Advent 2: the chaff is burned away

You brood of vipers - don’t presume that your traditions will save you; that your possessions or knowledge, or capacity, will save you. Don’t approach God like Adam and Eve, caving to the Serpent’s temptation to imagine yourself holy and righteous. Don’t think that just because you have your butt in a pew on Sunday or that you can spout off this or that doctrine, or that because you’re ‘nice,’ that you are righteous before God. No my friends: repent, for God is coming into this world to burn away the chaff of sin; his wrath at our sin is consumed by his own self immolation with his willing sacrifice on the Cross, his descent into hell; sin is overcome marked by his resurrection in which he joins us to himself.

Your traditions, your own good works cannot accomplish this. Repent not to be saved, but to receive the one life - Jesus's own - that saves. Have the humility to acknowledge the darkness not only in this world, but in your own heart. Search your own heart and open yourself to God’s Spirit of challenge, of calling, of rebuke and discipline. Make space for God to come into your life to clear the chaff of sin which keeps you apart from him, so the good fruit, the wheat, can grow up into a life of faithful witness in this world. Famous Episcopalian preacher Fleming Rutledge puts it this way: “Advent is the season that, when properly understood, does not flinch from the darkness that stalks us all in this world. Advent begins in the dark and moves toward the light—but the season should not move too quickly or too glibly, lest we fail to acknowledge the depth of the darkness. Advent bids us take a fearless inventory of the darkness: the darkness without and the darkness within” (The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ).

In our Bible studies and MP, we’ve been having conversations about our supposed social progress. It’s become natural for us to think nothing of building more, having more, becoming more. This has often come at the cost of pain and suffering, death and destruction for other people, for animals and for our environment. 

But of course it’s easier to look at the world outside and recognize and call out sin. The more difficult part is identifying it in our own hearts often because our defense mechanisms blind us to the root causes of why we say and do things that betray God’s love for us and for his creation. Like Lent, Advent is a season of bringing the dark things of our own hearts out into the light - moving past the superficial comforts (hobbies, social media, news watching/reading) that we use to distract ourselves from those root causes - and acknowledging, actually confessing these things to God and seeking his remedy, his healing, his guidance, with prayer, and finding ourselves before God in the people of the Scriptures: how are we like the Pharisees and Sadducees, how have we become like a brood of vipers - do we approach God with mere curiosity or do we approach him with a real willingness to bear through being transformed? 

This is the necessary preparation for Christ’s arrival. This is the way we make straight the path of Christ: to search our hearts, to ask for clarification, to give these things and ourselves, our hearts, minds, souls and bodies, to God. This is the only pathway to genuine hope precisely because this is how we make space to receive Christ and find the peace and joy for which we long in a world and life that can sometimes seem overwhelmingly dark.

But all of this begins with a more basic acknowledgement: we cannot save ourselves. No matter how bright or wise, or discerning we are, we cannot obtain God’s love by ourselves. We cannot save ourselves and we cannot save anyone else. We cannot fix the world. In fact, our attempts in accomplishing these things often put us on the same track as Adam and Eve and every other character of Scripture who goes astray. With that basic acknowledgement comes the first fruits: humility. The humility of being one who receives first. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Whatever darkness we find in this world and in this life. Remember this: Jesus was born in the midst of darkness. Under a brutal Roman empire, in poverty, with the threat of death. He has gone through the whole of human experience from the frustrations of basic family life, the loss of those whom he loved, betrayal, loneliness, being utterly overwhelmed, hard work, non respondent co-workers, doubters, haters, revilers, being chased from birth with the threat of death and arrest, being ignored and taunted, having no money and finally, suffering the worst pain, humiliation, despair, unfair arrest, torture and execution. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace.

And yet he took these things on so these would not come to be the legacy of billions of people around the world. And so it is that he came for you, whatever your darkness. This is right where Jesus came into the world and into the lives of you and I: into the darkest parts of us, the broken, painful, confused, and agonized parts of us. I have come not for the healthy but for the sick. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent. I have come for you, if you are willing to receive me. AMEN