Saturday, December 10, 2016

Advent III ~ Year A ~ December 11, 2016

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent
Year A ~  December 11, 2016

Holy Trinity & St. Anskar

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid…
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den. 


  +In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity

The messianic peace seems unnatural to us: the wolf and the lamb, the lion and the calf, children playing with deadly snakes, and so on. Arresting images, intentionally shocking, because it is so unnatural. Theologically speaking, however, this peace is not unnatural but preternatural. That means that what we think of as natural is really fallen nature or nature in its fallen state — outside the Garden. The Messiah will restore Creation as it was intended by God, and before human beings screwed it up.
Now, we don’t have to think of the Garden of Eden as literal pre-history in a paleonotological sense in order to accept the deep truth of the mythology. Somehow, the world is not as God intends it to be, and there is nothing we can do about it. The world cannot fix itself: it’s own inner processes — the ones we call “natural” — cannot evolve into anything better. The messianic peace comes from outside the world and its natural processes, the processes of its fallen nature. That is why the beloved images of Isaiah are so striking to us. They portray the world as it ought to be, not as we know it or even think it can be.
Above all, the healing of the world’s deformities means the healing of the perfection of God’s image on earth in the world:
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
This is a promise of God’s intention for creation. These are the signs of the Advent of the Messiah, which is why Jesus pointed to them rather than testifying to Himself, when asked by John’s disciples whether or not He was the Messiah. He didn’t say “yes I am the Messiah;” but “look at what’s happening: judge for yourself whether the Messiah is among you.”
Vigilance, repentance, expectation or gestation: these Advent themes present another paradox: we are to watch, but also to work. To change our minds and forsake our sins means not passive waiting, but working to bear fruits worthy of repentance: working to build the highway in the wilderness for the coming Messiah. And although the world cannot produce its own healing, by its own natural processes, our expectation is, nevertheless, like the expectation of a pregnant woman. The new creation will be born of the old. But not in an entirely “natural” way — the expectant mother is a Virgin.

AMEN!
MARANATHA!
COME, LORD JESUS!
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