Advent Sunday, 29^th November 2009

Luke 21: 25 – 36

Are you scared?

Last week on the news I heard that Prof. Dawkins, among others, is funding a poster campaign which, as I understand it, is telling parents not to put their children into a faith category, and it seems, particularly, ,not to tell them they are Christian, but give them freedom of choice, and as I listened it occurred to me that I would really like to meet him face to face and ask him the question ‘Why are you scared of religion?’

Jane Williams describes the theme of today’s readings as intelligent waiting, and goes on to say ‘the point of Advent is to learn God’s characteristics so as to recognize him when he comes, not to be so armoured against life that we never really experience anything.’

And this waiting is not just from Christ’s time, but from the beginning of time. In Jeremiah, somewhat renowned as a prophet of doom, we have this uplifting passage in which God promises salvation to his people. He makes no promise as to when, but he promises ‘the days are coming’.

And as Jeremiah was remarkably cheerful, so we have a passage from Luke unusually full of doom. In it Jesus is warning us of signs of turmoil, of the unexpected, the uncontrollable – probably what fills Dawkins and others like him with panic, panic because there is no sign of us being in control. Not of course that we are ever in full control, we may have freedom of choice, when life is chugging along we may think we are in control, but we don’t have control, only God is in control.

But God has given us the choice - we can denounce the scriptures, choose the idols of money, science, power, whatever, or we can choose to follow God, our Father.

We can choose as we please, our God is loving and tolerant, and what is more he still loves those who reject him, who mock him, he may hate the sin but he loves the sinner.

The somewhat apocalyptic language of today's readings perhaps seems apt in today’s uncertain world. A world in which so many feel their security is gone, life isn’t as they expected. We live in a world full of insecurity, there’s war, terrorism, economic problems, flooding in Cumbria, and added to that there’s swine flu; for many the list seems never ending, and unsettling.

And yet we have Jesus telling us that all these things will happen, somewhat like birth pains before the big event, they cannot be avoided but that doesn’t mean the Kingdom isn’t coming. Jesus says ‘Be alert’ we have to prepare ourselves, we have to be ready to face the problems and temptations of our earthly existence; he warns we have to pray that we do not loose faith, that we remain strong and we then are assured we will, when our times comes, meet Jesus, we will be safe in the heavenly kingdom.

But over and over in the Scriptures we have the warning that it will not be easy, but we are warned we need not despair, we just need to be prepared.

And this is what the season of Advent gives us, it gives us to time to prepare, prepare by both looking back and looking forward. We have time to reflect on our journey since last Christmas, to remember both the good times and the bad, there may be sadness but we shouldn’t be despondent, we must look forward with the hope that whatever we have gone through we are now closer to God, more aware of his love, his compassion.

Today is the New Year for the Christian Church, perhaps a time when it is good to look at our Christian journey and see what New Year resolutions we need to make on our spiritual journey. What we need to do to affirm our faith against the onslaught of the Atheists, the Dawkins of this world.

I started by saying I would like to meet Prof. Dawkins, and ask him why he is scared of religion, for if we look through the Gospels all who were against Christ seemed to be scared of him.

It began with King Herod and the magi, he asked the magi to tell him where the baby was, and when they didn’t he set about killing what must have been hundreds of small boys, he killed them because he was afraid of one small baby boy. And thirty years later it was both the High Priests and Pilate who were scared, people who you might say were on opposite sides, all scared of a young man who had no earthly wealth or power, no army to protect him, they were scared of someone who preached love and forgiveness. But we need to remember that Jesus had known that it would happen he had predicted what would happen to him in the same way he predicted what would happen to the world before the kingdom comes.

At the beginning of the Gospel reading we heard men will faint with terror - , is that God warning us of the opposition we will face. I am sure if I could meet Prof. Dawkins face to face, he would deny fearing religion, and blind me with science for all his reasons for denying the existence of God, but I know I wouldn’t be convinced. And that isn’t just because I am a Christian but because I think if we look at the way animals react when they are cornered, when they are scared, we seeing a similar reaction in Prof. Dawkins. An animal when it is scared goes on the defensive, they don’t need to be in danger it just that something has scared them, and even a placid animal can become aggressive. The anti-Church brigade don’t become physically violent like an animal but they try to use everything in their power to defeat us. Rather than becoming despondent we need to wonder yet again what it is about the Prince of Peace that made even powerful men scared, what is there to fear in never ending love?

But in the middle of the Gospel reading there is surely our Advent message to ourselves - in the midst of despair, of wondering if there is any hope we are told to remember the fig tree, to remember all God’s creation, because nothing in it stands still, there is always new growth, there are always new beginnings On Thursday when I wrote this sermon I was finding it hard to think what those green shoots may be, and then on Friday I saw the e-mail from the Archbishops saying we may now resume administering the chalice. Swine flu isn’t going to totally alter what we do. Our message to ourselves is to have faith, not to waver. To remember that faith may not prevent despair, but faith is the seed of new life, the seed of hope, of promise.

For Advent is the season of preparation not just for the retelling of the story of the nativity of the Lord in a lowly stable but also, and perhaps, more importantly, it is preparation for the return of the Messiah in glory.

As Christians we need not be scared, for we know God is with us, we know he is calling us to journey towards him, he isn’t forcing us, but we do know he is waiting for each and everyone of us with outstretched arms. Amen.