Sermon for the Sunday next before Advent
Today is the last Sunday
of the Liturgical year
and we find ourselves
on the mountain
with a great company
of men, women and children
who have gathered
to hear the Word of God.
Why here?
Why do we end our year
on the top of the mountain
with a hungry multitude?
[PAUSE]
The Church year
ends on the Saturday before Advent
and begins on Advent Sunday.
To be pedantic,
the beginning of the Liturgical day
is at sunset,
so Advent starts
at Sundown on the Saturday,
but this just emphasises
the completion of
the day,
the week,
the month,
the year.
With the setting of the sun,
the year goes round again.
And we go round again too,
not in a circle,
we never end up
exactly where we started.
We are travelling
along a groove
in an old LP vinyl record
slowly spiralling inwards
towards the centre.
Each Advent
we have completed
another circuit of the liturgy
through the many
Sundays after Trinity
which make Christmas
and Easter seem
a long way off.
It's a long journey every year
and today is the day
when we sit at the mountain
and take stock.
We begin to look at
how we have grown
in the Holy Ghost
and how we need
to work at repentance
for the year ahead.
We come again to the mountain.
And we are hungry and thirsty.
And ahead of us
is our next journey
to Bethlehem
to register for the census.
It's all a bit relentless.
Round and round and round we go
and where we stop
nobody knows.
[PAUSE]
Our ears prick up
as we hear the Holy Voice say,
"whence shall we buy bread
that these may eat?"
In our tiredness
our sadness,
our jadedness
and weariness with this world
and our journey through it
we hear the voice of the One
Who cares that we should not starve
or faint with hunger.
And then we hear
a voice of discouragement,
"Two hundred penny-worth of bread
is not sufficient for them,
that everyone of them
may take a little."
This voice of discouragement
always seems to be with us
always trying to scratch
a hole in our hope,
dampen our joy
turn us towards the ground.
Every year,
we approach Christmas
dreading the usual voices
claim that Christmas is a pagan holiday.
(It isn't,
Saturnalia
was never
on Christmas Day.)
Or the grumbling
about presents
and decorations
which has been going on now
since before Halloween!
The world's voices
seek to crowd out
our hope
which, at the end
of another year's journey
is in short supply.
Do we really have
to go around again?
Why can't Jesus return now?
[PAUSE]
But He has!
Into our hands,
into our mouths
given by the Holy Apostles
we are fed,
good wholesome bread,
bread that enters our bellies
and nourishes us
warms our hearts
strengthens our hopes
and turns us to the God
Who gives of Himself
for us.
Here, at this pause in our journey,
we are fed
with the Bread of Life.
Our Liturgical Year
ends with the Mass.
[PAUSE]
All our journeys
end with the Mass
The little journey
from pew to altar
to receive Him
truly present in the Sacrament
as He promises us;
The journey
through the week,
through daily work,
through daily encounter
with an unbelieving world
back to the food of Christ
in Church;
The journey from
Advent to Advent
treading and retreading
the journey from Nazareth
to Bethlehem
and in Bethlehem
to find again
the Real Presence of Christ;
the journey
from birth
to death,
through sin,
sorrow,
joy and righteousness
until we pass through Death
and into the Wedding feast of the Lamb.
Our journey always ends in the Mass.
[PAUSE]
But that's what the Mass is for.
It's the gift
Christ gives us
that we might keep going
keep encountering Him,
keep bringing ourselves to Him
with our need for healing
and for wholeness.
And it is the pinnacle
of our worship of God,
for we travel back to God
for the reason that
He is worth more to us
than the distractions
of this petty world.
[PAUSE]
Today,
we end our year
in worship of the Holy Trinity,
One God,
Three Persons.
And next week we begin again
in worship of the Holy Trinity
preparing for the coming Christ.
We begin again in Him.
Always, we begin again.
1 comment:
Thank you
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