The Rev. Virginia W. Nagel
Ephphatha Parish of the Deaf
Episcopal Diocese of Central NY
How many of you read the funny papers, or the comic strips in your daily
paper? If you read the funnies, you have probably seen a comic
strip showing people goofing off in the office, perhaps at the water cooler.
Someone comes hurrying in, saying "Look busy, the boss is coming!" and everybody
scurries back to their desk, probably falling down or having some sort of funny
happening in the process, and all looking like good little girls and boys, busy
at their desks, when the boss comes.
Today's Bible readings make it very clear: the big Boss, God, is coming. And
he knows we have been goofing off. He knows we have not been following all the
laws and directions he gave us. He's quite unhappy about that; in fact, at the
time of Isaiah, he was in the process of punishing his people, Israel, for not
obeying God's Law. The punishment was taking the form of an invasion by a strong
enemy army, and Jerusalem was going to be destroyed, and many of the people
would be carried off as slaves.
And so, Isaiah pleaded with God on behalf of the people of Israel.
Don't you remember, Lord, how you used to come down to earth and walk with our
ancestors and talk with them? How you did wonderful miracles to protect them and
help them make a go of life? Come again, Lord, come to us again. Help us,
because we are in a really bad fix now, and nobody but you can help us out of
it. Please, Lord! Please! We know we have been disobedient and have turned away
from you. We know we have broken your law. But, please, Lord! Please come and
save us! We need you! We will let you change and shape our lives to suit
yourself, if only you will come and save us again!
The psalm echoes Isaiah's pleading. You remember that the Psalms were the
prayer book of the Jewish people. The people who prayed this psalm reminded God
of the wonders he had done for them in the past, and begged for his help again
even though they knew that they had sinned against him. Yes, they had sinned.
Most of the time they didn't think much about God, but they still believed in
him, deep down...and when they were facing terrible trouble, they called on him
again. Like the old saying, there are no atheists in foxholes.
When you are looking trouble in the face, you call out to God for help, no
matter what your life has been like...and you try to bargain with him, and make
all kinds of promises to clean up your act if only he will come and help you out
of this mess.
Doesn't that sound a lot like our own times, and the people we know today? To
tell the truth, doesn't that sound like us?
Paul in his letter to the Corinthians reminds them, and us, that one of the
graces or gifts they (and we) received when they began a life of faith
(beginning with their conversion and baptism) was the promise that God would
give them all the gifts and skills they truly needed to cope with the situations
they would face in their lives. That promise is for us, too. Baptism brings us
many graces, skills and talents. But how many of us truly try to keep our
Baptismal promises? God keeps his promises even when we don't...but that does
not mean it is okay to ignore our promises and do as we please. If you have ever
been in a really difficult situation, and have somehow found the strengths and
talents you needed to cope with it, and come out victorious, you know that God
has kept his promises to you even if you haven't kept your promises to him.
Think back through your life, and see if you can count the times that God came
to your aid with his gifts and his help.
Today's Gospel has Jesus telling his disciples about the Day of the Lord that
is coming. We do not know when it will happen, but happen it will. It will be
the day of judgment, and if we have any sense at all, we will get busy and try
to change our lives so we will be ready to face that judgment. Conversion, you
see, is not something that happens once for all, at 12:52 p.m. on Sunday,
November 2, in the year we were 13. It is a process. We may have become aware of
our need for God on that day at that time, and we may even have prayed the
Sinner's Prayer with someone who told us to turn to God and all would be well.
But that is only the beginning of our conversion, and we have to keep on working
on being converted to God's ways every day of our lives, in fact, every minute
of every day...every time we face a temptation to break God's Law, or to turn
away from him and do our own thing. We will not be finally and totally converted
until the happy day we leave this earth, and our sinful life, behind, and go
home to heaven....where there will be no further need or wish to sin or to break
the Law, because we will be so happy in God's love that we won't even want to
turn away from him, not even for a second.
Today is the first day of Advent, and of course Advent is a Latin word for
He is coming! The "HE" who is coming is Jesus, whose birth we will
celebrate at Christmas. But he is coming not only as the babe in Bethlehem, but
also as the Judge to judge the world on the Day of the Lord. We need to prepare
for both: prepare our hearts to reach out to the tenderness and innocence of the
newborn baby Jesus, and to enfold him, and be enfolded by him, with love; and to
face our final judgment, the judgment that will determine where and how we will
spend all eternity. Advent is the time given us to prepare for both: to
tenderize our hearts and souls, ready to receive the Baby, and to clean our
souls from sin and establish new, Godly habits of living in our lives, as we
prepare to be judged by him. Let us, then, be about it, for the Lord is coming,
and he is coming soon. Amen.
