"THE DISSONANCE OF ADVENT"

Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14

If someone were to ask you

about your favorite Advent hymn,

what would you say?

"Joy to the World?"

"Away in a Manger?"

Maybe "Silent Night?"

Those are all Christmas carols.

But if you're like everyone else,

Christmas carols are the first place you turn

the day after Thanksgiving.

Or maybe even before that!

Once the turkey leftovers are put to rest,

we're ready to haul out the holly!

Get that baby in the manger

because it's the first Sunday of Advent -

and then, get that tree down by December 26^th!

Our hymnbook has made a valiant effort

to give us songs to sing during Advent.

Twenty of them, no less.

But that's the problem.

There's only half as many Advent hymns

as there are Christmas carols -

and Advent is four times as long as Christmas!

We're supposed to sing those twenty hymns for four weeks,

and not get near the forty Christmas carols

until Christmas Eve.

That really stinks, doesn't it?

Listen to some of the rousing Advent hymns we're given to sing:

"Jesus Comes with Clouds Descending."

"OnJordan's Banks the Baptist's Cry."

(that might be a favorite across the street!)

"Prepare the Way O Zion."

"The Desert Shall Rejoice."

Those are toe-tappers, aren't they?!

Do you ever hear these being played

when you're at Brookshire's or Walmart?!

And that's the point.

The music of Advent,

literally as well as figuratively,

is a whole lot different from what we expect,

and even more different from what we like.

Advent is out of tune with the rest of society,

especially a society which begins to market Christmas

for months ahead of time.

We've been seeing the signs since Halloween or even before,

and now it's in our face twenty-four seven.

Not one but two local radio stations

have already been playing twenty-four-hour Christmas carols

for about two weeks.

What we're seeing and hearing, however,

is not the good news of the gospel.

We're seeing what Wall Street hopes will be good news

for the retailers and for the stock market.

In their terms, it's not about the baby;

it's about the bottom line.

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What I want to suggest today

is that we not pass over

what must be passed through.

I want to encourage you, and me,

and all of us

to delve deep into this mysterious time called Advent -

to ride its waves,

to be in the moment with the not-knowing,

to sit with the discomfort

and practice what it means to wait.

Let's think about it once again in musical terms.

One of the most basic patterns in Western music theory

is called ETR:

equilibrium - tension - resolution.

Music which keeps our attention

and challenges us to listen to it

starts out on an even keel,

then creates a dissonance or tension

which makes us uneasy at some level

until it is somehow resolved.

ETR is also a basic pattern for life as a whole.

It's like a student who cruises along in school just fine

until it's time to study for the TAKS test or the SAT,

which throws them into no small amount of tension!

That tension gets resolved as soon as the test is over,

and equilibrium reigns,

at least for a time,

once again.

In terms of life in the church,

times like Ordinary Time are the equilibrium.

Days like Christmas and Easter are the resolution.

The seasons of Advent and Lent are the tension -

the intriguing days

in which you and I are invited to live

in the now and the not yet,

which is an uneasy and somewhat messy place to live.

But whether it's a symphony or a love song,

or a big test,

or a season of the church year,

it's the tension that makes it interesting.

You can't go from equilibrium straight through to resolution -

there's nothing to resolve!

In order for us to avoid a boring sameness,

there has to be something interesting in the middle.

There's a lot to be said

for passing through times of tension

as opposed to passing them by.

Living through this time of Advent

requires that we play it on God's speed

and not our own.

If we can find a way

to say no to the seduction of rushing right to Christmas Day

and refuse to skip over this time of tension,

then we will find ourselves being led more profoundly

into its power.

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Why are we inclined to rush ourselves so

during this time?

For one thing,

we're encouraged to do so

by a society driven by the fast buck.

But more than that,

worse than that,

I believe we have forgotten how to hope.

The times that you and I live in

do more than discourage us from looking forward

with any sense of hope.

In some ways,

the times have done their best

to take hope away from us.

One of the lessons we've taken away

from events like 9-11 and the war and Hurricane Katrina

is that, to borrow a phrase,

"tomorrow ain't promised."

If we want something good to happen,

we'd better make it happen today.

Given that,

developing a strong and far-sighted sense of hope

is one of the most radical and counter-cultural things we can do.

Our society tries to keep us grounded

by giving us a flat, linear, one-dimensional view of life

and teaching us that anyone with any sense at all

must find this the only way to live.

But we know better.

The tension of Advent,

which moves day by day towards the resolution of Christmas,

teaches us to live by a hope that is heaven-based,

multi-dimensional,

and resilient.

Our hope isn't centered in the ups and downs of the housing market,

or in the latest terrorist threat,

or in killer sales which involve using our credit cards

and end up keeping us financially dependent.

Our hope is in the Lord God

and in God's son Jesus Christ,

the same yesterday, today, and forever,

the one to whom all will come

as they turn swords into plowshares,

the one who promises us

that each day brings us nearer to God's design for salvation

than we were the day before.

Nurturing that kind of hope

takes us off of a linear playing surface

and sends us soaring.

It gives us perspective on the little intrigues of this day.

It lightens our load.

And it gives us that spark of hope

which will grow into a flame of joy about four weeks from now.

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Last week,

Gabe and Barb Parker were telling me

about their recent trip to France.

They saw lots of amazing and wonderful things

while they were gone.

But when they started to tell me

about the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Strasbourg,

their faces just lit up.

Many have waxed poetic over the Strasbourg cathedral.

Victor Hugo said

that "the entire front of the church is a clever poem."

And he called the spire of a church

"a veritable tiara of stone."

Poet Paul Claudel called it

"a pinky-red angel hovering over the city."

No question that it's a wonder to behold.

But the thing that's most amazing about it

is that it took more than three hundred years to build.

Construction started in the year 1015 -

yes, almost a thousand years ago.

But things got going in earnest around 1176,

when one architect came along

whose work had the largest influence

on the building that still stands today.

But he died in the early twelve hundreds

before he even got to see the result

of what had become his life's work.

Others had to pick up where he left off,

and the cathedral remained under construction

until the spire was completed in 1439.

Something like fifteen generations passed

between the beginning and completion of that cathedral.

Now that took hope.

Can you imagine it?

Can you imagine living a lifetime of dissonance

with that kind of tenacious hope,

so that generations and centuries of people to come

would be able to share your vision of God?

It's not likely

that you and I will be involved in a physical project of that scope.

But you and I are very much a part

of a story which began long before Strasbourg Cathedral.

And the hope that you and I share in this season of Advent

is the same hope which will fuel the future of this church

for our children,

and their children,

and their children.

Think about that for a moment.

Can we of the Nintendo and the nanosecond

imagine what this church will be like

three hundred years from now?

Can those of us

who have a hard time waiting for the light to change

imagine how we might learn once again

to live in counter-cultural, dissonant hope,

and in so doing,

bequeath a vision of God to the generations to come,

that they might have hope?

There is no question.

At any given time of the year,

but especially during this season of Advent,

you and I will be invited to walk down some uncertain paths

that will not provide us anything like immediate gratification.

And friends,

those are exactly the paths that are not to be avoided,

but rather treasured and sought out.

That is the kind of path we are invited down this day -

not the flat terrain of immediate gratification

for those who would rush to the manger,

but instead to the road less traveled:

the less certain and more ponderous path

of those who contemplate the mystery,

those who hope for the impossible,

those who listen to angels,

those who follow the star.

Amen.

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I am indebted for the inspiration for today's sermon to Jeremy Begbie and his new book Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom and the World of Music, recently published by Baker Academic.  It was excerpted in a recent issue of Christian Century (November 13, 2007, pages 20ff).

Victor Hugo's quote can be found at www.strasbourg.info/cathedral; Paul Claudel's quote can be found at www.sacred-destinations.com/france/strasbourg-cathedral.htm