"Will Jesus Really Come Again?"

What does the season of Advent mean to you?

Nov 29 2015 Advent 1  readings:   Psalm 25   Luke 21: 25-36

It seems to me that no matter how hard I have tried, every year at the beginning of advent I along with others become preoccupied with the stress of doing.  Doing, doing, doing, often out of obligation to church, family or community.  How about you?   It appears that our mindless doings can cause us to become distracted from the real significance and meaning that Advent offer us.   Believe it or not, this is not, nor was it ever meant to be a season of rushing around like chickens with our heads cut off trying once again to get in our holiday shopping or pushing ourselves to squeeze in all the events and festivities that have become our traditions.  How many of us got taken in by newest commercial shopping tradition here in the western part of the world!  "BLACK FRIDAY".  Often for many,myself included it has become a time to lose our good sense of doing, spending, and indulging.   We often work ourselves to a frenzy trying to keep up the seasonal traditions of family, community, church and gift giving.   Are you with me Folks?  

Two elderly gentlemen are strolling: one shares.  "Live for the moment is my motto.  You'll never know when your time is up".  "You could step out into the street tomorrow and WHAM, you get hit by a cement truck!  You'd be sorry then if you didn't fill your bucket list.   That's what I say - live for the moment."  What about you,    "What's your motto?"  The older gent replies:  "My motto is, if you’re going to step out into the street, you had better look both ways"    

You know I think that is what happens too many of us at Christmas time, it is as though we have the blinders on and we don’t see it coming.  I mean the aftermath of what we are creating, with our doings in the moment.   I think that living for the moment might be an OK thing to do folks, but not if we are so busy that we get lost in the moment and don’t see the circumstances we are building around our doing.   You just might get hit with that cement truck.  I believe the essence of that saying, especially during this time of the year should be: be present to the moments in your life.  In order to be present, may I suggest that would include, understanding and reflecting upon your experiences of Christmases pass, along with looking to a future filled with hope.  Remembering that hope does not exist in past events, or in the things we now have or know, hope is reserved for things unseen and for those who can be transformed and changed for a new tomorrow.  

Christmas is not just all about the past, yet most of us live Christmas through our past.  Christmas is about being present to the moment and it is about our lives in the future. 

Each Sunday of Advent should remind us that the Christ is coming once again to transform and change many.  He originally came as an infant, Then he came again through resurrection as the Christ and is here now in the present and he will come again in the future.  May I suggest that the first Sunday in advent is a time to reflect on and re-evaluate the way in which we have responded to Christmases past?   But It is also meant to be a time when we look with hope to our future, a time for transformation and change?  It was never meant to be a shopping party downer.  

I would also like to suggest to you that many of us have lost the reality and true meaning of Christmas over the years.  Many have traded it in for a mixture of secular and Christian traditions and the commercialization of the season has stolen away its meaning for many Christians and their church gatherings.  The Advent season was not meant to be a repeat of Christmases past as many of our traditions demand but to re-evaluate what has become meaningless, mundane and extravagant.  The season leading up to Christmas eve is over flowing with excessive food, money and doing. Often we run the risk of burn out because we think we have to keep on keeping up with the many traditions of family, community and church, much of which is written in concrete obligations.  Things we feel we cannot, not do.  

Mary, Joseph, and Jesus would probably be appalled at what we have done to and with this loving intimate and transforming moment in our history.   Our hope does not lay in a

manger some 2000 years ago, it lay in the transforming risen Christ that has and will continue to come into our midst.  For the promise is, that He will continue to come again and again until every knee has bowed and every tongue confesses that Jesus the Christ is Lord 

of all. 

The Season of Advent is not meant as a time to relive the events of Christmases past, but to be present to the really of the Christ who is in our midst.   It is our hope that there will be a time as scripture states when he comes again to establish a kingdom free from violence, war, material wealth, power and control over its people for personal gain.  Christs’ kingdom will be a kingdom ruled by the HEART not he head and it will abide within the will of God.   My challenge for you during the season of Advent is this:  are you willing to accept his coming and begin to reflect on being present to the moment, with the hope that his spirit will transform and change  you this season.                                                     

                                                           " A song of Hope"