Keeping Our Heads Up: A Homily for the First Sunday of Advent

Keeping Our Heads Up:  A Homily for the First Sunday of Advent

Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, 1 December, 2024.  Readings for Advent 1C: Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36

Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Lk 21.28)

In my first parish, there was an old gentleman named Tom who would often say goodbye with these words: “Keep your stick on the ice and your head up going into the corners”.  It’s good advice for hockey players:  be ready for the puck but also be aware when you’re vulnerable to being checked.  It’s also good advice for Advent.   Hockey and Advent are both about being ready and being alert.  Today I would like to think about how Advent invites us to be spiritually ready for the Savour whose coming we long for and should await with confidence rather than fear.

Readiness, the Advent idea of preparation and getting ready,  I think we can all understand.  There is a satisfaction in hanging lights, wreaths and greenery, even as we sometimes debate the appropriate date to decorate! There’s a joy in seeing the church decorated by faithful hands, and knowing that more - the tree and the creche - is still to come.   As the beloved Advent hymn says, “make your house fair as you are able, trim the hearth and set the table”.    Just as we prepare for friends and family, Advent calls us to prepare our hearts to welcome our beloved, Jesus, for again to quote the hymn, “love the guest is on the way”.

Advent is also a way to understand exactly who it is that we are getting ready for and why that’s important.   Advent is a gentle correction to our cozy and sometimes sentimental ideas about baby Jesus in the manger, who comes predictably in late December.   This season reminds us that that babe is also the king of the universe, the holy one of Israel, the Lord of justice and righteousness that Jeremiah spoke of in our first lesson.   Advent reminds us that just as he came to Bethlehem, so this Lord of righteousness will come again. 

Jesus tells his disciples in today’s gospel that they will see  “the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory”, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to us, because Sunday by Sunday we acknowledge Christ’s return.  Likewise our Advent hymns have words like “Lo, he comes, with clouds descending”, to remind us that we do await the coming again of Jesus in glory.     Jesus tells his friends that they may see signs of this final day,  but he warns them to “be on guard” and “be alert at all times”.  This theme of alertness and vigilance is quite common in scripture.   Paul tells the Thessalonians that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1 Th 5.2) and warns them to stay awake spiritually.

What does this mean for us?    How are we supposed to stay awake spiritually?  Should we scan the headlines for signs of the Second Coming, as some Christians do? (No, I don’t think so).  I would say instead that we can be spiritually awake and alert without being fearful or anxious about the end times.   Our faith should not make us nervous wrecks!    Part of being Christian is to wake each day knowing that God is Lord of heaven and earth, that all is in God’s hands, and that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  Always hang on to those truths!

I believe that spiritual alertness is actually not so much about waiting for the Second Coming as it is about being open to signs of God’s presence in our lives.   Jesus promises us that he will always be very much with us, here, in the present.  We meet Jesus at the altar during communion.    Through the Holy Spirit we can pray with Jesus, even imagine him in conversation with us as Rev Amy preached here recently.    As individuals and as church, we need to be open to what Jesus through the Spirit is calling us to do, watching for signs of God’s activity in the community, listening for calls to new ministries.    

This kind of spiritual alertness requires that we keep our heads up and our ears and hearts open to the Spirit’s promptings.   This receptiveness to God’s actions is what scripture calls wakefulness, and the opposite is that we are spiritually asleep, switched off and oblivious to God’s presence.  Remember that Jesus told his friends to see that their hearts are not “weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life”.    In his online Advent teaching last Tuesday, Bishop Andrew talked about the many ways that people can dull their spiritual senses through self-medication, consumerism, and anxiety.  When we’re sleepy, depressed, or when we lose hope, our heads tend to droop. Jesus wants believers whose heads stay up and whose hearts and ears are open to his voice.

As an aside, I think there is another kind of dullness of sleepiness that we can fall prey to, and that is indifference to the world around us.   We have ample signs that the world is corrupt, unjust, inequitable, and cruel.   We can easily numb ourselves to these things or ignore them.  But, as we heard Jeremiah say in our first lesson, our Lord is justice and righteousness.  Part of being spiritually wakeful is caring about and striving for justice and caring about our neighbour, as God surely does.

The final thing I want to talk about is confidence.  Jesus said, “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near”.    When we hold our heads up, we display confidence and assurance, it’s a sign that we’re not just alert but we are unafraid, even amidst the kind of troubles that Jesus describes.   Jesus promised that we would live in fearful times, and he was right.   We live amidst wars and natural disasters, climate change and political anxiety, but Jesus says, even so, keep your heads up.

We keep our heads up because Advent reminds us that we wait and hope for God in good company.  Noah waited and hoped for the flood waters to recede until the dove returned with the olive branch.    Simeon and Anna waited and hoped for salvation and finally saw the baby Jesus in the Temple.   John the Baptist waited for the Messiah until they met at the Jordan and the dove came down from heaven.   All these people waited and hoped because they knew God was faithful and would rescue them.   So we keep our heads up because we look to God who is faithful for our rescue and our salvation.

Finally, we keep our heads up because we know that in Jesus we can see God face to face.   Jesus telling his followers to “raise your heads” must have been a remarkable thing at the time.  It must have been dangerous for a Jew to look a Roman in the face, or for a slave not to keep their eyes lowered before the master.   Learning how not to be seen is a survival technique for people at the bottom, But Jesus is saying, even when you see God returning in glory, raise your heads.  Don’t be ashamed of yourselves or of your sins.   Paul prays that the Thessalonians “may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus”, and so can we, because of the love and forgiveness shown to us by God through the babe born in Bethlehem, the Lord of Heaven and Earth.

And so, dear saints, let us remind ourselves this Advent to be spiritually ready, awake, and confident in God’s faithfulness.  Let’s listen to how God is calling us, let’s be attentive to what God is doing around us, and let’s be unafraid despite what might happen around us, for God is faithful, Jesus has come, Jesus is with us now, and Jesus will come again.   Or, as my old friend Tom liked to say, “Keep your stick on the ice and your head up going into the corners”.