Worship Bulletin

Worship December 13. 2020 German Church of Atlanta Greeting and Announcements

Sermon: Dear Congregation, dear Friends, dear Confirmands, In December of each year, there are often two groups of people we can experience: the ones who celebrate Advent. Already on December 1st everything is decorated. Lights in the windows and on the trees outside, many cookies and of course rituals – and whatever happens, it becomes clear: now is not everyday, now is a special time. You live in promise and much of what you do has an abundance of meaning, points to something else, reflects longing, desires and hopes.

And yet when Christmas comes, many of these Advent people are very quick. With the end of the second Christmas Day, the festival is over. The tree decoration comes down and the tree is being disposed of. Everyday life is coming back.

And there are others, whose daily every day routine is still running during Advent. And just before Christmas – last minute – everything is finished: gifts bought, the fridge filled and – oh yes, where do I get a Christmas tree now? But the Christmas light is then fully celebrated, and, yes, the holy three kings could have taken some

more time to appear. It is a pity that the happy time is already over on January 6th.

II. There are people among us who are more Advent types and there are those who are more Christmas types. Sure, not always so clear, but maybe you can identify traits in yourself, and maybe you also know people who are quite well associated with one of these two types.

Which side would you fit on? And I wonder how we can describe or characterize these two types of people. Because I don't think it's accidental, it has something to do with a certain worldview. Perhaps we can describe it this way: The Advent people always seek the promise and anticipation, while the Christmas people seek fulfillment and perfection.

While the Advent people look at the Christmas light from a distance, in a sense from the twilight of their everyday life, in the hope that this light will one day change their everyday life – soon, yes, however, it is not yet ready; so, while the Advent people take a look at the light from the preChristmas everyday life, yet when it comes, they sometimes quickly close down and retreat back into the familiar everyday life.

Too bad! The light didn't really arrive. Well, then I just have to wait for the next Advent season.

The others, the Christmas people, do not spend much time waiting for the light. But when it comes, they live in the exuberance of fulfillment. Everything is there. It lights up: here and now. All is well!

And yet after a moment in time then the Christmas person returns to everyday life and forgets the light. There remains a vague

memory: "Wasn't it beautiful?" But everyday life is not sustainably permeated by the light of Christmas.

And just as the Christmas people are not very interested in preparing, waiting and longing, but only see the moment when everything is as it should be. Their worldview is: “Celebrate the light when it comes, but don’t bank or dwell on it. Move on…”

One can observe and say that the Advent people can actually only endure this fulfilled moment from a distance, and sometimes even miss the light when it comes. One could say that even though they hope so much that it will be fulfilled, they do not yet fully trust the fulfillment. Their worldview is: “Here, where I live now, there is no fulfillment yet.”

III. And these two perspectives, also come to the forefront in our biblical sermon text.

Here one, John, is born who sees the light from a distance and finds it at times more suspect than real, and John expects the other to be born, who is the light that is being celebrated for a moment, but then often forgotten as the light that came into the World.

Before the story of the birth of Jesus stands the story of the birth of John. And above both stories it written: A child is born to you!

Which means: The future is open. Promise hangs over both stories: the future is open. Life will continue. And not in any way going on, but in a different way: Brighter, clearer, more promising. The future is open, and it is not in the hand of a dark fate, but in our hand and in the hand of God, who is devoted to us with deep compassion.

And there is no simpler and no more emotional picture for this future than the birth of a child, even the unlikely birth of a child.

The old couple Elisabeth and Zacharias, who remained childless and thought: “This is how it remains now.” And then things turned out very differently.

Each of us knows someone—or is one of them—whose desire to have children has not been fulfilled, and we know how difficult this can be; and we can immediately understand the joy of the aging parents.

And then in the second story, even more improbable: the couple, who did not yet know each other intimately, became parents: Mary and Joseph.

IV. And yet, as parallel as the stories of the birth of John and the birth of Jesus are told, they are so different. And also, I think: John and Jesus, they behave to each other like Advent and Christmas.

John lives at an Advent distance expecting Jesus' birth. And this distance will remain as long as John lives. But everything about his life is oriented towards Jesus.

John is the one, as described in the prophetic speech of his Father, who precedes Jesus as the Light to be born. Even before the birth of Jesus, John was in everything referring to this Jesus, who was his cousin, and therefore almost as close as a brother. Everything he did as long as he lived was oriented towards Jesus. And his message was that of Advent: "Turn around, choose a new way of life. Become aware of God's presence! Allow to be baptized"!

V. There are two ways in which we can describe this relationship between John and Jesus, either with a look at John alone or with a

view of John already pointing toward Jesus. If we look at John and ask what this John is all about, we see: All that John is, all that gives him meaning in the eyes of the evangelists, is already due to the light that Jesus will bring into this world.

John lives entirely in anticipation of Jesus, he has preceded him and, as our sermon text puts it, he paved the way for Jesus. The meaning of John is explained only by Jesus.

Just as Advent is always related to Christmas: Advent is only explained by Christmas.

The other perspective is that we choose to look at Jesus with John's eyes. And this perspective is actually important.

If the story of John, the account of his birth, is to be more than a side episode, then the story of John must tell us something about Jesus.

And I think it is precisely that the birth and life of John should be looked at from the perspective of expectation, hope or longing.

John looks at Jesus with eyes that say, "Not yet, but hopefully soon."

He sees (or rather anticipates seeing) the rising light in the darkness that shines in the shadow of our world.

One could say: John sees Christmas only from the distance of Advent. The future is open, but the present is still a challenge and often feels darker as ever.

VI. John is a person of Advent, a man who never reaches the fullness and the light of Christmas, and who gets stuck in the semi-

darkness, where one can only believe in the light, but it is difficult to see it. And yet this light that will come is already transforming John.

His life is totally directed towards this light. That does not mean that all is good. It does not mean that John lives in abundance. He finds his way through the challenges in the desert of this life.

Nevertheless, his life is different from if he did not believe in and anticipated the light.

Vaclav Havel famously said: "Hope is not the conviction that something will go well, but the certainty that something makes sense, no matter how it will end."

And I am sure that John lived in this certainty. Even if his life is hard, it is not determined by a dark fate, but he sees his life from the perspective of hope, he lives in conviction that the light will come and that it is already hiddenly present. And so, his life makes sense.

VII. This year 2020, we are all not Christmas people yet, and many of us do not live in abundance this year, and for all of us the future is not guaranteed open and certainly not always carefree.

We live to stay with this story, most of the time in Advent waiting mode, and rarely in full Christmas splendor.

And yet this promised and coming light does something with us – or at least I wish that it does something with us.

That the light aligns us and directs our steps, as Zacharias says.

That this light gives us the certainty we need to continue on our path. The confidence that our path is right, and that it makes sense.

And that this light fills us with hope that our life, even if it is not right now or might even not going to be developing, as we would like, that our life make sense- no matter how it goes.

And yet Advent also means that we ourselves are the ones who are creatively participating in the direction and design of how our desires, hopes and belief is being carried forward into the future.

Advent that means that we focus on what is important to us and follow our longing and our inner light.

Trusting that this can and will happen to us: that on Christmas a child will be is born onto us, that God’s light dimension will reopen for us, and that we will not forget or lose this light in the next 364 days due to the distractions of our everyday life. That is what I very much wish and hope for all of us.

Amen.