A sermon for the 4th Sunday of Advent
December 22, 2024, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs
Readings: Micah 5:2-5a; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-55
We are in a mess we cannot work ourselves out of. Advent (and it’s still Advent for a couple more days) begins in the dark: in the darkness of our brokenness, of our sorrow, of the mess we and the world have worked ourselves into. We find ourselves in a corner, and unable to get out. Oh, we try. We try everything we can think of. But there is simply no way out of this sin and death business, no way to free ourselves from the chains of decay, no way to shortcut our sanctification, our forgiveness, our healing, our wholeness.
Before we go on, though, a tale of two brothers: I would have been somewhere around 9 or 10. My mother, brother, and I dropped by my Uncle Bo’s apartment. There was a Rubiks cube on his shelf, and I had never seen one. He tossed it to me and said, “Figure it out.” So I did. Or I tried. I worked and worked and worked. I got decently good but never cracked the code of getting it all the way solved. I could get one or two sides solved, but then I would work myself into knots. One road trip not too long after, I was frustrated. I just couldn’t get past this stuck point. My brother, who is two years younger than I, asked if he could try. “Sure,” I said. “I’m done with it.” I handed it over. Eventually I lost interest and fell asleep. When I awoke, I discovered the Rubiks cube, on my lap, completely solved. My brother had figured it out! Or so I thought at first. But I quickly discovered that, no, he had simply removed and reattached the stickers. I was furious. I yelled at him: “You can’t just take shortcuts! You have to put the work in!”
In the face of brokenness, the brokenness in our lives and in our world, we tend to take one of those two approaches. We either try to work everything out as if the world rests on our own shoulders. Or we ignore it, take shortcuts, take advantage where we can. Both are survival strategies in the darkness. But both ultimately fall short. The brokenness, even when we hide it or try to sweep it away, is still there. The pain persists. The shadows lengthen. The Rubiks cube of sin and death, of pain and sorrow, of grief and despair, of hopelessness and darkness–it still needs to be solved.
Advent begins in this darkness, in this acknowledgement of our brokenness and our inability to work ourselves out of it. But Advent does not end there. It does not end like that unsolved Rubiks cube in the hands of children. No, Advent ends with a promise, with the breaking in of light, with newness and healing.
We hear that promise in our readings today. Micah tells us of one who will come out of Bethlehem, one whose origins are ancient and who will restore the flock of God. Hebrews tells us this person is Christ, who comes to do the will of the Father. And the will of the Father is this: to restore us and all things to relationship with him, and God accomplishes this through the very offering of his Son once for all on our behalf. In Luke, we hear Mary’s song, the Magnificat, about how God is doing this. Still pregnant, she already knows what God is up to–bringing healing and wholeness, turning the world upside down (which is actually rightside up), fulfilling the promise God once made to restore all things to relationship with himself. God will do this through this child that Mary will bear in Bethlehem, just as Micah once said.
Advent begins in the dark, but it ends in promise, in the light breaking out. We don’t want to believe it, though. Instead, like those children in the backseat, we try to take things into our own hands. Maybe we work and strive and try to prove ourselves perfect, try to save ourselves, try to heal ourselves and the whole world while we’re at it. It’s a fool’s errand. Or maybe we just take the stickers off, try to shortcut the problem, try to sweep it under the rug and pretend everything is okay. But it’s not, and we are still afflicted with suffering, with sin, with death, with sorrow, with darkness.
“Figure it out,” my uncle had told me. He said I was smart enough, and maybe I was. Maybe I would have eventually learned that I could go online and learn how to solve it. Maybe I would have eventually taken my brother’s path and cheated the system. But the power of sin and death is no Rubiks cube. It’s not something we can conquer by trying hard, being smart, gaming the system, or watching an online tutorial. It’s not a mess we can puzzle our way out of. We needed God in the flesh to show up to do what we could not. And that’s precisely what God does in Jesus Christ.
My friends, hear the gospel: Christ comes, even now, in promise. Christ comes into our darkness, into our pain, into our sorrow and isolation, and by his grace, by his life, death, and resurrection, he pulls us into new life and light. He pulls us into his love. He pulls us into healing and wholeness, forgiveness and mercy. You don’t have to solve the Rubiks cube of sin and death. You don’t have to pretend you figured it out already. You just have to receive the gift of new life.
Christ is coming to make all things new. To heal all things. To restore all things. To make sure that evil, and sorrow, and tears, and grief, and sin, and death, and even hell itself do not get the final word over us or over our world. Only God gets the last word. And God’s final word is love; God’s final word is grace; God’s final word is healing, for us and for the whole universe. And when we realize that, we cannot help but join Mary’s song: My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the lowliness of his servant–even you and me.
Storied Grace 