The Third Sunday of Advent, Year B, December 17, 2023

Christmas is just eight days away.  By now, hopefully, we are singing a few carols in church.  As a process theologian, you see, I am not a liturgical fundamentalist, and believe that incarnational music is fitting throughout the year.  When I was a congregational pastor, we always sang a few carols during the summer and on the Sunday after Easter, “Joy to the World” along with a redux of “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.’ Of course, Advent is a time of preparation in the life of congregational leaders: pastors and church musicians, not to mention choirs, do most of their Christmas preparation in Advent while also living the “not yet” of Advent. Just a week before Christmas , we live in two worlds – honoring the “not yet” and the eschatological nature of reality of the Advent season and also the Christmas incarnation of Jesus in flesh and blood in our world.  Yet, even the incarnation is anticipatory. Jesus is born, but the world is still war torn as the poem/hymn “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” penned by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Asserts. In the midst of the Civil War, experiencing his own grief, anger, and fear, Longfellow plunged into despair:

“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

We can relate to this.  War abounds.  Climate and violence-based migration is rising, and immigrants are met with hate in the wealthiest country in the world.  Politicians intentionally foment discord and provoke hate among their followers.  Enmity is the name of the game as many Christians proclaim their righteousness and denounce anyone with whom they disagree. We can say with Jesus, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But what shall we say about those “who know what they do” and intentionally sow seeds of violence and incivility and purposely execute wars and undermine democratic institutions.  Do we have the Christmas spirit to forgive them?

This is our world and it was also the world Jesus was born into.  It was the world of Isaiah’s hopes, Mary’s countercultural challenge, Paul’s spiritual direction, and John the Baptist’s way making.  We need a horizon of hope.  We need to see the teleology of the universe that aims at beauty and rejoice at the birth of a child.  “We need a little Christmas right this very minute” and we also need to anticipate, hope, and realistically face the contrasts and tensions of our time.

Many Christians know the passage from Isaiah 61 as Jesus’ first public statement and, I believe, mission statement, found in Luke 4:18-19.  According to the passage, God’s Spirit has fallen upon the prophet, inspiring him to words and actions of healing and restoration.  There is the possibility of vengeance to those who commit injustice, but the passage as a whole speaks of a new era in which the social and personal orders are transformed and reflect God’s realm.  This is good news for those who have been in exile, oppressed, or live in the underside of history.  God’s vision, always present within the historical process, is fully revealed in its fullness as the embodiment of Shalom in our world.  God’s transformation of history and politics, of personal and communal life, is made flesh, and those who have suffered at the hands of illness, oppression, and servitude, can rejoice in the garments of salvation they are given.

The Advent season inclines us to align with the teleology of the universe aiming at beauty and the quest for justice as a prerequisite for personal wholeness.  This same spirit is found in the Magnificat of Mary.  Filled with God’s Spirit, she proclaims her gratitude to God’s presence in her life and in the birth of her unique child, and then connects her gratitude with God’s revolutionary overturning of the unjust structures of society. In the spirit of Whitehead’s words, the pure conservative, the inflexible upholder of the status quo, is going against the grain of the universe and God’s vision of Shalom.  God is on the move doing a new thing.  God’s vision of economic transformation is eschatological, turning upside our usual way of life in light of God’s commonwealth of justice and peace.

I Thessalonians provides spiritual and ethical counsel “for the time being.”  The author expects history to be completed with the coming of Christ.  Christ’s coming is not an invitation to passivity but to moral and spiritual growth and faithfully robust involvement in the world.  In the meantime, we are to practice mindfulness, gratitude, kindness, and commitment to spiritual growth.  Take heed to the words of the prophets. Here the author may be referring to Isaiah, Amos, Micah, and their companions, and the message of justice and equity.  The coming of Christ is not the nullification of prophetic ethics and spirituality but its fulfillment.  God will set things straight and affirm the quest for wholeness and love found in Jesus Christ.  While we may not look to a second coming and are well aware that hope for a divine rescue can be used as a means of ecclesiastical and political control and counsel to avoid political involvement, we can see each moment as a coming of Christ.  Each moment of experience emerges from the interplay of our environment and God’s vision.  In aligning with God’s vision, we can be agents of personal and planetary healing.  Each moment is precious.  The time is short, even if there is no datable second coming or final fulfillment, and each moment can be a factor in saving or destroying the world.

John’s Gospel describes John the Baptist as the forerunner and way maker, preparing the way for God’s Messiah.  John’s vocation is to make straight the way of God.   To be the “front man” for transformation.  To get people ready for the coming of God’s realm in their world.  John humbly and yet boldly reflects the light to come.  His task is to point the way forward.  Although Jesus has come, perhaps that is the task of the church: to live faithfully and morally and to describe the contours of God’s vision of transformation.  We are not the fullness of revelation but we can choose to humbly participate in God’s new order, to be way makers in our time.  To show another way of life that embraces hospitality, healing, justice, and earth care.

Today’s readings invite us to be agents of God’s Spirit.  The protagonists of the scriptures are not radically different from us although they may have had different vocations.  They are people attentive to God’s Spirit moving in their time, inviting them to live by a different set of values than the culture around them.  To live as if Christ is coming and right now among us, and to be faithful to the mission we have been given.  This call is all-encompassing: it transforms our economic values at home and in politics, it invites us to be mindful of the world in which we live and our impact on people we will never me, it challenges us to love in personal and political relationships, and to live a life of perpetually openness and creative transformation in light of God’s vision for us and the world.  We can be both Advent and Christmas people, anticipating the emergence of God’s realm and celebrating the incarnation in humble Bethlehem and in our own households and unexpected places.

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Bruce Epperly is a pastor, professor, spiritual guide, and author of over seventy books, including JESUS – MYSTIC, HEALER, AND PROPHET; THE ELEPHANT IS RUNNING: PROCESS AND OPEN AND RELATIONAL THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM; PROPHETIC HEALING: HOWARD THURMAN’S VISION OF CONTEMPLATIVE ACTIVISM; MYSTIC’S IN ACTION: TWELVE SAINTS FOR TODAY; WALKING WITH SAINT FRANCIS: FROM PRIVILEGE TO ACTIVISM; MESSY INCARNATION: MEDITATIONS ON PROCESS CHRISTOLOGY, FROM COSMOS TO CRADLE: MEDITATIONS ON THE INCARNATION, and THE PROPHET AMOS SPEAKS TO AMERICA.  His most recent books are PROCESS THEOLOGY AND THE REVIVAL WE NEED, TAKING A WALK WITH WHITEHEAD: MEDITATIONS WITH PROCESS-RELATIONAL THEOLOGY, and SIMPLICITY, SPIRITUALITY AND SERVICE: THE TIMELESS WISDOM OF FRANCIS, CLARE, AND BONAVENTURE. He can be reached at [email protected].