Sermon for Advent 2C
December 6, 2009
Texts:  Malachi 3:1-4;  Luke 1:68-79; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6

Guess who’s coming?

If I asked this on a street corner,
Or maybe even in a children’s message,
I would probably get the answer Santa.

In a Sunday School class,
Or among a group of children
Who had received religious education,
There’s a chance I would get the answer,
That the baby Jesus is coming.

In this early Advent season,
Less than one person in a thousand
Would tell me
That John the Baptist is coming.

And only among seminary professors
Would I be likely to get the answer
That the messenger of the covenant is coming.

Yet this morning,
Right in the middle of our busy, joyful Christmas preparations,
John the Baptist,
Malachi’s prophesied messenger of the covenant,
Intrudes.

We’re thinking Christmas decorations, trees, cards, cookies and presents,
And there’s John out there in the wilderness,
Interrupting our celebrations,
Proclaiming a baptism for repentance,
And calling us to prepare the way of the Lord.

At least a part of each one of us wants to say,
“John, get out of the way,
I have important things to do.
If I don’t get cracking,
There won’t be a Christmas celebration at our house.”

John, I have my list,
And I don’t have time for moving rocks,
Filling in valleys or blasting mountains.

The only mountains I am going to move,
Are the mountains of flour and sugar in my kitchen
That have to be transformed into cookies.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,
And there in the middle of it is John the Baptist
Imploring us to repent and prepare.

Let’s face it Advent,
Complete with Malachi and John,
Along with its quietness, its somber carols, and its starkness,
Is a struggle.

We are being pulled toward the full extravagance of Christmas
And the season of Advent is telling us to slow down, wait and prepare.

There is a stark beauty to Advent,
The kind of winter dawn beauty,
The kind of dawn breaking on high beauty
That John’s father Zechariah sings about at John’s birth.

But when you’re down on Route 12A
It’s hard to think about stark beauty and slowing down
Unless you’re in a traffic jam
And then slowing down is the last thing you want to do.

In early December, John the Baptist, Malachi and O Come, O Come Emmanuel
Signal Advent in our liturgical traditions,
While at the same time outside the church doors,
Santa Claus, Little Drummer Boy, and Black Friday
Signal the pre-Christmas season.

Why during this most wonderful time of year,
With all the things clamoring for our attention,
Does the church insist on Advent
As a quiet season separate from Christmas?

In order to wrap our heads and hearts around Advent
We have to come back to the question “Who is Coming?”
And add the question, “What do we do while we wait?”

The lesson from Malachi this morning takes us
Deeply into the answers to those questions.

He is coming!
And in words made famous in Handel’s Messiah,
Malachi goes onto ask the follow on question;
“Who can stand when he appears?”

The He who is coming
Is God

God breaking into our world.

Luke, in his Gospel, makes the setting clear.
God comes into the real world,
A world populated with the rich and the famous.
Luke lists no less than seven political and religious leaders of the time.
The rich, the powerful and the deeply religious of the early first century.

Into this world complete with the rich and powerful
God arrives in a manger
Heralded by a strange guy
Crying out in the wilderness.

Into our real world today
Complete with Route 12A traffic jams
Cyber Monday frenzies,
Wall Street power brokers,
And overworked, stressed out people
God arrives.

And who can stand when He appears?

We have so domesticated God’s appearance,
The kind, gentle, sleeping baby Jesus in the manager
We forget the kind of power implied in Malachi’s prophecy,

The same kind of power exhibited by the adult Jesus
Which so terrified the established power brokers,
That they had to get rid of him.

Malachi was the last of the Old Testament prophets
Before John the Baptist showed up four hundred years later.

When Malachi prophesies the appearance of the Lord,
He is expecting the kind of appearance
That has people falling on the floor in fear.

The kind of fear the shepherds experienced,
Where in the old King James version of the Christmas story,
The shepherds were described as being “sore afraid”
When the angel of the Lord appeared to them.

Guess who’s coming?
And who can stand when he appears?

Malachi envisioned God coming
With flames of a refining fire,
Purifying the sons of the Levi:
The priests, the leaders and all the power brokers.

Guess who’s coming
And what will happen while you wait?

While you wait for Christ’s arrival
God is working overtime to get you ready.

We’re not talking about Christmas trees and stockings
We are talking about God taking overt action
To purify and refine your heart, soul and mind.

John is out there in the wilderness,
Crying for you to get ready,
To repent and prepare.

To repent is to turn around,
Turning way from sin and temptation.

God wants to take your repentance,
And give you a push
Transforming, refining and purifying you.

It is not easy to be transformed,
And being refined and purified
Will change you.

Guess who’s coming?
God is coming.

Are you at least a little bit afraid?

Feeling the kind of fear that Moses felt when he saw the burning bush,
The kind of fear that Mary felt when the angel Gabriel showed up
And the kind of fear the shepherds felt when the angel brought Good News.

God is showing up right in the midst
Of the real world in which you live.

Will you notice God’s arrival.

Will you be so occupied preparing for Christmas
That you don’t have time to sense Mary’s reverence.

Will you be so busy decking the halls,
Checking the lights,
And writing the cards,
That you don’t hear John’s call to repent.

Will you be so overwhelmed
With checking your list
And checking it twice
That you will not feel the power prophesied by Malachi,
As God’s refines, purifies and transforms you.

Guess who’s coming.
The God, the same one whose existence you question,
As in “God where are you when I need you?”
That same God is coming.

When you question God’s existence,
Is it because God fails to show up,
Or is it because you are so busy preparing
That you don’t notice God’s appearance.

Advent is about noticing.

Advent is about allowing the time and space
To notice that God is showing up.  

The emperor and the governors
Bustling around doing important things,
Didn’t notice the power of God showing up.

Instead, the shepherds sitting quietly outside of town in a field noticed.
They heard the angels, saw the light,
And felt the fear.

Are you noticing?

Guess who’s coming?
And what are you doing in the meantime?
John the Baptist crying out for repentance
Might make you want to say “enough already,”
When you’re ready to party
When you crave glitter and glamour. 

John, crying in the wilderness,
And Malachi threatening refiner’s fires
Seem about as welcome in our pre-Christmas party time
As a swarm of hornets at a summer picnic.

Yet these insistent, urgent prophets
Are crying out to you.
They are trying to shock you out of your comfort zone.

They are calling you to a different kind of preparing,
The Advent kind of preparing,
The kind of preparing that God does to you,
The refining and purifying kind of preparing.

The Advent kind of preparation makes you ready.

The Advent kind of preparation
Creates the time and space in your life,
So that you will be able to notice:
To see, hear and feel the Good News of Christmas
The Good News that all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Guess who’s coming?
God is coming.

In this Advent time and space prepare,
To feel the joy,
To hear the Good News,
To see the salvation of God.

Amen