advent – The Rev. Eric Mancil

Look Again

A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent (Year A)
December 14, 2025

Text: Matthew 11:2-11

Now, O Lord, take my lips, and speak through them. Take our minds, and think through them. Take our hearts, and set them on fire. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Chelsea and I were sitting on the couch the other day, trying to pick out a Christmas movie to watch. And you know how that goes—you keep scrolling through all the channels, thinking, surely we’re going to find something good to watch.

And before you know it, you’ve spent more time choosing a movie than it would have taken to actually watch one.

Then I remembered a movie I’d been meaning to watch for a while called The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

It’s a relatively new film—only about a year old—but it’s based on a much older and well-loved book by Barbara Robinson.

The book was written back in the 1970s, and Robinson once said it was inspired by her own experiences watching children—real, imperfect children—show up in church pageants and somehow reveal the heart of the Christmas story in ways adults often missed.

She wasn’t trying to write a sweet Christmas story. She was trying to tell the truth about how God tends to work: not always through the polished and prepared, but often through the unexpected.

So Chelsea and I finally watched it. And I have to say—it really is a good movie. If you’re looking for something meaningful to watch this season with your family, I highly recommend it.

If you know the story, you remember the Herdmans.

They’re a group of brothers and sisters who come from a rough home life and have a reputation for being loud, rough around the edges, and unpredictable. They don’t follow the rules at school. Kids are afraid to be around them. And when people see them coming, they tend to turn and walk the other way.

So when the Herdmans wander into church one Sunday and announce that they want to be in the annual Christmas pageant—and not just be in it, but take all the main roles—the congregation doesn’t quite know what to do.

They start to panic.

They worry the pageant will be ruined.

They worry it won’t be reverent enough, that something sacred will be turned into a mockery.

And if we’re honest with ourselves, we understand that reaction, don’t we? Because most of us carry clear expectations about how things should look and feel—especially around Christmas.

But then something unexpected happens.

For the first time in their lives, the Herdmans hear the Christmas story. They don’t just listen to it—they really hear it.

Not the cleaned-up, familiar version, but the real one. A story about a young mother and father far from home with no one to help them. A baby born in a stable because there was no room for them anywhere else. A family with nowhere to go. A powerful king threatened by a child.

And the Herdmans are stunned.

They can’t believe Mary and Joseph had no help.

They can’t believe Jesus was born among animals.

They can’t believe Herod wanted to kill the baby.

And they respond with this raw, honest emotion that catches everyone off guard. They feel the weight and danger of the story—the vulnerability of it. And as the church watches these children react, something begins to change.

The pageant becomes more than just a performance.

The story comes alive.

And Christmas becomes real again.

By the end of the movie, the very children everyone expected to ruin the Christmas pageant end up helping the whole congregation see Christmas again with fresh eyes.

Grace shows up where no one was looking.

God works through the people no one expected.

And sitting there watching the movie, I was moved to tears, because it was such a beautiful reminder that God often uses people we least expect to show us the truth of God’s love.

That’s what today’s Gospel lesson is all about—learning to look again at how God is working, even when it doesn’t fit our expectations.

John was someone who had very clear expectations about how God was supposed to work.

Just last week, we heard him preaching about fire and judgment—about axes at the root of the trees and a winnowing fork in hand—proclaiming a Messiah who would come in great power and set everything right.

And John didn’t just talk about that vision—he lived it. He spoke truth to power. He confronted injustice. He called people, even rulers and religious leaders, to repentance.

Eventually, that courage landed him in prison.

John was arrested because he confronted King Herod about his unlawful marriage to his brother’s wife. It was a prophetic word spoken to someone who didn’t want to hear it.

And like so many truth-tellers before him, John paid the price. He was bound, locked away, and silenced so he wouldn’t cause any more trouble.

That’s where our story picks up today.

John is sitting in a prison cell, and he starts hearing reports about what Jesus has been up to.

Jesus is healing people.

He’s restoring lives and lifting up the poor and the oppressed.

He’s preaching mercy, not judgment.

And it doesn’t line up with what John expected.

So John sends his disciples to Jesus with a question:

“Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for another?”

In other words, “Jesus, you’re not what I expected. Are you really the Messiah?”

Jesus doesn’t scold John.

He doesn’t shame him for doubting or tell him to try harder or believe more.

Instead, Jesus tells John’s disciples to go back and report what they hear and see.

The blind receive their sight.
The lame walk.
The lepers are cleansed.
The deaf hear.
The dead are raised.
And the poor have good news brought to them.

And for those who knew the Scriptures—as John certainly did—those words would have sounded very familiar, echoing the promises of the prophet Isaiah about the day when God would come to heal the blind, restore the broken, and bring good news to the poor.

Jesus is saying to John, “Look again.”

Look again at what God is doing.
Look again at how the Kingdom is breaking in.
Look again—because God is at work, even if it doesn’t look the way you imagined.

Jesus isn’t telling John he was wrong to hope for something more. He’s helping him see the bigger picture. He’s helping him see that the Kingdom doesn’t come in the way he imagined—not through force or spectacle, but through healing, mercy, and a love that reaches people where they are.

He’s inviting John to open his eyes to the quiet ways the Kingdom of God is already breaking in.

“Look again,” Jesus says.

Not because John has failed, but because God is doing more than he imagined.

And Jesus invites us to do the same.

Because even though we don’t like to admit it, we’re often a lot like those people in the movie who doubted the Herdmans.

We’re quick to decide who belongs and who doesn’t. We assume we know who God can use and how God is supposed to show up.

But God has a way of surprising us, showing up through people and in places we never would have chosen.

So, Jesus tells us to look again.

Because if we don’t, we risk missing Christ altogether.

The season of Advent isn’t just about waiting for Jesus to come again and make all things new. It’s about learning to recognize Christ in the present.

And if we’re locked into narrow expectations—about who God can use and where God can work—we may walk right past Jesus without even knowing it.

We look again because Christ often comes quietly—because grace shows up in unexpected people.

We look again because God’s Kingdom breaks in at the margins—among the poor, the hurting, the overlooked, the ones who don’t fit in.

If Advent is about preparing for Christ to come again, then it’s also about preparing our eyes and our hearts to recognize him when he does.

If this season is about working toward the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom, then we have to learn to see the world as God sees it—to notice the broken corners of the world that are aching for healing and restoration.

So maybe this Advent, Jesus is saying to us what he said to John: “Look again.”

Look again at the people you’ve written off as unholy or undesirable or unredeemable.

Look again at the places you’ve given up on.

Look again at your own life and the quiet ways God may be at work.

Because when we look again—with openness and humility—we may discover that Christ has been with us all along—healing, restoring, and making all things new.

Amen.

Waiting with Hope

A Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent (Year A)
November 30, 2025

Text: Matthew 24:36-44

A few weeks ago, my family and I were in Auburn for the weekend. On our way out of town, heading back home, we decided to stop at Tiger Town and do a little shopping. And—much to my delight—we ended up at one of my favorite stores: World Market.

Has anyone ever been to World Market?

If you have, then you know—it’s one of those places filled with treasures from all over the world. Foods you’ve never heard of. Decorations from far-off places. Coffee, candy, and all kinds of kitchen gadgets you don’t really need but suddenly want.

It’s wonderful!

But my favorite time to go to World Market is around the holidays. That’s when the whole store lights up. There are beautiful Christmas ornaments everywhere, shelves full of Christmas cards, chocolates wrapped in shiny paper, and delicious things to nibble on and drink during the holidays.

And this time—as we were looking around—I noticed something else.

Rows and rows of Advent calendars.

Does everyone know what I mean by an Advent calendar? They’re those little boxes with numbered doors—one for each day in December—where you open a flap and find a tiny treat or surprise inside.

At World Market, you can find any kind of Advent calendar you can possibly imagine.

They have the fancy chocolate ones, of course. But they also have coffee Advent calendars. Tea Advent calendars. Hot sauce Advent calendars. They even have one for different kinds of jelly.

If you have a preference or hobby or a favorite snack, chances are they’ve figured out a way to put it behind twenty-four little perforated doors.

And as I walked around, looking at all these different calendars, I thought to myself, “You know, for a lot of people, this is what Advent is.” It’s just a fun way to count down the days to Christmas.

If you’ve ever bought one of those calendars, you know—they usually start on December 1 and go through Christmas Eve. One tiny window for each day, one tiny treat, one day closer to the big celebration.

And don’t get me wrong—there’s nothing bad about any of that. Advent calendars are fun. They’re a sweet way to mark the days—especially for children.

But for us, in the Church, Advent means so much more than just counting down the days until Christmas.

Yes, during Advent we are preparing—once again—to celebrate the birth of Jesus, and that’s an important part of the season.

Every year we light the candles on the Advent wreath, sing the hymns, and hear the Scriptures retold because we need that reminder of God’s nearness and God’s peace.

But Advent is also a season of waiting in hopeful expectation for Christ to come again.

As much as we love the story of Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem, Advent refuses to let us stay there.

It pulls our gaze forward—toward God’s promised future. A future where justice rolls down like waters, where peace is restored, and where every tear is wiped away.

I heard someone recently describe Advent with an old Catholic teaching that says the season is all about “the history, the mystery, and the majesty.”

I love that phrase.”History, mystery, and majesty.”

In history, we look back and remember the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago—God coming to dwell with us in human flesh.

In mystery, we recognize that Christ is with us even now, moving and working through his Body, the Church.

In majesty, we look ahead to the day when Christ will return in glory and make all things new.

And that framework helps us understand our Gospel reading this morning. Because today’s reading is not a countdown to Christmas.

It’s not Mary and Joseph. It’s not a sweet story about angels or shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night.

It’s Jesus pointing us toward the majesty—the promised day of his return.

This is a point in the Gospels where a lot of people start to get nervous.

Because Matthew 24 is one of those passages that’s been used, and sometimes misused, to stir up fear about the “end times.”

Some Christians have even used these verses—and others like it—to build up ideas about the “rapture”—this notion that some people will be swept up into heaven with Jesus while others are left behind.

It certainly paints a dramatic picture, and it’s become popular through novels, movies, and preachers online who claim to know the exact date when it will happen.

But here’s something important for us to remember:

This is not how Christians understood these passages for most of Church history.

The whole concept of a secret rapture is actually quite new.

It didn’t appear until the 1800s, when a preacher named John Nelson Darby proposed a new way of interpreting Scripture.

Before that, for nearly eighteen hundred years, no Christian theologian, bishop, or council taught anything like it.

It’s a very modern interpretation, not something rooted in historic Christian teaching, and it can distract us from the real message Jesus is giving us—not a message of fear or escape, but one of readiness and hope.

In our passage this morning from Matthew, Jesus isn’t trying to scare us.

He isn’t describing a secret evacuation plan where God rescues a few and abandons everyone else.

He’s telling us something far simpler—and far more hopeful: Be ready. Stay awake. Keep watch.

Because the Son of Man is coming to restore all things. And none of us knows the day or the hour.

Not even Jesus knows. Only the Father.

He’s calling us to live our lives in such a way that, whenever he does return, he finds us doing the work he’s given us to do.

The Gospel tells us to trust that Christ’s return is good news for the whole creation—not just some, but all. It will be a day of restoration—a day of healing and justice. Not a day to fear, but a day to hope for.

So, the question we should be asking in this passage is not, “How we do avoid being left behind?”

The real question is, “How do we live as people who are waiting for Christ’s return?”

How do we stay awake—not fearfully, but faithfully?

I think it has everything to do with our posture of waiting.

Christian waiting is not passive. It’s not sitting on our hands or looking for secret signs in the sky.

Christian waiting is active. It’s leaning forward with hope.

It’s living today as though Christ might come tomorrow—and wanting him to find us doing the work he’s given us to do.

And we already know what that work is, because we’re doing it all the time.

It’s everything we are called to do as the Body of Christ—

It’s caring for our neighbors through outreach ministries.

It’s feeding people through a warm meal on Thanksgiving Day.

It’s welcoming the stranger, or the person who thought there was no place for them in church.

It’s nurturing our children and youth through Christian formation.

It’s praying for one another—through good times and hard times.

It’s gathering for worship.

It’s caring for the sick and the grieving.

It’s serving with generosity and compassion.

It’s loving one another as Christ has loved us.

All of this—every single bit of it—is kingdom-building work. It’s our way of preparing for Christ’s return.

Not sitting back and waiting for Jesus to come and fix everything for us, but participating in God’s healing work right now.

It’s our way of saying, with our lives, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

Because Advent is not a season of fear.

It is a season of hope.

It’s about trusting that the darkness of this world will not have the final word.

It’s about believing that Christ is coming—not to destroy, but to heal. Not to abandon, but to restore. Not to frighten us, but to bring us into the fullness of God’s reign.

So as we enter this holy season of waiting—this season of history, mystery, and majesty—may we remember that Advent is far more than just a fun way to count down the days to Christmas.

It’s God’s call for us to wake up, to open our eyes, and to live in hopeful expectation.

It’s a season to look honestly at the darkness around us—and within us—and to hold fast to the light of Christ that no darkness can overcome.

It’s a call to live today in such a way that when Christ returns—whenever that may be—he finds us ready. Not because we predicted the hour, but because we lived with love.

So let us wait with joy.

Let us serve with purpose.

Let us hope with confidence.

For Christ has come,

Christ is with us now,

and Christ will come again.

Amen.

Joy in God’s Kingdom

A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent (Year C)
December 15, 2024

Text: Luke 3:7-18

This past Wednesday night, we had some unexpected visitors show up to church during our Advent supper and program. We were gathered in the Parish Hall where we had just finished eating our supper, and not longer after I began the program, I looked over my shoulder and noticed someone I had never seen before quietly come inside.

It was a young, Latino man who appeared to be no older than twenty-five.

He had a friendly smile on his face, and I could tell that he was looking for someone to talk to.
 So, I stopped what I was doing, got up from my chair, and walked over to greet the man.

By the time I got to the front doors, there were more visitors.

A young woman, probably in her early twenties, carrying a small child who was wrapped up in a blanket, and three other young children who were probably anywhere from four to ten years old.

I asked the man, “How can we help you?”

He spoke very little English.
 So, he used his phone to communicate with me.

He typed some words into a translator and showed me the message.

“Can you help us with some food and gas and a hotel room?”

My immediate thought was that this poor family has nowhere to go.

It’s 7:00 at night.

It’s freezing cold outside, and they have nothing.

So, I quickly scrambled and tried to come up with some ways to help.

I couldn’t give them food from the food pantry because they would have no way to cook it, even if they had a hotel room.

But, thankfully, we had some pizza left over from dinner. So, we packed up all the leftovers we had and gave it to them.

It wasn’t much, but at least it was something.

I couldn’t give them a check from my discretionary account because they would have no way to cash it.

But, thankfully, we had some money in the church office we had collected from the Holiday Jubilee last Saturday. So, I gave them enough to help with a hotel room and some gas for their car.

It wasn’t much, but at least it was something.

As they left, they were very grateful.

“God bless you,” they said, and “Merry Christmas.”

And they went on their way.

Later on that night, after the program was over and I had returned home for the evening, my mind drifted to that young family.

“Where did they end up?”

“Did they find a warm place to sleep for the night?”

I prayed that they would be okay.

And, I couldn’t help but think about my own life and circumstances and the fact that my family and I have so much to be thankful for.

We’ve never known what it feels like to be desperate for food.

We’ve never known what it feels like to be desperate for a warm place to sleep at night.

And, as a father, I’ve never known what it feels like to wonder if I’ll be able to provide basic necessities for my family.

The things I complain about not having are so trivial compared to what so many people live with on a daily basis.

It was a truly humbling experience.

And, I’m so thankful that our church was able to serve that young family in the way we did.

We were able to be the hands and feet of Christ for them.

And, they were able to be the hands and feet of Christ for us as well, reminding us in that moment that our call is to love and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves.

In my years as a priest, I’ve found that it’s very easy to become cynical when it comes to helping people in need.

I think it’s something we all struggle with, to be honest.

We encounter someone asking for help, and we immediately think to ourselves, “Do they really need help? Or, are they just looking for a handout?

And, what if they take the money I give them and go and use it do buy something they don’t really need?

People come to the church office almost daily asking for money to help with gas to get to a doctor’s visit or money to help pay the power bill that’s past due or money for a hotel room.

And, so the temptation I have to resist—and it’s really hard to resist at times—is to ask myself whether or not they really need to be helped.

Because, in most cases, there’s no way to know for sure.

And, to be honest, I’m not sure it’s our job to ask.

Maybe it’s our job to simply do what we can to help—trusting that God will see our good deeds of love and compassion as an act of faithfulness.

That’s not to say that we should allow ourselves to be taken advantage of or knowingly give money to someone who’s going to use it for the wrong reasons.

But, it is to say that sometimes, we have to take a leap of faith and trust that what we have to give will be used by God to fulfill his purposes.

The Christian mystic and author, Thomas Merton, said it this way: “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.”

I think what Thomas Merton was trying to say is that acts of love and compassion have the power to transform lives—not only the lives of those who receive that love but also the lives of those who share it.

Actually, I think it’s even more so for those who share it.

They say it’s better to give than to receive, and I believe that’s absolutely true.

Because something happens to us over time when we let go of the need to care only for ourselves and focus more of our energy and time on giving to others—especially those in need.

And the best word I can think of to describe it is joy.

There’s joy in living a life of service to others.

There’s joy in not needing to stop and wonder whether or not someone is worthy of God’s love.

There’s joy in knowing that God is able to use us as instruments of his love and compassion in the world, even in the smallest ways.

In my sermon last week, I talked a lot about the ministry of John the Baptist and his message of repentance.

I also talked about some common understandings we have about the word, “repentance.”

A lot of times, we think it means, “feeling bad for doing bad things” or needing to turn back toward God when we’ve lost our way.

And, while these can certainly be helpful understandings of the word, the actual meaning of “repentance” is to change one’s mind or point of view.

True repentance is less about feeling guilty about the things we’ve done or left undone and more about opening our minds to new ways of thinking.

Our Gospel lesson for this week is a direct continuation of our lesson from last week about John the Baptist and this crowd who comes to him for baptism.

His message to them is a call to repentance.

It’s a call to prepare a place for the one who is coming after him, a call to amend their lives and to open their minds to new ways of being in the world.

The people ask John, “What then must we do?”

“How do we bear fruits worthy of repentance?”

Or, an even better way of saying it might be this:

“How do we live as God is calling us to live?”

John doesn’t mix words.

In fact, he doesn’t hesitate in telling the people exactly what they need to do.

“If you have two coats, give one away.”

“Do the same with your food.”

To the tax collectors who came to be baptized and asked what they should do, he said, “No more extorting the people for more than they owe. Collect only what is required by law.”

To the Roman soldiers who came for baptism and asked what they should do, he said, “No more shakedowns. No more blackmail. And be content with your rations.”

John’s answer is simple.

Don’t be selfish.

Be fair and just.

Take care of one another, and do good.

As I was reading our lesson for today, one thing really stood out for me that I’ve never noticed before about these particular instructions John gives to the people when they ask him what they should do in order to bear fruit worthy of repentance.

Every single one of them is about how we’re called to treat other people.

We tend to think of repentance as turning away from things we consider sinful, as if it has nothing to do with anyone else.

But, John has other ideas.

John teaches us that, in order to bear fruit worthy of repentance—in order to live as God has intended us to live—we have to focus our lives on other people and the way we treat them.

It isn’t easy.

The easy thing to do is to focus only on ourselves.

But God, in God’s wisdom, has shown us the way to experience true joy and peace in our lives.

It can’t be bought or earned or received.

It can only be found in giving.

This is how we really celebrate Christmas.

This is how we prepare to welcome the Christ-child into our midst, by giving of ourselves and recommitting our lives to the work that God has called us to do.

Amen.

Repentance

A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent (Year C)
December 8, 2024

Text: Luke 3:1-6

One of the things I love most about the season of Advent is that we get to sing so many beautiful hymns each week. Some of my favorite hymns that we sing come from the Advent section of the hymnal.

This is one of the reasons why I decided that our Wednesday night Advent program for this year would focus on music.

And, before I continue on, I want to say that we had a wonderful time this past Wednesday, and I want to encourage you to come this Wednesday night, even if you weren’t able to make it last week.

We’d love to have you join us.

The hymns and carols of Advent have a lot to teach us about the significance of this season and why we spend four weeks preparing for the birth of our Savior and looking ahead to his return.

The popular Advent hymn, “O come, O come, Emmanuel,” for example, speaks to the expectancy of the one who will come to dwell with us, the one who is Emmanuel—“God with us.”

Or, my absolute favorite Advent hymn, “Lo! he comes, with clouds descending,” the eighteenth-century hymn by Charles Wesley, which looks beyond our present time to the second coming of Jesus at the end of the age.

There are so many others—hymns like “Comfort, comfort ye my people,” drawing from the prophecy of Isaiah, and “Prepare the way, O Zion,” which we sang just a few minutes ago.

We can learn a lot about the season of Advent and its significance simply by turning to the hymnal, by reading the words and singing the marvelous hymns that our tradition has to offer.

Many of these were featured last Sunday night in our service of Advent Lessons and Carols, which was put together by John Beasley and our choir. If you weren’t able to make it, you really missed out.

It was a beautiful service!

Another one of my favorite Advent hymns is “On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry,” which we’ll sing later this morning at the end of the service.

It begins with the words, “On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry announces that the Lord is nigh; awake and hearken, for he brings glad tidings of the King of kings.”

Did you know that this is one of the only hymns in our hymnal related to the life and ministry of John the Baptist?

If you don’t believe me, open up a hymnal, and thumb through the Advent hymns.

There aren’t many at all related to John the Baptist, and it makes me wonder why that is—especially since John is such a central figure during the season of Advent.

Maybe the editors of the hymnal didn’t think it was necessary to include more than a couple of hymns about John.

Or, maybe his message of repentance make us all a little uncomfortable?

In today’s lesson from the Gospel of Luke, we encounter John the Baptist, who appears in the wilderness around the Jordan River and offers the people of Judea a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of their sins.

His message to the people who have gathered is not a message of comfort or one that we would normally describe as “good news.”

He isn’t there to console them or to make them feel better about themselves.

His purpose is to prepare the way for Jesus, and he does this by proclaiming to the people that preparation begins with repentance.

He’s there to let the people know that the Savior they’ve been waiting for is coming into the world, and they need to be ready.

Repentance isn’t a word that we normally hear around this time of the year, is it?

No, during the days and weeks leading up to Christmas, our lives are typically consumed with making plans for the holidays.

We have Christmas parties to attend, gifts to wrap, and Christmas decorations to put up around the house—things that most of us consider to be fun and exciting!

We usually save words like “repentance” for the season of Lent as we prepare for Holy Week and Easter.

So, what place does repentance have during this season, and what does the message of John the Baptist have to teach us on this Second Sunday of Advent?

We know that John’s message must be an important part of the season because it shows up every year in our Sunday readings.

Whether we’re in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, John the Baptist shows up with his message of repentance, and in each version of the story, he says basically the same thing to the people who come to him for baptism.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near. I am not the Messiah. I baptize you with water, but one who is coming who will baptize you with fire and the Holy Spirit.”

John’s message of repentance continues to speak to us today as we prepare, not only for our celebration of Christmas, but also as we look ahead to the day when Christ will come again.

As one author writes, “John demands that we get ready for Jesus.”

“Before we can bask in Christmas joy and the birth of a special baby, John forces us to examine ourselves and our world.”

If the season of Advent is meant to prepare us for the coming of Jesus, then it’s important for us to think about what repentance actually means because there’s a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to that word.

We often look at repentance in a negative way, don’t we?

We consider it a form of punishment or something we should try to avoid at all costs.

We think that, if you’re at a point in your life when you need to repent, then you must have done something pretty bad.

When many of us hear that word, we imagine street-corner preachers standing on their soapboxes, spewing angry messages at people as they walk by.

But, I want to suggest to you that repentance doesn’t have to be seen as something negative, and it doesn’t have to be seen as a form of punishment for doing something wrong.

And, this is important, because when we think of repentance as punishment, it’s easy for us to be overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and shame.

But, that’s not what God wants for us.

What God wants is for us to love others and to know that we’re loved, also.

I don’t believe God would call us to repent if it was meant to harm us or cause us to doubt our own self-worth.

When we read about John’s message of repentance and we hear the call of the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, we’re reminded of who we are as children of God and given an opportunity to return to the God who loves us more than we can possibly imagine.

Several years ago, just before our family moved from Texas back home to Alabama, I had the opportunity to attend my final convention in the Diocese of Northwest Texas.

The Bishop of the diocese delivered a thoughtful and inspiring message to those of us who were there.

During his address, he reminded me of something about repentance that I had once heard.

He said that we typically have two understandings of the word, “repent.”

In our culture, we tend to think of repentance as “feeling bad for doing bad things.”

And, in the Church, we tend to think that repentance is a call to conversion or a call to return to the Lord.

He told us that, while both of these understandings can be helpful, the actual meaning of the word, “repent,” in the original Greek means “to go beyond the mind” or to change one’s point of view.

The Bishop reminded us at the convention that Jesus uses parables and stories in his teaching that encourage us to go beyond the way we typically think or “to go beyond the mind” so that we can better understand what God is calling us to do in our lives.

But, how exactly do we do that?

How do we “go beyond the mind” and begin to change the way we think?

In his address, the Bishop suggested that we might begin by thinking about how we’re all connected.

He told us that, when we think about Jesus’ commandment to his disciples to “love your neighbor as yourself,” he’s not actually telling us to love our neighbors as much as ourselves but to love our neighbors as an extension of ourselves.

That’s what it means to “go beyond the mind” and into the mind of Christ.

To remember that we’re all connected and that we were created—not to care only for ourselves—but to love and serve each other.

When we think about repentance in this way, as a way of remembering that we’re all connected and called to love one another as an extension of ourselves, we can start to develop a much more helpful understanding of what repentance actually is.

It’s not something we should feel guilty about or something we should try to avoid doing at all costs.

When we recognize our need for it and allow ourselves to experience it, repentance can actually draw us into a deeper and more loving relationship with each other and with God.

So, as we continue to move through this Advent season and prepare for Christmas, let us remember the true meaning of the word “repentance,” and let us hold firmly to the message of John the Baptist and the prophets, who call us not to feel guilty about what we’ve done or left undone but to remember who we are and who we were created to be.

Amen.

Expect the Unexpected

A Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent (Year C)
December 1, 2024

Text: Luke 21:25-36

There’s a lesson that my father once taught me at a young age. In fact, he started drilling this lesson into my head right around the age of fifteen, when I first started learning how to drive a car.

Every time I went with him to practice driving, I would get into the driver’s seat, and he would get into the passenger’s seat.

And, once I backed out of the driveway and started driving, he would always tell me, “Eric, you have to always expect the unexpected.”

Of course, being a fifteen year old at the time, I didn’t pay much attention to what he said, and there might’ve been some occasional eye rolling going on.

But, every time we went driving together, he would always say the same thing, and to this day, he still says it from time to time.

“You have to always expect the unexpected.”

What I think he meant by that was that I always needed to be alert and on the lookout for sign of trouble because terrible things could happen behind the wheel of a car in a matter of seconds.

My father always told me that it wasn’t me that he was worried about.

It was other people—distracted drivers on the road—who may not see me coming or who may be too focused on other things when they should have their complete attention focused on driving.

I still remember my father’s lesson from when I was fifteen, and while I’ve certainly made my fair share of mistakes behind the wheel of a car, his lesson has stayed with me all these years.

I still do my best to “expect the unexpected,” knowing that my life and the lives of those around me could drastically change in a moment’s notice.

In the blink of an eye, life as we know it can change.

Sometimes these changes are good for us, and sometimes they’re not so good.

Sometimes, what we thought we knew about something—or someone—turns out to be completely wrong, and we’re caught off guard.

Sometimes, unexpected things happen to us, and we don’t know what do or how to move forward.

So, the wisdom of the phrase “expect the unexpected” can help us prepare for those moments when it feels like everything has changed and we have no control over what’s happening.

Over the years, I’ve come to understand how the wisdom of the phrase “expect the unexpected” can also be used in our relationship with God.

I think about my own life and the things that have happened to me and my family over the years, things that I never imagined or thought possible.

There are moments and experiences that I can point to and say with absolute certainty that the only explanation for them happening was because of God.

I think about my call to the priesthood and deciding one day that God was calling me and my family to go to seminary, to pick up and move nine hundred miles away from our home in south Alabama to northern Virginia.

In my experience, I’ve discovered that, when God calls us, it often happens in ways that are unexpected and beyond our understanding.

I also think about those moments in the Scriptures when God calls the most unlikely people to serve in the most extraordinary ways.

The Old Testament is filled with good examples—people like Moses, who wasn’t the natural-born leader you’d expect God to choose. But despite his limitations and mistakes, God called him to set his people free and lead them out of slavery in Egypt into the land of promise.

The New Testament is also filled with good examples of how God chooses the most unlikely people to serve in the most remarkable ways.

Some of them we encounter early on in the Gospels, in the story of Jesus’ birth.

People like Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, who’s told that she will bear and give birth to a son, even at her old age.

And her much younger relative, Mary, who is visited by the angel Gabriel and told that she will bear and give birth to the Son of God.

The Scriptures, especially the ones we hear during the seasons of Advent and Christmas, are filled with examples of why we should always “expect the unexpected” when it comes to God and God’s plan for salvation.

In fact, if I could assign a tagline to the season of Advent, it would be “expect the unexpected.”

Expect that God is doing a new thing.

Expect that, even now, God is working to make all things new.

This was true two thousand years ago in a small town called Bethlehem.

And, it’s true for us today as well as we await the return of Christ.

God came into the world in this amazing, unexpected way by sending his only Son to be born of a human mother, to live and die as one of us, and to show us the way to everlasting life and peace with God.

Despite everything that could’ve gone wrong—despite the fear and uncertainty that Mary and Joseph likely felt in the days and weeks leading up to the birth of Jesus—despite all the odds stacked against them—nothing could stop the light from coming into the world.

Love came down from heaven on that first Christmas Day, and the world has been changed forever.

The seasons of Advent and Christmas invite us to contemplate the miracle of Christ’s birth, but these seasons of the Church year aren’t just about a single event that took place centuries ago.

They’re also about what God in Christ is doing now—in our own time and place—and what God is preparing us for in the future.

This is the reason why our Gospel lesson for this morning—on this First Sunday of Advent—looks ahead to the final coming of Christ.

Jesus is warning his disciples to stay alert—to keep awake and be prepared for the day of his return.

He tells them, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.

People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.”

From the description Jesus gives us, it sounds like something we should be afraid of, doesn’t it?

The picture Jesus paints doesn’t exactly stir comforting thoughts or emotions.

It sounds terrifying, to be honest.

Like, we want Jesus to come back, but maybe not too soon.

But, I don’t think Jesus said these things to scare us.

I think it was a wake-up call.

I think it was his way of saying to the disciples—and to us—that one day, everything as we know it now will fade away, and we need to be ready.

The Son of Man will return and finally bring to fulfillment God’s reign of peace on the earth.

The old heaven and the old earth will pass away, and a new creation will be born.

And, until that day comes, it’s our call, as Christians, to help make God’s Kingdom a reality.

So, our Gospel lesson this morning from Luke shouldn’t be read as a message of fear.

It’s actually a message of hope—hope that, one day, God’s plan of redemption will finally be fulfilled.

Jesus says it like this: “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a French theologian and Benedictine monk who lived during the eleventh century, once wrote that there are actually three advents—or three comings of Christ.

In the first Advent, Christ came to us as a helpless child, born of a human mother, to usher in the Kingdom of God and to bring salvation to the world.

In the third and final Advent, Christ will come again and will bring to fulfillment God’s Kingdom. He will judge both the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

The second Advent of Christ is where we find ourselves now, in our own day and time and in every moment of our lives. Christ is present with us wherever we go, and we see Christ in every person we encounter.

If Bernard is right—and I like to think that he is—then we’re living in between the first and third Advents of Christ.

Our lives are the middle part—the second coming of Christ.

We have the ability, through our words and actions, to make the love of Christ present— here and now.

We have the ability to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world around us—to bring light to where there’s darkness—to bring hope where there’s despair.

And so, as we begin the season of Advent, let us draw close to Jesus and consider what God would have us do with the lives we’ve been given.

Because you never know where God will call us to go next.

But, we can trust that, wherever we’re called to go, God will be with us, and God will use us to help bring to fulfillment his plan of redemption.

Expect the unexpected.

Expect that God is doing a new thing.

Expect that, even now, God is working to make all things new.

Amen.