Fourth Sunday in Advent, 2005
Texts: Phil. 4:4-7; John
1:9-28
The Rev. Jerry Kistler
St. Stephen’s Reformed
Episcopal Church
“Prepared for Christ by Christ”
Well we’ve come to the last Sunday in Advent.... already! You know, for a lot of people the only significance this Sunday bears is that it’s the last good shopping day before Christmas – time to start making last minute preparations. That’s somewhat ironic, because in the early Church this Sunday was called “the Preparation,” not of course because it was the last good shopping day, but because it was the time to “make ready,” the time to prepare oneself to worthily enter into the celebration of Christ’s coming in the Christ-mass, a time of self-examination and penitential prayer. We’ve come a long way in how we prepare for Christmas!
But this morning we’re beginning to make our transition into the season of Christmas, and the season of Christmas is a season of great joy, isn’t it? And so we heard from our Epistle lesson those great valedictory words of St. Paul, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
We read this passage today to remind us that we are ready
for Christmas, ready for Christ’s continual coming in our lives, and ready for
his coming at the last day, when our hearts are full of joy, when our lives
reflect the meekness and gentleness of Christ, when our mouths are filled with
prayer and thanksgiving, and our souls are possessed of the peace of God which
surpasses all knowledge. And at the heart of all
Paul says our first response to this great truth ought to be that we rejoice in the Lord always. But what is the source of our joy? What is the source of the joy of this wonderful season? Isn’t it the glorious truth that we, who were once separated from God because of sin, now have Him living with us and, indeed, in us? “They shall call His name Emmanuel, which being translated is ‘God with us,’” Isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Isn’t that the real reason for the joy of the season? That the Holy Transcendant One became imminent among us – so imminent that you could pick him up with your two hands; that the One who could hold the universe in His hand chose to enter our world as a tiny baby and to take on the restraints of our human nature, and to suffer our pains and weaknesses and finally our death, in order to make us the children of God. Isn’t that the source of our Christmas joy, our Christian joy? “Joy to the world, the Lord is come!” And so Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice!”
The realization that the Lord is at hand is the source of our joy, but it’s also the reason for our goodwill towards men. That’s what Paul says next. He says, “Let your gentleness [or your graciousness] be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.”
There’s a real challenge to us in those words. The Lord is at hand. Yes, we’re looking for His coming in Christmas but, in another sense, of course Christ is already here with us. And as we heard John the Baptist say in the Gospel, it’s possible that “there stands One among you whom you do not know.” Christ stands among us even now, but often he’s standing with us in cognito. If I may put it this way, He often visits us in a guise we don’t always recognize right away: in the guise of the Christian brother or sister sitting next to you in church, or in the guise of a neighbor in need, or a stranger on the street. And this realization ought to give us pause as to how we treat one another. Jesus’ own familiar words in the book of Matthew should give us our greatest motivation to let our graciousness be known to all men. For he said, in the day of judgment at his final coming, “the righteous will say to Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And what will He answer? “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”
“Christ be with me, Christ within me… Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.” That’s what we sing in St. Patrick’s famous hymn, the Lorica. St. Benedict made it a part of his famous Rule that “all guests to the monastery should be welcomed as Christ, because He will say, ‘I was a stranger, and you took me in.’ (Mt. 25:35)
“Let you graciousness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.”
“The Lord is at hand,” therefore thirdly, “be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.”
The next thing the realization that Christ is already presence among us ought to do for us, says Paul, is to give us confidence in prayer. Christmas time is the time when all you kids get to make out your lists to let your ‘requests’ be known to mom and dad. But what Paul is telling us is that our relationship to God is now such that we can even give our lists to God – our litanies. “Make you requests known,” he says. And how do we have such confidence to do that? Because we have an Advocate with the Father, Christ the Righteous, and he ever lives to make intercession for us. He never sleeps. He never takes a break. There won’t ever be a time when you want to pray and Christ is not on hand to lift your prayers to the Father upon his merits and his sacrifice that they might be pleasing and acceptable to Him as requests made by His own beloved children. “The Lord is at hand,” therefore, “be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.”
Finally, Paul says, the realization of Christ’s presence brings with it the promise of peace. “The peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
Today we lit the fourth candle of the Advent wreath. As we heard, it is called the Angel’s candle, for we’re reminded that it was the angels who were the first evangelists, for they proclaimed to the shepherds that what Christ’s presence in the world truly meant was that peace had come to the earth. “Peace on earth, goodwill towards men.” Peace means reconciliation. Peace means an armistice, a cessation of hostilities. And what the angels proclaimed was that in the birth of Christ we have the gift of peace from God that we might have peace with God. “Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!” There’s no greater line in any Christmas carol than that one, in my humble opinion. That’s the true peace of Christmas: peace from God that we might have peace with God. That is the peace we have through the presence of Christ in our lives.
Joy, graciousness, confidence in prayer, peace - the source of all these blessings is the presence of Christ in our lives. Our joy is “in the Lord.” Our graciousness flows from the knowledge that “the Lord is at hand.” Our prayers and our peace are in and though Christ Jesus. And so we see that it is ultimately Christ Himself who is making us ready for His coming, whether in the Christ- Mass or in the Last Day.
And so on this Sunday of the Preparation let us rejoice in the presence of Christ already among us doing His work of grace in us to make us ready to meet Him in those very special times and ways: in the Eucharist today, in the Christ-Mass this Thursday, in the man on the street tomorrow, in the day He calls us home to be with Him, and in the Last Day when he will call us forth out of our graves and stand with us once again upon the earth. “Rejoice in the Lord. Again I say, rejoice!” +