DON’T BE AFRAID
The Rev’d Phillip Channing Ellsworth, Jr.
The 10th of December 2017, the Second Sunday of Advent
Based on Mark 1. 1 – 8.

Veni, veni Emmanuel, ‘Come, O come Emmanuel’ we sing in Advent. We hear from the prophet Isaiah, “A voice crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” We go back to the ancient prophecies, the foreshadowings of Jesus’ comings that we find in Scripture, and when we do two figures above all represent how we’re feeling, two who are there right from the start of the gospel story: John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin and forerunner, and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus’ mother. 

It had been 500 years since God had spoken to Israel. The people didn’t want to hear from God so God gave them what they wanted, the silent treatment. And now God breaks that silence, and John takes up and drives home the whole plot of the biblical story. ‘Behold,’ he announces, ‘something is about to happen and you’ve little idea what it is; how radical a change it will involve.’ Echoing Moses, who removed his shoes to approach God in the burning bush, “When the Promised One gets here,” John says, “I won’t be worthy even to untie his shoe.” So John the Baptist points forward, and says to anyone who will listen to him, ‘Everything you’ve always hoped for, everything you’ve longed for, the change, the freedom, the peace, is about to come. 

It will be a shock coping with that, therefore ‘Make straight in the desert a highway for our God,’ he declares, quoting Isaiah. And Mary, who in the iconography of ancient art stands on the other side of Jesus from John the Baptist, the two of them flanking Christ — Mary is the one who in quiet and with courage receives into herself, into her body, heart and mind, the full reality of what’s coming. She receives it so deeply that the Word of God becomes physically real in her; the child who shall be named Jesus. And she has to wait the long nine months of pregnancy, faithfully, quietly, anticipating, ready to be changed as every mother is changed by the birth of a child.

These are two figures we focus upon in Advent, Mary and John the Baptist. In Advent, people for centuries have contemplated how the Blessed One loves us from the beginning to the end, from birth to death. They have thought about that truth pressing in upon them, how it rearranges everything for the better, leading us to where true joys are to be found. In Advent, you face the truth which is God with us, and you’re changed for good. 

Sleep is a little death, a picture of that longer sleep called death. It’s not lugubrious to prepare for death. Actually it’s as healthy and ordinary as getting ready for bed, not different from washing your face, brushing your teeth, and getting your pajamas on. About 40 years ago, the following canonical directive was given to clergy: “The Minister of the Congregation is directed to instruct the people, from time to time, about the duty of Christian parents to make prudent provision for the well-being of their families, and of all persons, to make wills, while they are in health, arranging for the disposal of their temporal goods, not neglecting, if they are able, to make bequests for religious and charitable uses.” So I ask you, cheerfully: Remember St Stephen’s in your bequests and wills. One of you did this a few weeks ago and you talked to me about it with tears of joy in your eyes, saying how much you love St Stephen’s Church. Fr Schaper and I are happy to assist you.

Advent is a time to ask yourself how you want your body to be treated on your final journey, as well as what you want done with everything you have accumulated. We can undertake this in resurrection hope, or we can bury our heads in the sand. This is part of the soul’s care at Advent, reflecting upon ourselves and saying, ‘Can I get myself to the point where I can look at God and say, Well, there’s truth and there’s beauty and light and love; though it may be risky, I’d rather face the truth, whatever it wants from me, than be locked up in denial.’

Over the season of Advent, we get ourselves a bit more used to the truth, the truth about ourselves (and if you’re anything like me, this is a bit discouraging), and the truth about God above all, which is always encouraging. The One who comes will toss the furniture around, will come with challenge, because it is the nature of love to expect a lot of us. It will be like fire on the earth as the Bible says. And yet, as I say, the One who comes is coming in love. He’s coming to set us free. And boy, that is something worth waiting for!

Veni, veni Emmanuel. “The Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour,” Jesus said. We could take that as reason to panic, as some do. You never know when God’ll turn up. You’d better look your best; put out your best; clean the rug; and get rid of whatever’s been swept beneath it. But when you sing the carols of Advent you realize it’s God who’s coming, not a killjoy, and something begins to happen to you as something happened to Ebenezer Scrooge. ‘Love, the Lord, is on the way’, as Carol of the Advent (‘People, Look East’) puts it. 

And what does God want for Christmas? You. Your anxiety, your fear, your sadness, your story. God wants you to be ready for him, ready to be loved, to be seen clearly and truthfully, to be held strongly, and transfigured forever. Advent is a time not for panic, but to heed the most oft-repeated commandment in Scripture: Don’t be afraid. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.