All Saints' Episcopal Church, Thomasville
Christmas Eve, 2004

"O Lord, stir up thy power and come among us -- and with great might succor us."
(Collect for Advent 4)

I've been reading a book of truly excellent sermons by an Episcopal priest named Fleming Rutledge.  Indeed in her I've found a kindred spirit.  She (yes you heard correctly, I said "she") is moved by the same passages of Scripture as I; she quotes the same poetry as I.  Indeed she feels the same frustration with some of her congregation during Advent as do I.  Regarding Advent, if my address to you this evening sounds more like Advent than Christmas sermon I make no apology --because the two seasons are inextricably intertwined -- and our Christmas carols reflect this marriage quite powerfully.

That is, in terms of the seasons of the Church Calendar, Christmas is -- or ought to be -- the answer to the human predicament posed by Advent.  And Christmas won't mean much to us if we have no understanding of Advent  -- or if we are unable to assimilate and feel what we ought to be feeling during Advent.  To quote Mrs. Rutledge:

"In any given Episcopal congregation at this time of year (Advent), there will be two groups of people.  One group, seeing the purple or blue hangings and hearing the lessons about sin, judgment, and the Wrath of God will say, 'Oh good, it's Advent.'  The other group will say, 'Where are the Christmas decorations, and why aren't we singing Christmas carols?'  It takes some practice to get used to Advent.  Once you do though, you'll never want it any other way.  The more the world outside lights its trees, the more sparkle and glitter it throws about, the more it sings 'have yourselves a merry little Christmas,' the more you will want to immerse yourself in the special mood of Advent"

-- which is why when many in the community (and perhaps some of you) when greeting me as early as two weeks ago with a cheery "Merry Christmas" heard my reply as something like "You too."  Because if we're casually throwing around this greeting the entire month of December, what in the world is left for us to say to each other this evening? -- not to mention the rest of this twelve day season.

Mrs. Rutledge continues:  "Advent teaches us to delay Christmas in order to experience it truly when it finally comes.  Advent is designed to show that  the meaning of Christmas is diminished to the vanishing point if we are not willing to take a fearless inventory of the darkness around us and the darkness within ourselves."

How many of us (and I accuse myself here) have really managed to take a fearless inventory of our darkness these last four weeks?  W. H Auden in his mammoth work "A Christmas Oratorio" describes the season of Advent as one of fear:  "We are afraid of pain but more afraid of silence; for no nightmare of hostile objects could be as terrible as this void.  This is the abomination.  This is the wrath of God."   Such is our Advent Predicament with us mired in our sin.  This is where we would be without Christmas.

The widow of one of the victims in the Pan Am crash at Lockerbie some years back said that accident changed her view of God.  "I don't dislike Him.  I'm not mad at Him.  I'm afraid of Him."  It is this sort of feeling that describes the proper mood of Advent, the season of the wrath of God.

 Mrs. Rutledge cites one of my favorite T. S. Eliot quotes:  "Mankind cannot bear very much reality."  We would rather build fantasy castles around ourselves, decked out with angels and candles.  Do you realize that Americans now spend several hundred million dollars a year on scented candles marketed as "spiritual aids?  This is precisely the sort of illusion that the Church in Advent, refuses to promote. 

How many parties have we all attended and enjoyed (again including me) the last few weeks?  I've hosted two:  one for the Bishop and one for the EYC.  How much have we allowed ourselves in Isaiah's words to "live deliciously"?   Have we examined whether our attendance and enjoyment of those "Christmas in Advent" events is an escape from having to face the wrath of God inherent in Advent?  How much more might we have enjoyed them had these parties promoting "Christmas cheer" actually been held during the twelve days of Christmas? 

I don't mean at all to put a damper on the holiday (holy day), or what anyone else might call the "Christmas spirit".  But we'll never catch that Christmas spirit (whatever that phrase might mean) unless we recognize first and foremost that Christmas is God's answer to our predicament posed by Advent.

And that in place of our receiving God's judgment and our deserved condemnation on December 25, we instead receive His favorable and loving judgment in the form of Him coming to us as a child:  God's gift to us (His message to us); His Word to us is "Peace on earth; goodwill toward men."   Hopefully we're not already so "Christmassed out" that we can't summon enough spiritual energy to appreciate this message, assimilate it for ourselves, and greet one another with it after church this evening -- and also be able to postpone our "Happy New Year" greetings until the actual beginning of the New Year.  How many of us (after church this coming Sunday) will still feel like greeting one another with a "Merry Christmas"?  How many of us having sung Christmas carols for the last month will still feel like singing them Sunday morning -- or the following Sunday -- or on Epiphany Sunday?

 Christmas will be totally lost on us if we fail to recognize that tonight is God's answer to the prayer we all prayed last Sunday -- the collect for the fourth Sunday of Advent:  "O Lord, raise up (stir up) thy power and come among us, and with great might succor us."  He has indeed done just that in the child Jesus.)  The collect continues, "that whereas through our sins and wickedness we are sore-let and hindered in running the race set before us, thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us."  That is, Jesus has come to set us free from our sinful predicament "far as our curse is found."  That dread phrase is from a Christmas carol:  "Joy to the World"!

 Christmas is about God entering our world and meeting us in our darkness -- but it's also about Him taking us home with Him.  I hear from time to time that the Church doesn't really confront the darkness in the world, which simply goes to show how much our avoidance of Advent prevents our appreciation of what Christmas truly is.  We just read that the Light of Christ has pierced and shined into the darkness of our world in a way our world has failed to comprehend.  The Greek Word for "comprehend" means that we did not understand this Light; nor could we even in our worst moments ever extinguish it. 

However, His Light has not simply shined in our hearts.  God's eternal Word has taken on not just our flesh but the sin of the entire world.  How dare we ever think that God has not loved us -- or that the Church has failed to confront the malevolence of our world.  His Word was made flesh, and dwelt (that is, tabernacled and lived and died) among us.  In this child, God truly has stirred up His power to come among us:  in order to succor us, because our sins and wickedness truly have hindered the running of the race set before us.  We do ourselves a terrible mis-service if we at Christmas fail to take account of our sin.  Thank God His bountiful mercy may now speedily help and deliver us.

My dear friends, as we sing the Christmas hymns let us notice two things:  the sin of our world  -- and God's readiness to do something about it.  Let us give thanks for His coming to us -- in order that we might be made fit to go to Him.  Listen to our Advent predicament as enunciated by just a few phrases from only a handful of our Christmas carols:  "Child for us sinners", "To save us all from Satan's power", "Cast out our sin and enter in", "He will be our savior strong to cleanse us from all sin and wrong", "He on Adam's fallen race", "For a race deep lost in sin",  and last but not least --  "Good Christians, fear for sinners here".  Advent ought to make us afraid, for our sin really is the Abomination -- and its result truly the wrath of God.

 Thankfully, God at Christmas answers our predicament.  Mind you that He does not alleviate or remove all of our worldly problems.  That was never His intent -- and we need to remember especially at Christmas that He had other things in mind.  What He has done is to answer our Advent predicament.  Again, a handful of phrases from our carols (not songs but hymns:  hymns which no Christian anywhere -- and certainly no Episcopalian -- has absolutely any business singing a moment before this night).  This is how God turns our Advent predicament into His Christmas solution and our Christmas joy:

"Lo He abhors not the virgin's womb
"This child this little helpless boy shall be our confidence and joy -- the powers of hell o'erthrowing."
"God and sinners reconciled"
"Pleased as man with man to dwell"
"Born to raise the sons of earth; born to give them Second Birth."
"Light and life to all He brings"
"To free all those who trust in Him from Satan's power and might"
"Christ is Son of God that we, sons of God in Him might be"
"He hath ope'd the heavenly door and man is blessed for evermore" and last but not least the words which will close our service this evening:  "He that hath made heaven and earth of naught and with His blood mankind hath bought.

If these phrases don't comfort the living daylights out of us, then we've failed in our Advent duty to look fearlessly into the darkness of our world and our individual souls.  The Christmas spirit is to hear the angel's message:  "Peace on earth; goodwill toward men" and welcome it not with some sort of silly hazy Christmas glow, but to welcome that message with breath of hope  -- and perhaps even more important, with a sigh of relief.