Grace to you and peace from our loving God and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Happy New Year! Strange as that may sound at the end of November, all of the liturgical churches of the world begin today a new year in the recurring cycle of the remembrance of God's acts in history.

We observe a liturgical year that begins with Advent and ends with a recognition of Christ's ultimate reign, which we did last Sunday. Today, and in the coming weeks of Advent, we make a new beginning. And, today, we set the scene for the start of the journey.

The themes ought to be familiar by now—at least for those of us who have been through this cycle a number of times. They are anticipation, expectation, preparation—and along with these waiting, longing, watching, hoping, and praying. Advent, which means "to come" is a time of expectant preparation for the coming of Christ at Christmas. Advent is a time of readying ourselves for the new beginning that comes to us each Christmas Day, and indeed every day of our lives.

These are the themes of all of our Advent hymns. Ponder the words as you sing them. "Prepare the Royal Highway; the King of kings is near." "Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying." "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." "Savior of the Nations, Come." That last one provides some insight into why our national church has designated the First Sunday of Advent as "Companion Synod Sunday." The preparations that we make in these brief weeks anticipate the arrival of the One who is Savior of all and the One who inspires our work of accompaniment in the task of mission.

Advent is a time of preparing for a new beginning that is not simply about the arrival of the Christ Child in Bethlehem. Advent calls for a focus both on the past and on the future as we live in the present. When we think as Christians about the advent of our God, we think in two different directions—backward to the advent of God in the incarnation at Christmas and forward to the anticipated coming of Christ in all his power to bring about the full glory of the kingdom. We both recall Christ's coming in humility, and hope for Christ's coming in power at the end of time.

Theologians talk of this duality of focus as living "in the time between the times." It's a fun way of saying that we live after the time when God came to us in Christ but before the time when Christ will come again. We live in the time between the first and the second comings of Christ into the world. And it is in this time between the times that we now experience this Advent season. As we consider making preparations for a new beginning, therefore, we might start at any of three different points—the past, the present, or the future—as represented by the three scripture readings.

We could, for instance, exercise our imaginations and attempt to envision a time before the birth of Jesus, and place ourselves in the world of the prophet Isaiah speaking the words of today's Old Testament lesson. That might be a less difficult task in these troubled times, when lament is often on our lips over wars and economic crisis. Isaiah too lamented—over the condition of Jerusalem and the temple—as a Jew returning from the Babylonian exile in the sixth century B.C. In our laments over war, the stock market, energy issues, pollution, climate change, and widespread hunger and poverty, we might join Isaiah in an appeal for help:

O that you would tear open the heavens and come downto make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!" (64:1-2)

If we choose this path for our Advent journey, we might also, with Isaiah, seek to experience where God is absent from our lives and how deeply we have sinned against God, looking forward to God's deliverance from our bondage to sin—looking forward with the hope of one who has found every other search for meaning empty when compared with the one that leads to God. This is the kind of approach to Advent that I remember from my childhood—Advent seen as a time similar to Lent, with self-examination and confession having primary importance.

This is the sense of the final words from the Isaiah text this morning:

Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. (64:8)

There is a yielding here to the grace of the one who created us and who still cares for us as a parent for a child. It is a caring that carries the power to save.

Another way of making Advent a time of preparation for a new beginning is to focus our prayers and reflections on the tension inherent in living in the here and now—in this "time between the times." In these days, we are simultaneously jubilant—that Christ has come into the world and our lives-and frustrated—that until Christ's second coming we can wrest from these times a mere foretaste of the feast to come. We live the struggle begun at our baptisms between the internal and external forces of good and evil, between our redeemed and our sinful natures, desiring the good and the evil and often making the wrong choice.

We experience that tension in different ways. It's the kind of thing that calls to mind the tension I felt twenty-seven years ago. I was then preparing to go before the Synod Examining Committee—on December 1, 1981.

I had gone through many preparations in the process leading to ordination in the Church. Those years were a kind of extended Advent-an extended period of work towards a vocational goal. It is the kind of experience that is mirrored in setting the stage for any occupation or for a significant life event such as marriage or having children. I remember vividly the sense of anticipation—and anxiety—as I looked to the imminent arrival of that day when I had to stand before the bishop and a group of experienced pastors and lay people in order to defend my preparedness for the ministry. That moment held such promise, coupled with such power to alter the course of my life. Their decision would determine largely the shape of the rest of my life.

It was a powerful experience of living in "the time between the times." And it was exceedingly uncomfortable to live only in hope and not by sight, in expectation and not realization, in bone-chilling fear and not fulfilled relief. It was life in a limbo where the direction of my life was beyond my direct control.

This is kind of place we all know in part during Advent. It is an opportunity for a new beginning over which we have no direct control. We prepare ourselves anew to experience the re-birth of Christ in our hearts, as well as to experience the grace and peace that Paul invokes in today's second lesson. He knows that:

...you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end (1 Cor. 1:7-8)

While the Old Testament reading leads us into an Advent focusing on the past—on history, and on God's acts for us—the second lesion encourages us to look to a present, existential, and internal Advent. We are called to the preparations of repentance and prayer that lead to a new beginning of Christ's life in us. This approach takes seriously the liturgical year as an opportunity to focus on our spiritual lives, allowing Advent to bring about in us a spiritual renewal culminating in the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem and the rebirth of Christ in our hearts, thereby enabling further growth through the remainder of the year.

A third option for us is depicted in the gospel. The emphasis here isn't on the past or the present, but the future. This focus on the second coming of Christ makes Advent less a time both of preparation and of anticipation. But the anticipation called for by Mark doesn't imply that we should neglect our daily tasks. He exhorts us not to be inactive, but to be watchful:

Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the head of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, ar at dawn, or else you may be found asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake. (13:35-37)

There is clear urgency and expectation and tension here. In this mode of Advent, Mark calls us to reflect on all that we do with our lives. He entreats us to live responsibly and to work faithfully in this time before Christ's coming again. Our work isn't a diversion or pastime. It is integral to the full drama of salvation, with which our Lord has charged each of us to accomplish. We anticipate the coming fulfillment and live out Advent fully within the process of our being alert, active, and watchful in our labors.

Whatever focus or theme you choose for Advent this liturgical year—whether looking back with inward reflection, to the day with its struggles, or to the future that beckons, do make every effort to reclaim Advent's spiritual meaning and function. As the Church, we are trusted to witness with our lives the full sense of the season—spiritual not material, hopeful not greedy.

Perhaps we can move beyond the "taking for granted" that so stains these days and be about the proper business of making holy preparations in this "time between the times." Amen.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord unto eternal life. Amen.