Advent Sermons 1999 The Most Rev. John T. Cahoon, Jr. Metropolitan, Anglican Catholic Church Bishop Ordinary, Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic States Rector, St. Andrew and St. Margaret of Scotland Anglican Catholic Church Alexandria, Virginia
Advent III Advent II Advent I

Advent IV, December 19, 1999

Jesus does not appear as a character in this morning's gospel. John the Baptist has been preaching that the Messiah of Israel is coming, and that has made him popular, controversial, and notorious. The Jewish leadership in Jerusalem enjoys a cozy relationship with the occupying forces of the Roman empire, and they don't want anything or anyone — especially a rabble-rousing preacher — to rock the boat.

The authorities in Jerusalem send a deputation of investigators down the hill to where John is preaching. They are trying to find out, first of all, exactly who it is that John claims to be. The detective force is a mixed bag — priests, Levites, and Pharisees — all Jews to be sure, but with various, different self-interests.

They ask John, "Who are you?" John tells them, instead, who he is not, saying, "I am not the Christ I am not the Messiah — so don't worry your paranoid little heads about that." They go on, "OK, if you are not the Messiah, are you Elijah?" John replies, "I am not." They pursue him, asking, "Are you the prophet Moses said would come." John wastes no words with them and says, "No."

The detectives are beginning to evidence some testiness, so they say, "Well, then who are you? We have to give the people who sent us some kind of answer. What do you have to say about yourself?" John replies, "Remember that prophecy Isaiah made about eight hundred years ago, when he said that when the Messiah comes somebody will come along before him to get people ready? I am the somebody Isaiah was talking about."

Now that is an outrageous claim just outrageous enough to be true. So in the time-honored mode of people who get frightened when God seems to be getting too close, the detectives change the subject. They ask the fairly irrelevant and off-the-wall question, "Well, if you're not the Messiah., and you're not Elijah, and you're not the Prophet, then why are you baptizing?"

We can easily imagine the slight smile that comes across John's face as he says, "You seem to think it's pretty threatening that I am baptizing and I'm only using water. Wait until you get a look at the one I am preparing people to meet — he is going to baptize people with the Holy Ghost. You think I am disturbing; I am nothing compared to him — I am not even good enough to untie his shoes."

We have learned this Advent that what we mean by the end of the world is all tied up with coming face-to-face with Jesus. In that sense, John proclaimed the end of the world when he said Jesus was about to come onto the stage of public history. The church proclaims the end of the world both as an event that will happen in the future when Jesus returns to earth and as something that happens every time we open our hearts to him.

St. Paul told us last week that we can never be completely sure we know what is going on in this world, because we don't have all the facts even all the facts about my favorite person, me. St. Paul promised us that when we come face to face with Jesus he will have all the facts, and then he will give everyone the evaluation he deserves.

Later on in First Corinthians, St. Paul goes on about meeting Jesus at the end. He says that now we can see things only in a distorted way, but when we face Jesus we shall see clearly. Now we can know things only partially but then we shall know as completely as we are known. We shall see that not only the overall pattern but also the individual twists and turns of our lives all made sense, and we shall see that Jesus was reaching out to us to love us and forgive us all along.

John the Baptist died not really knowing all that. John had an extremely strange life from the angel's announcement of his miraculous birth, to his father's eerie prophecy at his circumcision, to his silent years in the wilderness, to his brief career as what Jesus called "a light which burned and shone — but only for a season," and then death at the hands of a sex-crazed, henpecked, blasphemous pretender to the hallowed throne of David.

From what we heard last week, we can conclude that if John did not die in despair, he certainly died with many unanswered questions about what the point of it all had been. But the pattern of his life was in the hands of God all along.

What God got John to do made complete sense in the unfolding of his overall plan to save the world. We have to have the confidence that our lives make that same sort of sense too. We need to learn from John's example that even if we cannot necessarily see our life's whole purpose and meaning now, we shall know them at the end — when we see no longer through a glass, darkly, but face to face.

Today St. Paul tells us to rejoice — rejoice, because the Lord is at hand — he is almost here. Jesus' coming to the stable at Bethlehem, and Jesus' coming into public at the Jordan River, and Jesus' coming on the altar of Holy Communion, and Jesus' coming when we open ourselves to him in prayer, and Jesus' coming finally at the end of the world — all of these comings these Advents — different in drama and different in timing though they are — add up to the same thing.

The hymn expresses the purpose of all the Advents this way: Lo, the Lamb so long-expected/Comes with pardon down from heaven/Let us haste, with tears of sorrow/One and all, to be forgiven."

The Collect: O Lord, raise up, we pray thee, thy power, and come among us, and with great might succour us; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us, thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: Philippians 4: 4 - 7

The Gospel: St. John 1: 19 - 28

Advent III, December 12, 1999

Today's gospel begins on Death Row. John the Baptist is waiting for the punishment he is going to receive for saying in public that the king and his wife were adulterers. He got his nickname "John the Baptist" "John the Baptizer" -- because God told him to announce that the Messiah of Israel was about to appear. The way for people to prepare to meet the Messiah was to get themselves dunked in the Jordan River to show they wanted to get rid of their sins.

One of the people John dunked -- baptized -- was his cousin Jesus from Nazareth. When Jesus came up out of the water, the Holy Ghost came down on him in the form of a dove, and God spoke from the sky and said, "This is My son." But even with this arresting image still printed on his mind, John had reached the ragged end of despair as he sat there on King Herod' s Death Row.

So John sent two of his own followers to ask Jesus, "Are you really the Messiah, or should we be expecting somebody else?" "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" Jesus is surprisingly gentle with them. He doesn't ask anything like, "Did John forget about the dove?" He merely says, "Go back and tell John what is going on."

What is going on is all the things the Old Testament prophets said would go on when the Messiah came: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead live, and the poor get hope. We can only hope that the disciples got back to tell John all that before Herod paid off his favorite exotic dancer with John's severed head.

Jesus goes on to say that John fulfills Malachi's prophecy that before the Messiah comes someone will come along to get people ready for him. That prophecy reads, "Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee."

Today's collect and epistle, and the Ember Days which we shall observe later this week conspire to show us that John the Baptist's work did not end with Salome's dance. The task of getting people ready to face Jesus — the task which John began in the first century — carries over into the rest of human history through the ordained ministry of the Church.

It seems to me that the moment when I am most clearly playing John the Baptist in that sense is when I offer you the Invitation to Confession which begins, "Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins..."

John the Baptist told the people in the first century, "You are about to meet the Messiah in the flesh." The way to get ready to meet him is to admit your sins and try to turn away from them." Here in the waning twentieth century I say, "You are about to meet the Messiah in his Body and Blood. The way to get ready to meet him is to admit your sins and try to turn away from them,"

The announcement that one is about to come face to face with Jesus — whether delivered by John the Baptist in the first century or by a bishop, a priest, or a deacon any time thereafter — that announcement is an end-of-the-world announcement it is an Advent proclamation, no matter when in the year one opens one's ears to hear it.

St. Paul applies the point in today's epistle. He says that he doesn't care if the people in his congregation in Corinth don't like him. His main goal is not to be popular with them, but to be faithful to what God wants him to do with them. He says, "I don't think I have done a thing wrong in any of my dealings with you. But, of course, it doesn't matter what I think of my performance, what matters is what God thinks about my performance."

So don't be so sure you know what is really going on — either in parish squabbles, or in the hearts of the people you would love to judge — or even in your own heart. When Jesus comes, all the facts will come out with him — and then everybody will get the evaluation from God he deserves."

Our life together in the church — and most especially the liturgy of Holy Communion which we share Sunday after Sunday -- is all designed to help get us ready for the end — the end of our own lives and the end of all things.

The end is always upon us, because the end is always about coming face to face with Jesus, Jesus is the one unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid. He is the one you cannot fool, the one you cannot charm, the one you cannot distract. Jesus is the one with whom and in whom all the facts come out.

He knows everything about you — even the things you hide from yourself — and he loved you enough to come to earth and become a human being and die to forgive you for all of it anyway.

So "Is he the one who is to come, or do we look for another?" St. Peter told him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." And the words of eternal life are, "I forgive you."

The Collect: O Lord Jesus Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee; Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 4: 1 - 5

The Gospel: St. Matthew 11: 2 - 10

Advent II, December 5, 1999

With the Y2K computer problem and all, the end of the world seems a bit more likely to me this Advent than it has seemed for quite awhile. I am a baby boomer, and one thing that is certain about baby boomers is that we grew up associating the end of the world with the Soviet Union.

We built bomb shelters, and we had nuclear attack drills in school, and then we spent the fall of 1962 believing we were all going to be incinerated as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But since I started trying to be a Christian, I have been able to get my conception of the end off of the threat of Nikita Khrushchev and onto Jesus' coming back to earth to take me to heaven.

The season of Advent is designed to help us think about the end of the world — and the end of our own lives. Advent holds up for our consideration what the church has always called "The Four Last Things" which are Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.

The New Testament's teaching on these matters could not be more clear. At some unspecified time in the future Jesus is going to return to earth from his throne in heaven. Everyone who is dead will be raised up from his grave and given a new and perfected body. People who are alive when he returns will get new bodies without having to die.

Everyone will pass before Christ to be judged on the basis of his behavior in this life. The verdict on everyone will be the same, whether he is Adolf Hitler or Mother Teresa or one of the rest of us somewhere in between. The verdict is "Guilty" — guilty of the crime of sin — guilty of willfully disobeying God.

Everybody will deserve to go to Hell. No one will be awarded a ticket to heaven because of his exemplary conduct. The way to get to heaven will be to say, "I accept the verdict. I am a sinner. I am sorry about it, and Jesus died to forgive me."

The collect and epistle this morning remind us that we can accept the ideas of the end of the world and final judgment coming some time off in the future, because we can experience similar things in the present. The collect urges us to get into practice getting straight with Jesus now, so we'll know how to do it properly at the end so we can go to heaven.

The way to get straight with Jesus both now and at the end is to admit we are sinners, try to be sorry, and try to shape up — knowing that we can never possibly achieve perfection. The collect borrows St. Paul's vivid imagery, "The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light."

This morning's gospel seems to be completely out of chronological synch. We would more reasonably expect to hear about Palm Sunday in the spring just before Easter, perhaps. But the Prayer Book prescribes this reading today to show us that one of the things Jesus did on Palm Sunday was to proclaim himself the man at the end of the world.

The Old Testament prophets Malachi and Zachariah lie behind what is going on here — with a little help from King David. Zechariah says that when the end of the world comes, the Messiah will stand on the Mount of Olives — a hill overlooking Jerusalem.

Jesus ascends into heaven from the Mount of Olives, promising to come back to the same place. Jesus gives his definitive speech about the end of the world on the mount of Olives. And Jesus begins his donkey ride into Jerusalem this morning from the Mount of Olives.

The donkey is itself also a part of Zachariah's prophecy. He says that when Israel's true king comes to his capital city at the end, he will be riding on a donkey. Malachi says that at the end the Lord will come to his temple, and he will be like a refiner's fire and fuller's soap, as he comes to purify and cleanse. Jesus does all that this morning as he tosses the bird-salesmen and the money changers out of the temple.

Finally as Jesus rides into town, the people cheer him in the words of Psalm 118, saying "Hosanna to the son of David, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest." The word "Hosanna" is less a shout of praise than it is a plea for deliverance. It means "Save us from our enemies, O son of David." The crowd in Jerusalem wanted to be delivered from the Romans, we want deliverance from sin and death.

So let us relish Advent with its deeply beautiful colors, and its sublime hymns, and its magnificent Bible lessons. It just might be our last one. And let us not forget that, Y2K meltdown or not, whenever the world does end, we need always to be prepared for Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.

As Jesus tells us, "Watch ye, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning: lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping."

The Collect: Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Savious Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 15: 4 - 13

The Gospel: St. Luke 21: 25 - 33

Advent I, November 28, 1999

Today's collect borrows imagery from today's epistle, and that imagery shows us why the Second Sunday in Advent is called "Bible Sunday." Writing to the Romans, St. Paul says, "Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning: that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope."

The collect addresses God as "Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning." By "Scriptures", St. Paul meant what we call the Old Testament. Obviously the New Testament as such did not exist when he wrote. He was one of the people writing it. So the Collect extends what he says about the Hebrew Bible to those first-century books to which the church gave the same status — as holy writings, inspired by God himself.

Christianity is a religion of revelation. What that means is that Christians believe that what we can know about God is only what he has told us himself — what he has revealed, or disclosed. The Christian religion — and the Jewish religion for that matter are not the products of the wisest thoughts about God the wisest men and women ever thought. The raw material of Judaism and Christianity — and the standard of what Jews and Christians believe and do -- is in what God reveals.

We find God's revelation most clearly and directly in the "capital S" Scriptures — the "capital W" Writings. The essential conversation between Christianity and the world takes this form: "The world says, 'I think...'; the Christian replies, 'The Bible says...'.

Today's epistle and gospel each contain a teaching which we could never have thought up on our own. So the lessons illustrate why we need a revelation — some things we need to know are things we have to be told. Meditation and intuition would never have got us there.

After he talks about the Scriptures, St. Paul addresses one of his favorite topics. That is the question of what history is all about where the process of human life is heading if it is indeed heading anywhere. He uses a series of texts from the Old Testament to show that God intends to use Jesus to bring all of humanity together into one body.

For St. Paul the end point of human history is not the ultimate triumph of a particular economic or political system. As a believing Jew St. Paul saw the hand of God in the history of his people — their being chosen, their deliverance from slavery in Egypt, and God's activity in their life together after they reached the promised land.

St. Paul contends that Jesus is the person to whom all of Old Testament history was pointing. So he calls Jesus, "a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers." But Jesus is the way the rest of the world — non-Jews — Gentiles — get to become part of God's chosen people too. St. Paul says God revealed that vision of the purpose of history to him, and he reveals it to us.

Today's Gospel continues the Advent theme of the last things, the end of the world. It comes from Jesus' speech about the end in St. Luke's gospel. Last week we learned that Zachariah prophesied that at the end of the world the Messiah will stand on the Mount of Olives — a hill overlooking Jerusalem.

Jesus gives today's speech on the Mount of Olives, quite intentionally. It solidifies his claim that he will be the man at the end of the world. What he tell us this morning is quite simple. The end of the world and his return will come with all sorts of natural disruptions in the sky and on earth. When those things start happening, people who don't know about the end of the world and Jesus' return are going to be terrified. But Christians won't have to be terrified. Because we know what is in the Bible, we will know what is going on. We will know also that what is going on is good.

The quicker the world ends, the quicker Jesus comes back. The quicker Jesus comes back, the quicker we go to heaven. So today's gospel gives us a number of things that, in St. Paul's words, are "written for our learning" and "through patience and comfort of the Scriptures (give us) hope." It is knowledge we have only because God has revealed it.

I make no secret about my devotion to the Bible or my belief that studying the Bible is, along with receiving the Sacraments, the most significant obligation and joy a Christian has. I am very pleased and even a bit humbled by the response this parish makes to Bible study. We are truly a "man bites dog" story: Episcopalians and Anglicans who actually like to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Scriptures.

I say that not just to congratulate all of us on our wonderfulness but also to challenge you to read the Bible more — on your own — every day — as you also attend our classes. The end purpose of Bible study is to keep you going through this world, because you know that something even better lies ahead of you in the next world.

"Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning: that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

The Collect: Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 13: 8 - 14

The Gospel: St. Matthew 21: 1 - 13