Sunday, December 8, 2019 – Advent 2
December 8, 2019
Advent 2 2019
Our Saviors La Crosse
Romans 15:4-6
Matthew 3:1-12
Ash Wednesday (1930)
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should an aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
(T. S. Eliot Selected Poems Harbrace Paperbound Library 1930, p. 83)
I know, it is unusual to use a poem entitled “Ash Wednesday” on the second Sunday of Advent. But, the poem is perfect for our Advent season.
Let me read the first three lines of the poem again:
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
The repetition of the words “I do not hope…” is breath-taking.
St. Paul wrote to the Romans: “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4).
Advent is our season of hope. Hope is the word we name today as part of our faith foundation. Jesus came to the world bringing hope.
In this day and age, Advent may seem more a season of preparation than a season of hope. We have prepared our church building for Christmas. We are preparing our homes and yards for Christmas. We are preparing for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day—buying gifts and planning menus and choosing hymns and checking on candles…
More authentically, historically, Advent was and is a season of hope, a time of anticipation, a time when people were hoping for and anticipating the 2nd coming of Christ. Most specifically those first generations of Christians, like those St. Paul wrote to in Rome, expected Jesus to return to the world soon.
With that hope for the return of Jesus came a bit of anxiety—anxiety rooted in the knowledge that, when Christ returned there would be judgment. As John the Baptist told the Pharisees and Sadducees: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matthew 3:7).
I don’t know. Do we get the anticipation of the season? Do we know the fear, the anxiety? Do we wonder: how will we be judged? Are we, like Eliot expresses in his poem, hopeless?
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
As I said, the Romans believed Jesus would return soon. They hoped his return would happen in their lifetime. Some believed it would be any day…
Two thousand years later it is difficult to hold onto that “any day” kind of anticipation, let alone the anxiety it might have caused. Do we even believe Jesus will come again?
Do we ask as Eliot asked:
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
The kingdom of God may well seem like a vanishing power to us.
Which is precisely the point of the day.
John the Baptist reminds us: “I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up the children of Abraham…” (Matthew 3:9).
Our God is able!
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King once preached: “The ringing testimony of the Christian faith is that our God is able” (“Our God is Able” in Strength to Love, by MLK, Pocket Books, 1963, p. 124).
Later in his “Ash Wednesday” poem T. S. Eliot wrote:
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely fans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
(Eliot p. 84)
In the stillness of this hour we learn again and again to care, we learn again and again to hope, we care and we hope believing Jesus will come again to the world.
Until that time, we turn, we turn again toward God, trusting in the God who is able.
Amen.