A man was running down the pier, heading for the ferry boat, afraid he was not going to make it. Here was a man of some status, a man who was concerned about his dignity. He wore a pin-striped suit, carried a black umbrella in one hand and a black boler hat in the other, which he was waving at the ferry boat, and yelling at the boat to stop so that he could get on it. He ran all the way to the end of the peer, furiously jumped and landed safely on the deck of the boat. Very proud of himself, he straightened his tie, and recovered his dignity. It was then that he discovered that the boat was not going out; it was coming in.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, and there is that kind of confusion about Advent and Christmas. Are we coming or going? Christmas is the celebration that Christ has come; Advent is the celebration that Christ is coming. Advent is preparation for Christmas.

Occasionally people want to know why we don’t sing the Christmas carols sooner in our church. We don’t begin earlier because we need to first sing the songs of Advent.

In the Christmas hymns, we focus on the manger in Bethlehem, the shepherds and the wise men, the mother and her baby, the most human of all scenes which speaks even to non-Christians because it is so universally human.

The songs of Advent tell about what happened before the child was born. They sweep back through history, back to the Israelites in bondage; longing for a Messiah we sang this morning:

O Come, O Come Immanuel
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Advent goes back to the Old Testament, back to a nation waiting, longing for God to come and deliver them.

But not only backward Advent then it looks forward, beyond what we can see. And says that what happened in Bethlehem is also mysteriously related to what will happen in the end, when Christ comes. One of the most beautiful of all Advent hymns expresses this. It’s a new hymn for many – but so full of Advent message.

“Of the Father’s love begotten,
Ere worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega,
He is the Source, the ending He.”

That’s the song of Advent, and it reminds us that what happened at the beginning and what will happen at the end are mysteriously related to what happened at Christmas. “He is the source, the ending He.” (Quotes from Mark Trotter, God Only Knows, this introduction about Advent suggested by him as well as the direct quotes).

Our scripture lesson today is Jesus’ dramatic picture of his own second coming. We call it Apocalypse. It pictures a show down between good and evil, a time when things are set straight. The prophets foretold it. Jesus Himself predicted it. He used the prophecies in Daniel that everybody in that day was familiar with, signs in the sun, moon and stars, the raging of the sea, the Son of Man coming on a cloud…That’s right out of Daniel.

The day is coming, he said, when the son of Man, the Messiah, will set things straight. We refer to it as The Second Coming. And that’s the theme song for many preachers. Though, I don’t like the emphasis on the Late Great Planet Earth and other efforts to predict the return of our Lord. Still the theme is important - in fact, crucial. Jesus came - that’s what Christmas is about. He is coming - that’s what Advent is about, as the creed puts it. He is coming again to judge the quick and the dead.

Now, to be preoccupied with trying to figure out the signs and devise a time line for his final coming misses the point. Jesus himself said in Mark 13:32: “But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father,” Then He goes on to say in verse 33 of that chapter in Mark, “Take heed, watch, for you do not know when the time will come.”

The central message of Advent is in our scripture lesson today - verse 28: “Look up and raise your head, because your redemption is drawing near.”

The Lord’s Supper is our celebration of the certainty of his coming. Three events are wrapped into one vivid sign.

The crucifixion - the reason for Christ’s coming - to die on the cross and save us from our sin - that is here - so we sometimes call it “the last supper” celebrating the Passover Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

The Resurrection is celebrated here. The Emmaus Supper is a part of our experience after his resurrection. Jesus joined two disciples walking from Jerusalem to Jericho, and they recognized him for who he was, the Risen Lord, when he broke the bread with them. So we celebrate his death and resurrection.

And His Second Coming is all celebrated here. So, the most complete experience of the Gospel in here, in this act, and in the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper.

Christ has risen.
Christ will come again.

This table anticipates the feast of the Kingdom, when the Lord will come again, and claim his own, raise those who have died in the Lord and gather them in His glamorous Kingdom where He will reign forever.

I’m going to eat at the banquet table on of these days. Glory Hallelujah! I’m going to eat at the banquet table one of these days.

So, advent celebrates the word of Jesus: “Look up and raise your head because your redemption is drawing near.”

There have been and there will always be signs of His coming. Solzhenitsyn related such a sign which overwhelmed him and turned his waiting in that long imprisonment of a Soviet Labor Camp into meaning and even Joy.

“His life was so bleak and empty that he was ready to end it. He was working outside on a slave labor detail and he had gone to such a depth of despair that he decided to provoke a guard into shooting him. He sat down for a break, and realized that a stranger had sat down beside him, someone he had never seen before and never saw again. For no explainable reason, this stranger took a stick and drew the shape of a cross on the ground in front of them both. Solzhenitsyn sat and stared at the cross, and as he did so his spirit was quickened by the presence of Christ who died to make men free and whole. He said fresh courage flowed through him and the will to live returned. He was determined to bring love to that barren Labor Camp and he did! Those signs have come and will continue to come to us. In them Jesus is saying, “Look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Don Shelby, The Presents of His Presence: Vision and Hope, p. 6)

We can wait for the Second Coming and the Mighty Victory and the Kingdom Banquet because we trust His promise.

It’s not an Advent song in the strictest sense of the word, and yet it is. We won’t sing it here in worship during Advent, or ever – some of you might faint if we did. Yet, it captures the certainty and joy that belongs to the Christian who claims the promise of a Second Advent, and a triumphant Kingdom coming.

Never mind that it wouldn’t pass some folks’ test of good music; that’s not the issue. The issue is a soul one and on a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 10. I quote just two verses and the chorus, and the celebrate of all those Perry County folks. I can hear them now singing with feeling because they believed what they sang.

While we walk the pilgrim pathway
Clouds will overspread the sky;
But when traveling days are over,
Not a shadow, not a sigh.

Let us then be true and faithful,
Trusting, serving every day;
Just on glimpse of Him in glory
Will the toils of life repay.

When we all…get to heaven…
What a day of rejoicing that will be!
When we all…see Jesus,
We’ll sing and shout…the victory.

It’s different from the advent hymn we sand to light out Advent wreath but it’s the same affirmation.

Of the Father’s love begotten,
Ere the worlds began to be,
He is alpha and omega,
He is the Source, the ending He.

Come to the feast, the feast of His coming with joy!