by saying “Repent,” Jesus, the Lamb of God, did in person, and does for you and for me and the whole world. We stand in this church in the great tradition of the Methodists and the Wesleys, and in the great hymn by Charles Wesley:
No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine!
Alive in him, my living head,
and clothed in righteousness divine.
bold I approach the eternal throne,
and claim the crown, through Christ, my own.
When we can say this, we have done our Christmas thinking early and properly. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.