Sermon Fourth Sunday in Advent, 2020 “Being Ready for Christmas.”

Here we are at the Fourth Sunday in Advent, and the Feast of the Incarnation, Christmas Day, is this week!  In the hustle and bustle of Christmas preparations, Advent seems to slip by quickly almost un-noticed, so much so that it is easy to miss the great message of this Advent Season and what it really means to be ready for Christmas. 

The heart of the Advent message is that the Lord is coming, and He wants to act decisively in your life and mine.  We need to prepare ourselves to receive Him, because when we truly receive Christ into our hearts, then everything changes.  To receive Christ means that our lives are given purpose and meaning.  We have new direction, and maybe for the first time, we know what life is really all about and where we are headed.  When Jesus comes into our hearts, He opens up grand vistas before us that reach into eternity.  Receiving Him is to become a new creation, just as Jesus tells us we will be.  All you and I need to do is be prepared, receive Him, and say yes to His invitation when he comes at Christmas.  

So, what does it mean to be prepared to receive Christ?  Let’s look at what our Advent pilgrimage has revealed to us thus far:

·     On the 1^st Sunday of Advent, the Prophet Isaiah told us we should be ready and expectant because the Lord is going to tear open the heavens and come down, he writes.  When He does, expect God to act, to make things different, to transform your life your life and mine.

·        On the 2^nd Sunday of Advent, we are told by St. Peter why the King of the Universe would choose to come and dwell among us.  2 Peter 3 says that God, simply, wants none of us to perish.  The reality is that God did not create us to experience the curse of death and pass into oblivion.   God loves us too much for that.  God’s plan of salvation involves God Himself coming and dwelling among us, being one of us.  St. Paul uses the image of Jesus as the new Adam, a new prototype for humanity, a humanity that is unblemished by the world and worthy to move into the full presence of God forever.  That is the ‘what’ of salvation. Easter gives us the ‘how.’

·        On the 2^nd Sunday of Advent and again on the 3^rd Sunday of Advent, we are shown the centrality and necessity of repentance in preparing our hearts for Jesus’ coming.  John the Baptist, quoting the Old Testament Prophet Isaiah, says we need to fill in all the valleys and make all the high mountains low that stand between God and us. “Make straight the pathway for our God,” Isaiah says.  This is what repentance is all about.

·        And that brings us to this Sunday, the 4^th Sunday of Advent.  Today we meet a teenager girl who brings us a final message for our Advent journey, which is, when God comes to us, be prepared to submit to His good and perfect will for our lives.  Mary says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; “let it be with me according to your word.”  Through Mary, we see what it means be a people who once again bow humbly and obediently before our God.   

So then, how’s your Advent going so far?  Have you made your heart ready to receive your Messiah when he comes?  Are you doing the hard work of repentance, as John the Baptist says you must?  Are you submitted to God’s will and plan for your life, as Mary shows us that we must?  

In other words, are you really ready for Christmas?  You may have done all your Christmas shopping. The Tree may be trimmed and all the presents under it, but the Season of Advent tells us what it really means to be ready for Christmas.

Father Rob Hartley