St. John’s Episcopal Church
Tallahassee, FL
Canticle 16 Philippians 1:3-11
Because you sent your beloved Son to redeem us from sin and death, and to make us heirs in him of everlasting life; that when he shall come again in power and great triumph to judge the world, we may without shame or fear rejoice to behold his appearing. -Book of Common Prayer p. 378
You and I have entered
the holy season of Advent:
those four sacred weeks that lead us up
to the joy of Christmas day.
And here’s the thing:
in our tradition—
a tradition that has endured for centuries—
we Episcopalians—
along with Roman Catholics
and many Lutherans,
and Methodists,
and Eastern Orthodox—
use this time to talk
not so much about
the coming of the Baby Jesus
(which already happened over two-thousand years ago),
but about that other coming …
the future coming …
the second coming …
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And listen.
I know.
I know that is just outright weird.
It’s weird because, number one,
no one else is doing this right now.
Most other people you know
are singin’ their carols,
and deckin’ their halls,
and drinkin’ their ‘nog.
Most people we know
are not sitting around,
thinking about the Second Coming
of Jesus Christ right now.
If anything, they’re waiting for
a big ol’ bearded jolly-man
coming with a big ol’ sack o’ jolly-gifts.
But I know it’s also weird for us
to be so focused on the Second Coming
because—let’s face it—
it’s probably not the kind of thing
you expect in the Episcopal Church.
To be clear, there are many Christians
who are looking for the return of Christ
even at this very moment.
In their minds,
that day is
imminent,
violent,
predictable,
and necessary.
And the news we see every week—
with all the world’s wars and rumors of wars—
only stokes those fires.
But by and large, we Episcopalians
are well afflicted with logic and reason.
We don’t dote over
apocalyptic fan fiction
like the Left Behind series.
As a people,
we are mostly allergic
to sensationalism,
worry,
vengeance,
and fear.
And yet,
all throughout our Bible
and all throughout our prayers,
you and I repeatedly make
the full-throated proclamation that
Christ has died,
Christ is risen,
and—what’s the end of that?—
Christ will come again.
We say this is good news,
and we stake our very lives on it.
So if we are the kind of Christians
who truly believe this stuff—
and we are—
but we’re not the kind of Christians
who are
literalists,
extremists,
or zealots,
what, then, do we say about the Second Coming?
What do we believe about the future of humanity?
What do we believe God is up to in our world?
And, most importantly, why are we not afraid?
Well I’m so glad you asked.
To help us get there,
I want us to look at two things today.
I want us to look at Paul’s letter to the Philippians
as well as our canticle for today,
the Song of Zechariah.
* * *
So let’s start with Philippians.
You may not know this,
but Paul wrote these words
while he was in prison,
awaiting trial.
He had no idea what the future would hold.
And yet, even in all that uncertainty,
he wrote with a strange confidence:
“I am confident of this,” he says,
“that the one who began a good work among you
will bring it to completion
by the day of Jesus Christ.”
Do you hear that?
Do you hear the promise in that?
Paul was not simply offering a reassuring pat on the back.
He was making a bold declaration
about who God is
and what God is doing.
The God who started a work in you—
the God who made you,
the God who loves you,
the God who has gifted you,
and has walked with you,
and has seen your sins
as well as your strengths—
the God who has brought you this far
is not going to leave you unfinished.
Y’all, there are no loose ends
in the hands of our God.
That, my friends, is the promise of Advent.
We literally believe in a literal Messiah
who will literally come and literally finish
the literal work that he has literally begun . . .
not just in us, but in the whole cosmos.
And where some see that
as a violent threat of a dreadful end,
we see it as a promise of hope
and the final healing of all things, including us.
When we say, “Christ will come again,”
we’re saying God’s not done with us quite yet.
This is really good news for you
if you have ever felt
like you’re not quite finished . . .
like you’re still a work in progress . . .
like God’s still working on you.
Because you know what?
He is.
And what God begins, God finishes.
This is what Paul knew.
This is what Advent teaches us.
This is why you come here every week
and why Jesus Christ is your Lord.
And so, while we wait,
we let God keep working on us,
and we do that—as Paul says today—
by letting our love overflow more and more,
by growing in knowledge and insight,
and by seeking what is best.
In other words:
love big,
learn big,
and hold fast to what is good.
It’s not about perfection.
It’s about letting God’s
do God’s own steady work in us
and letting him do say—as Deacon Joe would say—
“in the fulness of time.”
What God has begun,
God will bring to completion.
* * *
But what about the Song of Zechariah?
This is one of those rare Sundays
when we use a canticle instead of a psalm.
Canticles are like little poems or songs in scripture,
and the words of this canticle
come straight out of the Gospel of Luke.
You may not know this,
but the Luke loved a good canticle,
so much so that when you read his gospel,
it can kind of seem
like a Broadway musical:
everybody’s bursting into song
every few minutes.
And today’s canticle is the words that
John’s the Baptist’s father sings
right after John is born.
But here’s the thing.
Zechariah didn’t sing this song right away.
When the angel Gabriel appeared to him,
announcing that his wife Elizabeth
would bear a son in her old age,
Zechariah didn’t believe it.
He doubted.
And for his doubt,
he was struck mute
until the promise was fulfilled.
For months, Zechariah lived in silence,
watching as God did exactly what he had promised.
And when his voice returned,
the first thing he did
was proclaim the faithfulness of God.
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,” he sang,
“because he has looked favorably on his people
and redeemed them.”
And then he turned his eyes to the future:
“By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
See, Zechariah’s isn’t just singing
about what God has done.
He’s also singing about what God is doing—
and what God will do.
When Zechariah finally finds his voice again,
the song he sings
is about a world in which
God’s mercy shines so bright,
that it cannot help but to reach
every corner of our darkened creation.
It’s not about a future of destruction and despair.
It’s about a future
where all things are made new:
including you,
including me,
including the nations at war,
including the weak and the poor,
including the sun and moon and stars above.
That’s the promise of the Second Coming.
It’s not an ending.
It’s a new dawn . . .
a dawn in which we may—
without shame or fear—
rejoice to behold his appearing.
* * *
And so, here we are.
A bunch of Episcopalians on a cold December morning,
waiting for the coming of Christ . . .
and what we don’t know about that great Day
could fill a warehouse.
Unlike other Christians,
we don’t presume to know the day or the hour;
we don’t pretend to know how it will unfold;
we don’t profess to know the details.
But what we do know is this:
Our God is not a God
who begins things
and doesn’t see them through.
What God has begun—
including in you—
God will bring to completion.
Christ has died,
Christ is risen,
Christ will come again.
So love big,
learn big,
hold fast to what is good,
and leave the rest to God.
For the same God who gave Zechariah a voice—
the same God who brings light to the darkness—
is at work in you.
And the work God has begun,
God will finish.
That, my friends, is the promise of Advent.
That, my friends, is the promise of the Second Coming.
And that, my friends, is the promise of a God
who always keeps his word.
Amen.