Coming, Ready or Not?

Sermon for Advent Sunday – 1st December 2024 – All Saints, Kesgrave

Text: At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.²⁸ When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.’(Luke 21v27-28)

God give you peace, my sisters and brothers.

And, once found collapsing into their parent’s arms giggling until the breath has been tickled out of them.  Then, saying ‘Stop Mummy, let’s do that again’ and they run off to hide hoping that it won’t be too long before being found again.  And, as they toddle off, they shout, ‘whatever you do don’t look for me behind the oak tree’ …or the shed, or the fridge or whichever is the most obvious place to hide.

You would think they wanted to be found and are setting out to lose the game.  Mind you are there any losers when everyone ends up laughing and in each other’s arms?

Fast Forward a decade and the giggles are replaced by the rush of fear induced adrenaline felt by a young teenage boy when a game of British Bulldog is called, not on the soft grass of the playing field but on the hard tarmac of the Parade Ground at the Royal Hospital School.  It always seemed to end with someone in the Infirmary. 

Not much laughter there, just the desperate need to belong without getting hurt too much.  Hoping that the Bulldogs – who were always the biggest bullies and out to get everyone – would be gentle with you and someone else would come off worse.

And then, then there were the lazy summer holidays spent at Gosport Lido playing Kiss-Chase in the nearby woods and the wonderful Valerie Rumble not trying too hard to hide from me.  Oh, to be fourteen again…

‘Coming, ready or not?’

The message of Advent is not so much a game of British Bulldog in which ‘God is out to get you’ – one will be taken, and another left behind.

Advent is the questing of a parent joyfully seeking out their child and Love longing for the object of its affection.  ‘Stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.’  Laughter and love are just around the corner.

God is not out to ‘get us’ – a lesson I still need to learn every time I sink into sin and choose to hide from the One who Loves me Best.  

No, God wants to find us and bring us home.

God’s very first words to the man and woman together in the Garden were ‘Where are you?’  And God’s loving game of Hide and Seek remains the same.  But do we welcome God’s voice with childish glee, with the leap of a lover’s heart, or do we hide in fear that we might be found out?

When we were little we had no problem with being searched for and found.  In fact, the worst thing that can happen to a toddler is to not be found and so find themselves to be alone.

As we grow older and, allegedly, more mature it is not so much that we don’t want to be found, but we don’t want to be found out.

Is Advent about God being ‘out to get us’ or is it about love coming to find us?

Speaking for myself I know that too often I have hidden from the song of God’s love and the words, ‘Coming, ready or not’ have sounded like a death knell instead of a call to laughter.  My life flooded with foreboding instead of overflowing with joy and an unbridled love.  But how can this Advent God, who comes as a helpless babe in Bethlehem, ever be ‘out to get us’?

Christmas is the most intimate of love songs as flesh touches flesh and the babe reaches out a tiny hand, holds on to our finger, and captures our hearts. 

There really should be a sprig of mistletoe at the entrance to the manger. 

But still, for many of us, and for me, Advent easily becomes a time of fear and foreboding, a time of worrying that we have messed up and won’t be allowed into heaven.

For years now, each time I slip back into thinking that God is ‘out to get me’ one of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets has helped me learn love’s lesson.  Instead of being ‘out to get me’ God is dying to love me, find me, cherish me, and bring me home.

At Advent, at Christmas, and every day, when the One Who Loves us Best says ‘Coming, ready or not,’ this poem has helped me breathe out the words, ‘Maranatha, even so come quickly Lord’.

I hope it will help you this Advent as each of us learns to play Kiss-Chase with God.

[P.S. If you happen to know Valerie Rumble who used to live in Elson, Gosport in the late 60’s/early 70’s please give her my love.]

[This blog ‘Coming, Ready or Not’ is copyright © Andrew Dotchin 2024 and may be reproduced without charge on condition that the source is acknowledged] 

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The Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the End Times

²⁵ ‘There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. ²⁶ People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. ²⁷ At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.²⁸ When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.’

²⁹ He told them this parable: ‘Look at the fig-tree and all the trees. ³⁰ When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. ³¹ Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.

³² ‘Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. ³³ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

³⁴ ‘Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. ³⁵ For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. ³⁶ Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.’ (Luke 21v25-36)