People, Look East - vs. #1
Advent 1 / Year C
I have decided this Advent
to do something I have never done before.
The focus of my next few sermons won’t be on the lectionary readings,
but rather the five verses of the hymn People, Look East, on which our
Advent wreath lighting liturgy is based.
This hymn features evocative images and a catchy tune (once you become
familiar with it).
Each year’s Advent readings
follow a particular thematic pattern:
Advent 1:
The final judgement.
Advent 2 & 3: The appearance of John the Baptist and his message.
Advent 4: The
angel Gabriel’s announcement and Mary’s response.
After all the years of
musing on these readings, I am ready to take on something new and fresh. Que the music for People, Look East!
Let’s begin with this:
why look East? The idea of East holds
special metaphorical significance for most cultures around the world primarily because
it is the direction from which the sun rises.
If you have ever driven overnight, you have experienced the anticipation
and felt the longing for the first hint of dawn in the eastern sky. Many religious traditions, including
Christianity, experience sunset as being a kind of dying. Sunrise is associated with resurrection, new
life, birth, and optimism for the day to come.
These are a couple of reasons to look toward a metaphorical East.
Another reason to cast
our gaze to the East is because it holds deep meaning in the bible. The Garden of Eden is built in the eastern
part of the land of Eden. When Adam and
Eve are expelled from paradise God sends them west. After Cain murders his brother, he is banished
even further west. Those exiled in
Babylon return to Jerusalem from the east.
To look to the East is to yearn to return to a place of original bliss,
to seek the restoration of life as God intends it to be.
In Matthew 24:27 Jesus
says, “Just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes in the west, so
will be the coming of the Son of Man.”
It is something of an odd statement because lightning travels up and
down and the weather in Israel generally moves from west to east. Perhaps Jesus is saying when you see
something completely unexpected, get ready to receive me.
And being prepared to
receive Jesus is a good way to approach the first verse of the hymn:
People, look East.
The time is near of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
trim the hearth
and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.
If you hosted family and
friends for Thanksgiving you know all about making your house fair, trimming
the hearth, and setting the table.
Hopefully these tasks built a sense of anticipation and excitement for
the arrival of those you invited and did not generate a sense of dread, regret,
or being overwhelmed.
As the hymn describes, we are now near the time of the crowing of the
year – the birth of Christ. This event
compels us to be ready because love is about to break into our lives in a fresh
and refreshing new way. This is not to
say love is only a visitor who appears for a few days and then is gone. Rather, it draws on the reality guests have a
way of bringing something new into our daily orbit. And it is not to say Love the guest only
comes at Christmas. God’s love visits us
over and over during the course of the year and throughout the arc of our life’s
journey.
In biblical times a guest brings news from beyond the local community,
offers new insights and perspectives, and opens our hearts receive something from
beyond ourselves. Just as Abraham learns
when he welcomes three visitors into his home and showers them with
hospitality, our guests have a way of being God’s agents. We experience the Holy One at work in and
through them.
The gospels portray Jesus as being the host of a meal only once or
twice: when he stands on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and cooks breakfast
for the disciples to eat after they spend the night fishing and, most notably
at the meal he shares with his followers on the night before he is arrested;
what we refer to as the Last Supper.
Every other time Jesus is a guest at a meal rather than the host. In addition, there is no biblical record of
Jesus receiving anyone into his own home.
Here is the remarkable thing about Jesus, the guest. Every time he has a meal in a person’s home or
enters it for one reason or another, either something happens which elicits one
of Jesus’ significant teachings, or something unfolds which dramatically
changes the course of the host’s life.
Think of when Jesus attends the wedding at Cana, goes to the home of
Mary and Martha, and has lunch with Zaccheaus.
He sits at table in the home of a Pharisee as well as a Roman
soldier. And several of his most
significant healings take place in the home of an afflicted person.
“Jesus, the guest, is on the way.”
This image casts us as hosts.
Whenever we welcome a person into our home, our life, or our church –
especially if the person is a stranger – we may just be welcoming Jesus into
our midst. And when we do this, we know
something wonderful, something amazing, something transformative is about to
happen. This is also a time for us to invite
Love, the guest, to enter into our own hearts and lives; to remember the same
Jesus who sat at table and changed lives desires to enter into your soul and reign
in your life.
People, look East, Christ, the guest is on the way.
