Today is the start of the season of Advent. A season of anticipation. A season of hope and waiting. It is a time of preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ. It has been said: “The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.”

Jesus shares with his disciples concerning his second coming. An extraordinary thing… matched only by the extraordinary moment before it happens. A strange text for the season of Advent; or is it? The birth of Christ encompasses much more than the Christmas story. Understanding this moves us into a realm which is far more than sentimentality.

The Christmas happening affected the whole universe for all eternity. As we heard; “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away”. The eternal God was incarnated in a man named Jesus. And some 2000 plus years later we still tell the story of Jesus who was and is God’s story-word in the flesh. It is a story of the love of God and humanity.

As we stand on the threshold of a new church year on this first Sunday in Advent, we find ourselves waiting once again for the birth of a baby. Our prophets, among them Jeremiah, Malachi, Zephaniah, Micah, and Isaiah, join with shepherds, angels, Wise Men, and our gospel writers to retell the never-ending story of an unending love that God has for all humanity. This is a season of preparation, of watching and waiting as we look to God for signs of hope and new life.

Prophets are people who speak for God. They hear God speak in this world, and then share with the rest of us what they have heard. The world is inhabited by many people who feel that God is far away, paying no attention to the things of our realm. Prophets are sent for folks just like that, for the multitudes who don't hear God speak, who don't see the wonders of God's presence. Prophets use their own eyes and ears for the sake of many others with ears that do not hear and eyes that fail to see.

In a story titled The Giving Tree, a young boy would gather his favorite tree's leaves on mild autumn afternoons. He fashioned them into a crown for his head and played king of the forest. The tree was fun to climb, and he loved to eat its delicious apples. The boy enjoyed swinging from the tree's branches, and discovered a shady resting place beneath those same branches on hot summer days.

As the boy became a teenager, he visited the tree less frequently. He did stop by once to carve his initials, and those of his girlfriend, on the apple tree's trunk, framing them with a heart. As the boy matured and his interests changed, he found that he needed some spending money. So, he picked the tree's luscious apples and sold them at the farmers' market in town.

As an adult, he cut off many of the tree's branches to provide lumber for his young family's new home. During his middle years, he found himself with leisure time, and cut down the tree's trunk to fashion a sailboat's hull. Where a magnificent tree had once stood, spreading its leafy branches toward the heavens, all that remained was a stump. In his final years, the boy, now an old man, returned to the remaining stump to sit and rest his weary bones and to reminisce of days gone by.

But, that stump wasn't the end of the memorable old tree. From stumps that have seemed long dead, new shoots can spring to life and become trees once again. God can make the dead come alive. God is making all things new, when an old stump is "reborn" into shoots of tomorrow.

When Jesus came the first time, he came as a baby in a manger in an obscure village. Nobody much knew or cared except Mary and Joseph, some shepherds and angels. He says he will come a second time.

God works purposefully to build God’s own kingdom -- a kingdom of justice, righteousness and redemption. Humanity’s needs, whether good or bad, can never daunt the purpose of God.

Through the prophet Jeremiah, God speaks a word of promise and hope to the people of Judah, and to us. Jeremiah has already announced a new covenant to be written on our hearts instead of on stone tablets. The people of Judah are suffering under an oppressive system of exile in a foreign country. They have lost almost everything — families separated, land plundered, homes taken, livelihood destroyed, temple plundered, and king gone.

Then, like the first hints of a spring thaw, Jeremiah's words warm the hearts of his listeners and give them hope that they will return home. King David's lineage is to be restored and the land repaired. Those days are surely coming, promises Jeremiah.

The future is in God's hands, a future that is redemptive, joyous, and just. God promises to "raise up a righteous Branch" who will govern properly and fairly. When nothing is left, God is left. God’s love will not be defeated. Nothing in this world can separate us from God’s love.

From a budding branch, Jeremiah sees an image of hope — the promise of spiritual renewal, of a just society, and of peace on the horizon. The message of Advent has one recurring theme: Things are going to change!

In this season of Advent for those of us who live so comfortably here in the western part of the world, as we scurry to and fro shopping for Christmas gifts, searching for the right sized turkey and all of its trimmings or as we roll up our sleeves and cover ourselves in flour and sugar, as we in the western world search for that always seemingly elusive ‘perfect’ Christmas, I wonder how can we convince a child whose belly is hunger that things will change, or a man or woman who shiver from a cold that is so deep in their bones they cannot remember what it is like to be warm, or what about those who are addicted to drugs or alcohol, or those men, women and children who live in countries where war is common place, or in countries where if you are not a male you are considered a non-person or worthless. How do we convince them that ‘things are about to change” that justice, hope and peace are on the horizon?”…………………..

Frederick Buechner wrote of the ever-appealing Christmas story: As for myself, the longer I live, the more inclined I am to believe in miracles. I suspect if we had been there at the birth of Christ, we would have seen and heard things that would be hard to reconcile with modern science. But that is not the point. The gospel writers are not really interested primarily in the facts of the birth. They are interested in the significance, the meaning for them of that birth.

When a child is born, we who love that child are not interested primarily in the facts of the birth. Rather we are interested in what the birth means to us and how for us the world never will be the same again. Our lives are charged with new significance.

When Jesus was born the whole course of history was changed. The birth of Jesus into the darkness of the world made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living. "

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah."

From the very beginning of scripture, the tree has been a symbol of life. The tree's "branch" became a biblical symbol for newness growing out of hopelessness, and was also a way of speaking about the expected Messiah. Our earthly lives are branches that continue to grow and bear fruit. As we bear fruit, the kingdom's branches spread throughout the world.

Since the Messiah’s birth, countless different kinds of people in countless kinds of ways have been filled with his spirit. They have been grasped by him, caught up in his life, and have found themselves in deep and private ways healed and transformed in their relationship with him.

He was indeed the long-expected One, the Christ, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. In this child there is a power of God to bring light into our darkness, to make us whole, to give a new kind of life which empowers not only us but can empower those around us.

The good news for Advent is that we don't have to expect a logical continuation of everything we have already seen and known. Something different is on the way. As theologian Walter Brueggemann notes, "What we ready ourselves for in Advent is the sneaking suspicion, the growing awareness, the building restlessness that this weary world is not the one God has in mind. God will work another world ... according to the person and passion of Jesus." The day is coming when the love and justice of Jesus Christ will fill the universe. According to Jesus, it can only happen after the world as we know it is unplugged and dismantled.

Do we want that?............... Sometimes it is so easy to say yes. Think how wonderful it would be to see the end of all the stuff that makes this world of ours so troubled: petty jealousy among family members, mean-spirited backbiting among neighbors, poverty and over-consumption, violence and destruction, racism and hatred. Wouldn't it be great to see the kingdom’s branches spread throughout the world?

That's what I pray for. Then I am reminded of my own complicity in maintaining the status quo and perpetuating the unbalance of power……………………..

As Walter Brueggemann goes on to say:

Advent asks if we are bold and sharp enough to speak the hurt that belongs to our weary world. It asks if we are ready and open enough for a newness to be given. It asks if we know the name of the One to whom we belong, of the Lord whom we confess, of the coming one for whom we wait, and if we trust that One enough to relinquish the old world.

A whole new world is at hand. All the promises of Scripture will come true. The poor will be filled with good things and the selfish brought down from their thrones. The nations shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. No more shall there be an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime. The wolf shall lie down with the lamb, the ox and the fatling together. The pure in heart shall see God and the brokenhearted shall dance. God will be with us, to wipe every tear from every eye. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more. A piece of bread and a sip of wine will be transformed into a banquet where every hungry guest shall be satisfied

These are previews of what God promises. They give us glimpses of the whole new world that God intends. The new creation will not come cheaply. Every vested interest in the old order will be challenged by the word of Christ. God will stop at nothing until "the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit.

There is but one question left to ask this day. On this first Sunday of Advent are you ready? Are you ready to be the hope? Are you ready to be the one who brings the peace so needed by so many? Are you ready to say in truth and faithfulness: Come, Lord Jesus, come!