Why Advent?
Pastor Mark Breland
November 30, 2008

As we come together as a people of faith, with the Christmas shopping season that has just begun, and people going out and enjoying themselves and shopping for gifts, we know that for some folks these are difficult times. Maybe this will be a different Christmas for them. We think about material wealth and we think about gifts. But no matter how you are spending your Thanksgiving, these past few days, or how you may be thinking about your Christmas, and shopping and buying gifts, I believe that all of our lives were interrupted by the news of the tragedy that took place in Mumbai, India.

It seemed like, if you wanted to, and if you had a computer or cable TV, you could watch the tragedy in real time.  You could watch the continuous burning of a nation's landmark, or hear the sounds of gunfire and explosions that took place. If you wanted to, you could hear the stories of witnesses, horrific stories of violence and of senseless loss of life. And, if you wanted to, you could pause from whatever's happening in your life and you could offer a prayer for those that are affected by these terrorist acts.

We live in a world that is full of so much tragedy. And when I think about what was happening over in India, a place that I had never been, I think that sometimes it takes a lot to get people to stop and notice.  I am a media person.  And I have been watching news all my life.  It seems that the bad news always comes on first. You often have to wade through a lot of bad news before you get to the good news. And so when this tragedy caught my attention, and kind of pinched my conscience, I was saddened again by what people would do to one another.

And I imagined these people - people I don't know, people that maybe were out on vacation, or perhaps on a business trips - moments before the attacks. Perhaps they were relaxing by the pool, or maybe they were in conversation, or maybe they were just enjoying a meal when the attacks happened.

We are a people of storytellers. As we stop and listen, we can hear these stories, and we can remember that we tell stories of our own. Don't we often times, particularly with our family, share the joys of yesterday, or the struggles of relationships today. Don't we share our hopes, our fears and our dreams.  Don't we talk about what we hope will happen in the future, particularly in the lives of our children?

When you think about telling stories, when we are looking back or forward, then you can get some idea of what Advent is all about.  Advent, in my opinion, is about the church taking a deep breath and exhaling as it goes on to tell the story about a God who loves us so much that he provides for our present needs as well as our future care; a God that loves us so much, that he gave us His son. A God who loves us so much, that he gave us His Spirit to help us each and every day.

So Advent is our opportunity to tell the world about a God who offers hope to everyone. I use the word everyone because everyone who wishes or dares to trust in Him will hear and experience the good news -- the opportunity for God's people to reach out and help prepare other's hearts and their lives for the coming of the Christ.

I think about these days, and I tell you it's good to see a church with so many brothers and sisters here. It's good to see a church where people are here worshiping.  It's good to see a church where people are singing hymns, and helping to bring on the good news in real time.  This is what's happening right now.

But you know people are not attending Sunday morning worship like they used to. People aren't going to Sunday school like past generations. There are adults, and children who don't know the stories. They have heard about Jesus, but they don't know Jesus. They don't know the stories about Jesus. There are people who come to church and worship with us who do not know how to use the Moravian book of worship. They don't know how to sing our hymns or to use our bulletin to find their way through our worship. We're growing up in a different way now.

Advent is an opportunity to tell the story.  Today is the first Sunday of the Christian calendar.  We begin our time with Advent, a time of hope and a time of expectation, where the faith community celebrates and comes together.  And we share the story that Christ is coming. But also we are looking back to see that Christ had come.

For many years, I preached on watchfulness; that we need to get ourselves ready for when Christ will come again. We need to have our ducks in a row, our T.'s crossed and our "I's" dotted, but today I wanted to focus just on "Why Advent?"  Because the greatest story of Jesus begins here.

We predict then we wait for His birth to come, and then we go on to learn about His life, and His suffering, and His death, and His resurrection; and then the coming of the holy counselor, the Holy Spirit.  And all this is good news.  But there are people who do not know about this, and they need to learn.  This is part of our task as a church today.  Because we live today in a very different world. People need to understand about a God who cares for us, a God who loves us, who gave us His son in whom we do have life.

In the Gospel today, that Barry read for us, we learned that Jesus and his disciples were going to Jerusalem. And the disciples seem to be in awe of the Jewish Temple. The temple was the center for Jewish worship, and a place of pride. And perhaps it was for them a place where God lived. They knew that God was in their midst.

So when Jesus was talking to them and He heard about their admiration for this building, Jesus predicted that this building, the one that they love so much, the one that they were shipped, would be destroyed. And for them it was something that was impossible to imagine.

I also think about this congregation and the historical sanctuary in which we are worshiping.  Fifty-one years ago many of you were here when this sanctuary burned. What a horrible sight that must have been!  But we are sitting here today, praising God, because the people of faith rebuilt so that this tragedy would not be the end.

As we look at the Scripture today we can break it down into three parts. The first section is where Mark writes about the coming of the Son of Man, the coming of Christ, and the prediction of the end times. Then you have the parable that supports that statement about the coming of the end times.  Jesus used the example of the fig tree.  When it comes to maturity, you know that summer is near. Then there is the third part, the story about the absent master. Those who were entrusted with the master's concern, who had to remain alert ready to do the work of the Master when he returned.

And that's where I want to be today. I think that's part of the Advent message. With the distruction of the temple that was to come, think about the disciples and what was going to happen when that day came. Think about what was happening in the people's lives. This was a time for them to regroup and to find that God doesn't live in any building, but rather God lives in the Messiah. He's the one that comes to help us know about His love and His concern.

The greater message is this: that God is in the world. And we are in God's care. And, no matter what is going on, good things or bad things, we know that God doesn't live in just one building but he is always with us in the Christ.

I think about our church. I think about the church universal. God doesn't live in any one institution.  No one church can claim to have a hold on Him, but rather He is free to all.  All we need to do is open up our hearts and pray for Him to come and live in our hearts and be with us.  So Advent is a time, an opportunity to tell the story.

I was in a conversation with my brother this week. We grew up in the same church. He's older than I am, and he knows I'm a pastor. And sometimes he will ask me, "Mark what are you going to preach about this Sunday?"

“I'm going to preach about Advent.” I told him.

He said, “What's Advent?”

Now we went to the same Moravian church and here he didn't know about Advent.  So I talked to him about what I was going to say and what Advent is about. And I was thinking to myself, we learned this together!  I tell this story to say that all of us need to be mindful that although we have been in church all our lives, we can still learn new lessons.  Maybe we really don't know what Advent is about but we can take this time and learn again. This is a message not only for those who are new to the church but also for those who have been in the church a long time.

So Advent is the time to learn about the Lord's coming, to learn about his birth, to learn about the Christian story that everyone needs to know. Because people right here, right now, people in our communities and maybe even family members woke up this morning thinking about all the things that they needed to do, and not one thought was on Jesus.

There are people who do not know that there is a God who loves them so much that He's given them a very precious gift, and that gift is the Lord Jesus Christ.  And so they think about Advent, but they don't know what Advent is.  They think about Christmas, and they don't know what Christmas is.  They think it's about gifts, but they don't know about the greatest gift of all - our Lord Jesus Christ.

Advent is a time of hope. Think about those folks when they saw the distruction of the temple.  They thought that perhaps the world was coming to an end. But that was not the end of the story.  God would sustain them because God was with them and not in a building.

That's part of the task for the church today.  We are a church that is alive and well, and Advent is a time of hope. We have a story to share, a story to tell, a story to live, and it doesn't matter where we are, in church or out of church, God calls on us to be those faithful servants; not perfect servants but faithful servants.

When I think about keeping awake, I think about keeping busy. Staying awake is about doing the master's work. So Advent is not just about telling history, it's not about looking back, it's about being a living witness to the promises of God. We are a living institution, a living body of Christ.  We are a people who have come together because God has brought us together.  And perhaps this Advent season, we can be the prophetic voices in song and words, and in actions and worship.  We can be the testimony that God is with us now.  Part of being awake this Advent season is being awake to do God's work.

So why Advent?  So that we can live and tell the story.  God is coming to us in the birth of His son and in Him we will experience life.  And in this in-between period, as we're looking at the beginning and the end, we are a people that need to tell the story so that all may know the joy of loving our Lord.
Lititz Moravian Congregation | 8 Church Square | Lititz, PA 17543 | 717 626-8515 | Admin