Next Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent. There will be outward signs of inward changes as we turn our hearts and minds to await the coming of Christ.
One is the change of colors. Here on the pulpit, on the altar and our stoles, we put away the vivid greens of the season of growth, the long Pentecost time. And we will put on the muted purple-color of contemplation. Purple is the color of Lent, too, and Advent used to be celebrated in much the same way, with fasting and penitence. Not a bad idea after Thanksgiving's feasts.
Seriously, wouldn't it be lovely? Could we take a sabbatical from the "Christmas season", which seems to be all about spending and hardly at all about worship.?
It makes sense, doesn’t it, during the shortest days and longest nights, to slow down, to curl up, fast, read--to reflect on the year that is passing and the one yet to come. We could lie fallow for a while.
On the road yesterday, driving back from the farm, I realized that the fields have put on their winter garb; they will rest, as God intended, and as they remind us we should, too.
Another change in Advent is lectionary readings. Advent is the beginning of the Christian year. Next week we'll start reading the Gospel of Matthew. Today we end our year-long journey through the Gospel of Luke.
We end on a note of suspense, with the story of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. I want to reflect on the ironies in the story—ironies involving the notion of "triumph"
Jesus enters the holy city of Jerusalem being sincerely hailed by his followers as the Messiah. They believe, and time will prove them right, that Jesus is God's anointed, the one who will fulfill the prophesies of the Hebrew scriptures. The irony: the very people who know those scriptures best--the religious officials--are the ones who have fought Jesus' ministry from the beginning and who will see to it that he is killed. We get that irony fairly easily.
Other ironies, though, might be lost on us modern folk. The early readers of this Gospel lived under the tyranny of the Roman Empire. For them the multi-layered irony was the stunning-even ridiculous—contrast between Jesus "triumphal entry" and the arrival of other conquerors into Jerusalem.
First there is the total contrast in attitude. To get the full impact, you need to remember what comes next in Luke's narrative. Just after entering the city, Jesus weeps lovingly over Jerusalem. Then he goes to the religious center, the temple, where he drives out the money changers, honoring and defending the sacredness of the place, purifying it of corrupting commerce. Then he comes to teach there every day until he is captured and crucified.
Readers who knew the history of Jerusalem would see the contrast between Jesus' reverance, and the desacrations of the temple by periodic invaders in the past. Even more they would contrast it with the total destruction of the temple by the Babylonians in the 6th century BC and by the Romans in the year 70 AD, forty years after Jesus' death and a decade or so before Luke's gospel was written.
Then there is the irony--even parody--of the "triumphal" procession itself. The triumphal processions of the Roman Emperors were spectacles of military might. The emperor and his highest officials riding in chariots pulled by matched teams of splendid horses-four
abreast; legions of soldiers marching in parade dress, displaying ranks of human captives, and carrying aloft prizes of plunder--Roman triumphs celebrated the invincible oppressive power of the empire.
The crowning irony is that the sack of Jerusalem in 70 was celebrated with just such a triumph in Rome. And you can still see the evidence today on the sculptures on the arch of Titus in the Roman forum. Titus was the general who put down the revolt of the Jews and leveled the city of Jerusalem. He celebrated that event on the triumphal arch made for him as emperor ten years
later. It has been eroded by 2,000 years of wind and rain. But you can still make out on the inside
of the arch the parade of treasures of the Jerusalem temple, including the minora that was brought to Rome.
Contrast that kind of devastating spectacle, that celebration of the city's total destruction--contrast that with Jesus' quiet, humble, peaceful entry into Jerusalem, riding on a colt, being cheered on by a few dozen of his own followers.
You get the picture. It's the world upside down, God almighty , creator of the universe, takes human form not as a super-hero, an emperor with thousands of soldiers, but as a simple man supported by a handful of peasants. That is the gospel: it's as mind-bending today as it was then.
And that's the picture that Luke--more than any other gospel--paints for us from the outset. Luke alone begins with God's angel coming to a girl named Mary, a young nobody from the sticks, asking her to be the mother of God. Luke alone tells of Jesus' birth in the manger and his being visited by shepherds. Luke's beatitudes say "blessed are you who are poor" not "blessed are the poor in spirit".
Living with Luke helps remind us that in the kingdom of God the world's ideas of success are constantly, radically subverted, turned upside down: the rich man goes to hell and the poor beggar Lazarus ends up in Abraham's arms in heaven. Living with Luke also helps remind us that
we will find the face of Christ where we least expect to-in a prison inmate, in a homeless person, in a dying child.
[Ben Taub Wesley story; ad lib]
Next Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent. Each day let us strive, and some days we may have to struggle, to open our hearts for Christ's coming. Looking at the calendar, I know it will be a huge challenge. Even for the clergy, "Christmas" can take over in very secular forms.
Here's an irony Luke couldn't have imagined: Christmas as a season celebrated around the world--but it's about shopping, not about Christ. Have you seen the latest? An Advent calendar with Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman! It’s a travesty!
As we go about our work, our shopping, our celebrating with people we like and people we love, let us keep God in the center among us. Let us be present in spirit. Let us make room in our heart for the Christ--whom we will encounter by God’s grace—maybe when and where we least expect it.
