Jeremiah 33 14-16
Psalm 25: 1-10
1 Thessalonians 3: 9-13
Luke 21: 25-36

I’m told that the following story is true. We could start it with the line, “Once upon a time” (because that’s how all good stories should start, isn’t it?) “Once upon a time a minister went from Rexton to Kouchibouguac. It was a raw, cold, windy day and because it was long before the days of cars he went by horse and buggy. Upon his arrival, he said to no one in particular, “Oh, I sure hope the wind changes direction before I have to go back!” ( Now, think about that one for a minute!!! ) (pause) Well, by golly, the wind did change direction! Of course, this just goes to prove the saying, “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!”

Welcome to the season of Advent. Advent is the period of time marked by the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. This year, the fourth Sunday of Advent is also Christmas Eve. In Advent we read scripture lessons that speak of the return of Jesus and we read Scriptures that look toward his birth, as Jesus, the child of Mary, born in a stable in Bethlehem. In Advent we also train our eyes, our hearts and our souls to look for his presence in our lives, no matter what season of the year it is. While the passages read today may seem odd, very odd even, they all focus on the hope of a second coming, when the world will be under the rule of justice and love. Yet, in these passages we can find markers which point to the presence of the Christ who is already in our midst, showing to us the heart and caring of the God who has called his people into relationship since the beginning of time.

Every so often though, we have to pause and reorient our lives, and refocus our vision. We have to make sure we are on the right track and assess our priorities. We start with hope.

SO, welcome to the season of hope. We all know about hope - it affects all aspects of our lives. (pause) It’s “report card” time at many schools and parents and students alike hope for good marks and positive comments. (pause) It is the season of Christmas parties and we listen to the radio or watch the weather channel, hoping for good roads. Some are hoping for snow, so that it will seem more like Christmas.

(pause) In this season of hope the ads on tv, the weekly flyers, the enticing store displays and, of course, the Sears Christmas Wish Book are all designed to provide “answers” to that hope. “Buy this or that, and your life will be better”, “You will be happier” or “your child’s eyes will light up if you buy this and put it under the tree this Christmas.”

Despite our experience that materialism is not that lasting most of us can remember that special present that made one year unforgettable. Maybe it was a pair of skates. Maybe it was a sled. Maybe it was a bicycle. Maybe our hope was focussed on finding the “right” gift for that special someone. We buy something this year, hoping for that moment to return!

(pause) Most of us will remember those toys that were much desired and then looked great for a while but soon lost their lustre and left the buyer wondering about wasted money and the recipient looking for something else.

We need Advent to get our selves focussing on the most important things once again. Four themes have been traditionally applied to the waiting time known as Advent: hope, peace, joy and love. They speak of our common human story and the themes common to waiting.

We all know about waiting. We often wait more than we would like. We wait in traffic. We wait for the doctor; waiting first for the appointment and then for our name to be called and then for the doctor to get to our exam room.

When I was a child I always seemed to be waiting for something to happen. I waited for my dad to come in from the barn to tuck me in which always seemed to take forever. I waited for the cookies to come out of the oven. I waited for my next birthday. I wanted to be older. I wanted to be in a higher grade. I waited for school to be over; then not before long, I wanted the summer to end so I could go back to school again. My parents and most older people would say, “Don’t wish your life away”, but that has no meaning for a child; and when you know what it means, you realize that you missed a lot by wishing for it to end and you cant turn the clock back.

But true hope is a way of looking at life and seems to be built into the human condition. It seems to me that the people with the most hope are quite often those with the least reason to have hope - at least in terms of a positive change in their lives or their conditions, but hope is what keeps them going.

The story of God’s people is not a static story. The story is about a journey from wilderness to land of promise and then from exile to home. The Christian story in particular is about following the one who embodies the divine and whose Spirit sustains the journey - even thousands of years after the initial events named in the story.

Advent hope is very much about discerning the hand of God in the present. It is not about living in the past or enduring the present for some desired goal. Advent hope is about connecting in a meaningful way with the Christ whose spirit has the power to influence our lives 24/7, 365 days of the year, not just in the season of Advent and Christmas. When we think of the word hope we can focus too much on the future and we can forget to see the signs of God’s presence in the present, the here and now where we live and move and have our being.

We can sit back and listen to our favourite hymns and let them carry our hearts and souls to other places. We can hike in the woods or ski down a snowy slope see god’s hand in it all. We can look at the love shared between a young couple or between a young couple and their baby - a baby who can do nothing but smile and make baby noises but who brings joy to many.

We can be present at the end of life or at its beginning and know the care of a God who promised to never leave us or forsake us. Whether our blessings may seem meagre or many we can live as blessed people.

We can gather with other people of faith, breaking bread and sharing the cup together, as Christ’s people have done for almost 2000 years, uniting our voices in song and sharing in heartbreaks and joy.

We are a people of hope. We live in the sure hope that the God we have met in Jesus Christ is wherever the twos and threes gather; is where those who call upon that name serve in the Spirit of the one who called disciples; and is wit us in our highest joy and deepest sorrow.

We hope and our hopes are fulfilled.

Amen!

Malachi 3: 1-4
Luke 1: 68-79
Philippians 1: 3-11
Luke 3: 1-6

Is there one thing that you have wished for, more than anything else? Is there one thing you have held your breath, hoping against hope for, for years?

The passage we used as a Psalm Response today is sometimes called “The Song of Zechariah”. It reminds me of the scenes in a classic musical, such as in The Sound of Music when Captain VonTrapp and Fraulein Maria admit their love for one another, or when Eliza Doolittle, in My fair Lady has finished with her lessons and goes to the fancy ball, transformed from an unrefined cockney street girl to a cultured lady. In these scenes, since they are musicals, the characters in question invariably break into song - and the hearts of the audience members soar with theirs.

This passage, introduces us to Zechariah, a priest in the hill country and husband of Elizabeth, distant cousin of Mary who was engaged to Joseph. As a priest in the temple he would have been one of the ones who had nurtured his hope for the Messiah for his whole life, as had many in the generations before him. Now he was receiving a double blessing. The son conceived in their old age was gift enough, but this son, the child of his old age, would also be the herald of the Messiah. This son would be the one to announce that the day of God’s salvation was near. If you look closely, you’ll notice that his song of praise was composed mostly of verses of Psalms, known to his people for generations. What better way to praise God than with the original hymn book of God’s people!

What would you do if your one wish came true? I talked with a friend the other day who had been having health problems. She had been feeling completely miserable for many months and had been scheduled for a battery of tests because her health was steadily deteriorating. She asked her doctor if her medications could be causing the symptoms and he told her that she was welcome to try that approach but that it was not likely the cause of her discomfort. Despite his assurance that it would do no good, she stopped taking one of her medications and she feels much better. Of course, the problems for which she was taking the medications in the first place have come back, but she considers them much easier to cope with than the side effects of the drugs. Now she will still go through the tests to prove that there is nothing else seriously wrong but when I talked with her early last week it was as if she has been reborn and given a new lease on life. It’s the best Christmas gift shw could hope for!

One of the things we wish for when we are small is the ability to do things ourselves. Ever notice that when you try and help a child of a certain age that child will invariably respond, “No, me do it”, whether they actually can or not. Of course, allowing children to practice and even make mistakes allows them to grow in their abilities and mature. However, we can easily end up as adults who believe that we are self-made; we can come to believe that we can do it all on our own.

For example, in 12 step program such as Alcoholics Anonymous, the FIRST step is admitting that we CAN’T do it all on our own. The first step is admitting to one’s self and to others in fact, a powerlessness before the addiction and that a reliance on a higher power is needed in order to maintain sobriety. This sobriety is achieved “one day at a time” and is a life long journey. In today’s reading from the gospel, John the Baptizer, all grown up, calls the people to come to God. He calls the people to realize and to ADMIT that they cannot do it on their own. And the people flock to him. NOTE: Brian Stoffregen, a Luteran minister, and his web site Cross Marks needs to get credit for the spark for this point, or line of thinking.

By and large the people who DO NOT flock to him are the religious leaders. They are the good people, the people who thought they could do it on their own. They had the law and the time to study and understand it fully. They also had the ability, for the most part, to follow the law. They made sure they kept all the commandments. They made sure they followed the purity laws. They made certain they followed the dietary laws. They were good, moral people, and surely, they believed, that must count for a great deal in God’s books! Some believed it counted for everything.

John, and Jesus after him, would strongly disagree. It wasn’t that they were bad people. In fact they were very good people but they lacked a certain kind of humility. John and Jesus would have insisted that what was needed was an appreciation for the grace of God.

What we need is a living relationship of trust with the God of heaven and earth. What we need is a deep down realization that we are creature and created and that the Creator is to be trusted to bring us to salvation – not our own efforts.

Now that does not promote sin and immorality but rather frees us from the responsibility to do it all on our own; it gives us permission to ask for help and allows us to serve without always looking over our shoulder and hoping that we are doing nothing wrong.

Yet this grace is not free. This grace comes at a cost. We have to make room for God. Unlike the innkeeper on that long ago Christmas Eve, we need to make room in the inn, and not relegate the Prince of Glory to the fringes, to the stable.

When they twinned the highway across the Nova Scotia / New Brunswick border, the expropriation of land became necessary. One of the people who had to move was an acquaintance of mine. After the highway was completed he would exclaim to his wife, as they drove across the border, “here we are, dear, driving right through our livingroom”.

God doesn’t take or want what we have to spare; God wants to be at the centre of our lives. God wants to build a highway, not around what it is that we are unwilling to change, but right to the centre of our hearts and lives. We are and were given the gift of God’s only child; surely our response is to place this Child at the centre!

So in this time of Advent we are asked to pause and to reflect on what it that we truly want and need in our lives; and realizing that THESE THINGS can’t be ordered online or purchased at the mall we need to ask God for the grace to be able to see and to receive these most precious gifts.

Quite often receiving this gift is an experience of grace. It’s not found by doing more, working harder, and adding to the stress that often destroys the spirit of this season. Its received by asking, pausing, waiting and opening our hearts in the silence.

We are asked to make room for the Christ in our lives. What will our response be?

Zephaniah 3: 14-20
Isaiah 12: 2-6
Philippians 4: 4-7
Luke 3: 7-18

Young Harold and young Peter did not like each other very much. But they were both in the Christmas Pageant at their church. One was cast as Joseph, husband of Mary and the other, as the innkeeper.

The boy playing Joseph dreaded the night of the pageant because he knew that the boy playing the innkeeper would try to ruin the play if he could.

The play unfolded as it should, until Joseph knocked on the door of an inn in Bethlehem. When the innkeeper opened the door, Joseph asked, “Do you have a room. My wife is going to have a baby tonight”.

The innkeeper threw open the door and said, “Sure, we have plenty of rooms. Come on in.”

Of course Joseph was ready for something like this and poked his head in the door. He looked around and then said, “This place is a dump. Mary, let’s go to the barn.”

The time is almost upon us once again; the time of celebrating this holy and blessed event. At Christmas we celebrate the birth of the Christ Child all those years ago, and we look toward his birth in our lives this year. We live between the memory of that Christmas and the Christmas that may come to us this year. We also live between the memory of the Christmases of years past and this Christmas and all of it’s expectations.

We have a great many expectations of Christmas: of families that get along, of gifts that are appreciated but don’t cost a fortune, and of feelings of “comfort and joy”. All too often we end up disappointed because we are expecting the Christmas of long ago, or one which is highly unrealistic, given our circumstance and family situation this year.

Maybe we need to shift our focus from all of those external preparations and focus on the internal preparations, keeping in mind that while we may never be truly “ready” for Christmas, we can be open to the unexpected ways in which the Christ child can come to us.

We know that Christmas is not about the things we give and receive ; we know that, but with all of the hype around Christmas and all of the advertising, it’s easy to forget. We come to Church to be reminded of the real story; not to give us a nice warm feeling, but to put us on the right path for the year that is to come.

We are here today to celebrate the lives of those who have gone before us by the lighting of Christmas bulbs. Their memory shines out and we are reminded of the light of Christ. We are ALSO here to celebrate the baptism of (a child) (children) and welcome (them) (her) into our community of faith. As a community we will pledge that our Church home will be a place of love, welcoming and Christian nurture. We pledge to welcome all people and especially those the world has given up on and give them a place in our inn. We pledge to welcome the Christ who dwells in each of us, and we pledge to live as people in whom that Spirit of Christ dwells.

Emmanuel will come to us. It wont be in the same way as before. But he will come. Are we able to see, are we open to his presence?

Micah 5: 2-5a
Luke 1: 46-55
Hebrews 10: 5-10
Luke 1: 39-45

“Are We There Yet?”

There is an old, old Christmas song, it goes like this:

	Christmas is coming
	the goose is getting fat,
	please put a penny in the old man’s hat.
	If you haven’t got a penny,
	a ha’ penny will do.
	If you haven’t got a ha’ penny,
	well God bless you.

We are now at the point where if that goose isn’t almost ready for the oven we won’t be having goose for Christmas dinner. I remember the Christmas dinners where we did have goose to eat, but it was a lean mean flying machine, a Canada goose, shot by my elderly great uncle; it was definitely not a fat farm-reared one. When I was small, friends of my parents’ had geese and we had to be careful around them because they liked to chase small children!!!

As a child, waiting for Christmas was torture. But, of course, as a child waiting for almost everything was torture: waiting for birthdays, waiting for a long car drive to be over, waiting until a favourite tv program came on. Of course, while we were waiting my parents were busy doing what they had to do to be ready for whatever it was that we were waiting for. That’s the nature of children and that’s the work of adults.

Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent but it is also Christmas Eve. If we are children we may be saying, “Is it here yet?” and if we are adults we may be saying, “Oh my, is it really Christmas Eve already?” But, we know one thing: that if it isn’t done soon we won’t need to do it at all.

Yet this hour is a time for us to sit back a bit and relax and hear the words of scripture; to sit back and ponder the message of God’s good news to the people of Israel; to revel in God’s good news to us.

In Advent we live in an in-between time; as Christians we live in the time of “already, an not yet.” We live between memory and hope. Even when we proclaim Jesus’ birth again tonight, the fulfilment of God’s will as promised in passages such as today’s scriptures will not have been fully realized.

In addition to speaking of something very immediate and yet, in the future, these passages speak of the impossible becoming possible. The first thing that strikes us about the story of Jesus birth is the seeming impossibility of it all. The whole thing is impossible, from the beginning of the story. We have 2 expectant women. That’s a normal enough place to start the story of a life that is meant to change the world, but we can easily forget that neither of these women should have been expecting a baby. One, Elizabeth was elderly and she and her husband Zechariah had long since given up trying. What an embarrassment - she and her husband would have been a source of great amusement to their friends and neighbours!

And Mary, well Mary, wasn’t married, and in relation to her being pregnant, that was all that needed to be said. Everyone would agree that she was lucky, very lucky, that, if Joseph was not the father , and that was a big if, that he did not divorce her, to save his won good name, or have her stoned. Not many men would swallow their pride and raise the child as his own. Her pregnancy was more than an embarrassment; it was an outright disgrace.

The second thing about the passages that speak of these women and their special children is that they are to be life changing children, and not just children who change the lives of their parents, but children whose role in life it is to change the life of the entire world. Few parents would expect that of their children, yet the word of God has come to these women in such a way as to enable them to proclaim this hope with confidence.

Mary’s song of praise, most often called “The Magnificat” after its first words in Latin, is a soaring hymn of praise and expectation. In it God is praised and God’s actions are praised and anticipated. It is a hymn of the things that are to come; things that will be brought about by this child whose birth is almost upon us.

Listen! The lowly will be lifted up and the hungry will be filled. It is a passage of reversal. The rich will be sent away empty and the poor and hungry will be filled. It is a good news passage if you are poor like Mary and her neighbours. If, however, you are like the Herods of the world, it’s certainly anything but “good news”. In fact, it’s a scary thought.

So that is what Mary hoped for Jesus and his impact on the world. Yet, here we are , 2000 years later, more or less, and there are still desperately poor people, and still people who are excessively rich. There are still inequalities and injustices, even in the most wealthy countries.

There are still many people who suffer from war and violence, both in obvious places like Iraq and Afghanistan and Darfur, but also in homes in Kent Country and other places nearby and far away.

And sadly, some of our luxuries come at the expense of the lives of other people.

I was reading a piece of news on the internet on Friday that said that the people who work in sweatshops in China making Bratz dolls (which apparently are Barbie’s new competition) earn just .17 per doll and are forced to work up to 90 hours a week in poor conditions with no benefits. I don’t have any small children in my life who are interested in such dolls but I am told that some of these dolls sell in the USA for $16 or more. The owners of the factories fake their way through inspections by stores which don’t want to profit from sweatshop labour.

We have two responses to this kind of situation. One would be to do nothing because we feel that we can’t possibly do enough to make a real difference. And the other would be to do what we can, where we can, buy the means at our disposal.

I think the first thing we need to do is to open our lives to the life changing possibilities of Christmas. The birth of Christ CAN make a difference in our lives and in the lives of others if we are willing to let it. Then we need to believe that we CAN make a difference in the lives of others, no matter how small it may seem.

The angels and the shepherds, and I am quite sure the wise men, were like Mary was when she first heard the news - they were filled with joy and just had to proclaim it. May we proclaim it – in word and deed.

We will neve be the same again. The world will never be the same again. Emmanuel will come to us. Rejoice. Amen!