First Sunday in Advent

“Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven

Is at Hand!”

Isaiah 64:1-9

Margaret I. Manning

Well this morning, I have the unique challenge of preaching on the first Sunday after Thanksgiving, which is also the last Sunday of the month, and preaching the last message in our sermon series entitled From Here to Eternity as we transition into the Advent season because this is the first Sunday of Advent and as such, we are introducing our new sermon series on the Four ‘R’s’ of Advent! What a task to try to build a thematic bridge between Thanksgiving, eternity and Advent all at once! But I believe as we build this bridge over our calendar conundrum, we’ll see the relationship between repentance, the Kingdom of Christ which Advent anticipates and Thanksgiving. As we understand their relationship, we’ll be led into the Advent season with hope and a clear conviction of how to ready our hearts and lives for Christ our Lord.

Now our texts for today might lead us to believe we are in the Lenten season, rather than the season of Advent. Instead of texts about glory, angelic hosts, or predictions about the birth of Jesus, our lectionary readings for today are very gloomy texts – not the typical fare for our ‘happy holiday’ ears and “White Christmas” sentiments. As you heard read this morning, our Old Testament readings lament a seemingly absent and angry God. You heard the psalmist cry out, “O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with the prayer of your people? You have fed them with the bread of tears, and you have made them drink tears in large measure!”[1] These texts also lament a people so tainted by sin that the author of Isaiah acknowledges even “our righteous deeds are like filthy garments.” Both of these texts reflect the lament of the exiles in a very dark and gloomy time. Now back in the land of Israel, they placed all their hope in the revival of their earthly kingdom – a kingdom in which political, economic and military power would make them preeminent among the nations. Instead, their land was still in ruins, the temple was in ruins and God seemed far away. Placing their hope in a restored, earthly kingdom would not begin their resurgence. Hope would flow from a spirit of repentance. And both our texts point to repentance as the path to hope and release from spiritual exile.

But exactly what is repentance? Most simply, repentance is the acknowledgement of sin before a holy God. It is the acknowledgement that left to our own devices, we all make choices that lead us away into exile from God – that lead us away from God, rather than toward God. The writer of Isaiah says it this way: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like the leaf, and our sins, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on Your Name, who longs to take hold of You.” Like the people of Israel before us, all of us are tempted to worship other gods. We allow the lure of those gods to lead us away from God. Like the wind that blows and swirls the autumn leaves wherever it desires, we too are blown here and there in our pursuit of lesser things, far away from the presence of the Lord. For the exiles of Isaiah’s day, their sin blew them into captivity in Babylon. Eventually, they understood their physical exile as a picture of spiritual exile from the presence of God. Now, back in their own land, without an earthly kingdom, they come to recognize their need to repent, to turn away from their former ways, and to go in a different direction. This is the biblical sense of the word repentance – to turn around and to go in a different direction. And our text helps us to see that one of the ways we repent is by turning away from our independence from God, and acknowledging God’s rightful place in our lives as our Creator and as our Lord. The writer of Isaiah says it this way: “But now, O Lord, You are our Father, we are the clay, and you are our potter; and all of us are the work of your hand…all of us are your people.”[2] To be repentant, then, is also to acknowledge our dependence on God who is our Creator and who therefore has a rightful claim on our lives. Any thought we might have to exercising control over our own lives, independent from God is an illusion. We are God’s own people, indeed the work of God’s own hand – so if we want to experience life as it is meant to be experienced, we need to turn toward our Maker, the Author of Life and our Creator.

The Advent season is a powerful reminder of how important it is for us to align ourselves with God’s kingdom through repentance. In contrast to those who believe the Advent season is merely a preview for the baby Jesus of Christmas day, Advent serves to point the church towards the triumphant return of Christ, as King. It seems only fitting then, that at Advent, as we anticipate the Second Coming, we are drawn into a spirit of repentance and renewal. After all, Jesus taught us this as well. He heralded the arrival of the kingdom by telling the people to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”[3] Likewise, when speaking of his return in our gospel reading for today from the book of Mark, Jesus reminds the people to be on the alert – three times he makes this appeal (which is really another way of telling people to ‘turn around or repent) – again, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand![4] Advent invites us to return from spiritual exile, to wake up from spiritual slumber and to live our lives aligned with God’s kingdom. The Advent season bids us to follow Jesus’ own unique way of announcing the coming kingdom – to begin our preparation for welcoming the reign of God in our own lives through repentance! We are commanded to come to full attention here and now by the call to repent – not just a future orientation, but now, repent – the kingdom of God is arriving and indeed, has arrived in Jesus Christ.[5]

Repentance opens our heart to see God’s kingdom come in Jesus Christ, just as it reminds us that Christ will come again to rule and reign forever. But it has begun, and begins through repentance! We have the opportunity now, to live in that rule and reign as we surrender our lives to God and to God’s kingdom. And what does that look like? Living in God’s kingdom involves a lifestyle of both faithfulness to God and of proper relationship with other people. It involves our being God’s people in the present world. So as we examine our lives as they are today, what are those practices, those attitudes that are not in step with kingdom living? What are those things we do or say that are unfaithful to God and that lead us away from right relationship with others? Where might our priorities be misaligned with kingdom priorities to love God and our neighbor as ourselves?

The baby in the manger often causes us to forget that the God who comes in Christ at Advent is the God who will ‘rend the heavens and make the mountains quake,’ as Isaiah tells us. This is the God who will come in justice and righteousness – to make right what has been wrong. The baby in the manger is the one who cleansed the temple with a whip, and who called the religious leaders of his day ‘white-washed sepulchers.’ This is the God who comes in Christ at Advent! In light of this, we must come face to face with the realization of our own sin and begin the Advent season properly with repentance. Reverence and repentance prepare us for the coming of our awesome God and cut through the comfortable assurance of a peaceful advent which holds only cheer. The day of the Lord’s coming is also a day of judgment and righteousness. So as we prepare for the coming of Christ into the world, should we not evaluate our lives, to pause and repent of our sin; to lament the ways in which we have lived away from God in exile? Should we not ask if our lives are aligned with the kingdom of God, and not with the kingdoms of this world?[6] Should we not seek to turn around and go in a different direction? Perhaps for the hope of Advent to truly take hold in our lives, we must first recognize the hopelessness of this world’s kingdoms, and this world’s false christs. Indeed, perhaps we must see the darkness in our own hearts in order to receive the gift of hope that comes in Jesus and the kingdom reality he offers. Will Willimon said it like this;

“This is the wisdom of the church having the season of Advent in the weeks before Christmas. If we are to see the hope which comes in Christ, we must sit and wait a while in the darkness of repentance and acknowledgement of our sin. If we are to hear the songs of angels, we must first be silent.”[7]

Now lest you fear I leave you in the darkness of repentance, our epistle lesson for this first Sunday in Advent brings us full circle round to a doxology of praise and thanksgiving. For in this passage Paul reminds us of the faithfulness of God to reconcile us and bring us into fellowship with himself, through Jesus. He writes to the Corinthian Christians, “God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His son, Jesus Christ our Lord… so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ who will confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[8] You see as we repent of our independent ways, as we turn around towards God, we find God already waiting for us, not leaving us wanting because of our sinful ways, but rather, in Christ providing every gift and confirming us blameless until the kingdom comes in Christ Jesus. Now that’s something for which we can be truly thankful! You see, all you and I need do is simply acknowledge our position before God as one of utter dependence, like clay for the potter – to acknowledge the ways in which we have not yet aligned our lives with God’s kingdom, and then to turn around, and to go in the direction towards God and God’s kingdom. When we do, we’ll find our lives confirmed blameless, in Christ until Christ comes again. Here we find the grace and mercy of God, in spite of our sin and for which, Paul tells us in this letter, he ‘always gives thanks.’ Repentance opens the door to the kingdom of God, and once there, we can’t help but give thanks to the God who brought us there by grace through the gift of His Son Jesus Christ. Advent reminds us of all these truths – and may you find, this Advent season, that in repentance you find new hope – hope in Christ and his kingdom, hope that fills you with thanksgiving and hope that inspires you to live in light of the kingdom that comes, and has come in Christ Jesus. Amen.

[5] Kathleen Norris – Christian Century 11/15/2005

[6] Word and World, 10-4-90, Luther Seminary Website.

[7] William Willimon, Where Is God? Sermon given at Duke University Chapel, 12-1-1996.