First Sunday of Advent
Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Advent is the season of waiting and expectation. Not surprisingly then, our Bible readings this morning share messages of hopeful expectation.
The Prophet Isaiah describes a beautiful vision: People from all over the world will come to the mountain of God to learn from God how to live their lives. God will be the arbiter between nations and restore them to peace, so that they can turn their weapons of war into farming tools. What a great vision of life on earth!
All this will happen on the mountain of the Lord. Many important moments in the Old Testament take place on mountains: Noah’s ark lands on a mountain and new life begins; Moses receives God’s law on Mount Sinai; Elijah gets to see a glimpse of God’s glory on a mountain. Mountains are places where God and people interact.
This has something to do with how people then imagined the universe. They thought there were three main layers: the firmaments of heaven where God lived; the earth where people lived; and the deep where demons and chaos lived. Thus the best place for people and God to meet would be a mountain. It’s where the two realms come closest together.
Now Isaiah tells us that some day, God is going to raise Mount Zion to be taller than any other mountain in the world. By the power of God, it will be raised and become closer to God than any other mountain ever has. It will be the best meeting place between God and people ever. They will be close like never before.
Not only Israel, but all nations will stream to this meeting place. They want to learn from God. In the light of God, they will learn to end all wars and to live faithfully and in peace. That’s what will happen because God will raise the people up, will bring them close to himself, will inspire and teach them.
Because there will be peace among nations, weapons of war are no longer needed. Metal was costly back then. Rather than throwing away their swords and spears, people reshape them for a different, peaceful, lifegiving purpose. They recycle them, if you will, remolding them to become plowshares and pruning hooks. Tools of destruction and war become tools for farming and food production. What a wonderful image for the difference the kingdom of God makes.
In fact, it is so beautiful an image that many peace movements have used it for their campaigns. When Germany was still divided into East and West, in the days of the wall and of the communist regime, this passage from Isaiah became the banner quote for the movement for democracy and freedom. On stickers, flags, posters, and pamphlets, you could see a blacksmith standing at his anvil, one hand high above his head holding a hammer. His other hand is holding a sword on top of the anvil. The sword is no longer pointy and sharp, but has been flattened and bent, taking on the shape of a ploughshare.
This was the banner image of the freedom fighters in East Germany. It was a symbol of their vision, a vision of life without war and violence, without a government holding people captive in their own country, without police on every corner, without spies in every family and church and club, without election ballots that list one party only – which always won with 99% of the vote. The blacksmith reshaping the sword into a ploughshare stood for their dream of shaping a better life, a life of freedom and democracy, of safety and religious freedom.
That was their vision, and their vision made them act. They had an idea of how life could be different, and that idea set them into motion. It started in church. Peace services were held, vigils and prayer meetings. Attendance grew and grew. More and more people caught the vision.
Eventually, churches could no longer contain all the people. After services, they would spill into the streets. With lit candles in hand, they would silently walk through town, walk to protest the way things were, walk towards their vision of a better life.
On the final night, there were tens of thousands of people spilling out of churches in Leipzig and Berlin and other cities. They prayed and they walked. The government felt threatened. Armed forces were called in. Tanks stood ready to attack unarmed people holding candles. But the people didn’t back away. Their vision kept them there. And eventually, the government gave in and admitted defeat. The tanks were called back, and a week later the wall came down.
That was a time when God and people met. That was a time when God raised the towns of East Germany to meeting places, places of instruction from the Lord, places of hope and faith, places of freedom and peace, places where people caught the vision of life on God’s holy mountain. That vision made them act, and in the end, with the help of God, they were able to create part of that vision in real life.
Isaiah challenges his listeners of all times and places to catch the vision of the kingdom of God, and then to act according to that vision. “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”, Isaiah says. Come on, folks! Catch the vision! Live according to it! Do something about it! Don’t just treat it like a picture you hang on a wall. No, make it an inspiring, compelling, life-shaping impulse for your every waking moment. Wait for the Lord, but while you wait, don’t just sit there; do something!
We receive the same message from our other two scripture readings this morning.
The Apostle Paul writes to the Romans that each day they live brings them a little bit closer to the marvelous day of Christ’s coming again. “The night is far gone, the day is near,” he writes. Therefore, we should all behave like people of the light, people on whom the light of Christ has shined.
Jesus points out that only God knows when the kingdom will come. However, we do know that it will come eventually. Until then, we have time to prepare ourselves for that kingdom. Jesus uses the example of Noah: Noah knew a flood would come eventually, so he prepared for it; he built a boat and was saved. The other people went on as if nothing was going to happen; they were completely taken by surprise when the waters rose, and they died.
According to the gospel, that’s the biggest trap we can fall into: Living as if God doesn’t do anything; as if Christ will never come back. God has always acted in this world, and God will act again.
God has acted to create another meeting place between people and God. In his Son Jesus Christ, God has elevated the whole world into God’s presence. No longer do we need to go to a certain mountain to meet God; we can now meet God wherever we are.
This is possible because God erased all obstacles between God and humans through two events that, incidentally, took place on mountains: The crucifixion on Mount Calvary and the Ascension after the resurrection on a mountain in Galilee. Through these events, God has lifted us up to his level. We can now meet God and talk to God. We can love and trust God. And eventually, we will join God, either in heaven after we die or in his kingdom on earth, whichever comes first.
We all know this. We really have no excuse for keeping on living as if nothing has happened or will happen. Instead, we are called to prepare ourselves for the kingdom so that we might be part of it. We are to live the vision so that the light of God can shine on us and through us. We are to wait for Christ’s return faithfully, attentively, and actively, so that the kingdom of God might also come to us.
In his explanation of the Lord’s Prayer in his Small Catechism, Martin Luther states this quite poignantly. The second petition of the Lord’s Prayer is ‘thy kingdom come’. Luther writes: “The kingdom of God comes indeed without our prayer, of itself; but we pray in the petition that it may also come to us.” The third petition is ‘thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. Luther writes: “The good and gracious will of God is done indeed without our prayer; but we pray in this petition that it may be done among us also.”
God’s kingdom will come; God’s will will be done; God’s vision will become reality. The question is whether we will be part of it. Isaiah and Paul and Jesus are giving us the vision so it will mobilize us into action, into repentance, into change, into hope, into a way of life that lets us be blessed by the coming kingdom.
The famous Dickens story “A Christmas Carol” gives a good illustration for how this works, how a vision of the future can change our lives in the here and now, and lead to more blessings.
In the story, the main character Ebenezer Scrooge sees three ghosts. The last of these is the ghost of Christmas future. He shows Scrooge the vision of the future he is heading towards. It is really bleak, full of sadness and loneliness and grief. It rattles Scrooge to the core. And it makes him jump into action. He completely changes his ways. He becomes generous and joyful and interested in community. His life takes a dramatic turn for the better, and as a result his life is more blessed and also becomes a blessing to other people. Joy spreads all around.
The vision that spurred Scrooge into action was scary and bleak The vision God holds out for us today is beautiful and entices us with promises of healing and peace. With this vision, God wants to affect our lives now. God calls us to live according to that vision of the future, so that our lives here and now will be more hopeful and joyful and peaceful and blessed. That in turn will make our community, our neighborhoods, our city, and our world a more blessed place to live for all people.
This Advent season, let us ponder how we are called to live now because we expect Christ to return and bring his kingdom. Let the vision of life on the mountain of God give you hope in these trying times, and faith to live into your future with God. Amen.