This is an adapted form of the sermon I preached on December 3, 2023, the First Sunday of Advent. The text I preached on was Isaiah 64:1-9. You can view a video of the sermon here.

Advent is a season of waiting. Waiting. Waiting. It’s December now, but in the church, it’s not Christmas yet – that doesn’t come until sunset on December 24. First, we have four weeks of waiting. Waiting. Waiting. And sometimes in the church it feels like capricious and arbitrary waiting. Like a mother slapping our hand at the cookie jar. Oh, oh, oh! No cookies yet! Oh, oh, oh! No Christmas carols yet in church!

That’s how Advent comes across sometimes. But it’s not meant to be like that. It’s meant to be a different kind of waiting. A longing. A yearning. A yearning that we feel in our bones. It’s the kind of yearning that brings people to attend a monthly healing service like the one we have today after worship. More on that in a minute. It’s the kind of yearning the prophet Isaiah proclaimed in our first reading today. More on that in a minute. It’s the kind of yearning found in my favorite Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. More on that now.

It’s a Wonderful Life is a story of yearning, the yearning of a man named George Bailey. Growing up in the little town of Bedford Falls in the 1920s, George yearned to travel the world, to get out of Bedford Falls, and see everything there was to see. When he was 18, he was ready to fulfill his dream. He had saved enough money, and was all set to tour the world before starting college. But just before he left, George’s father, the president of the Building and Loan in town, died. The villain of the movie, Mr. Potter, wanted to use this as an opportunity to shut down the Building and Loan, but the board of directors of the bank voted to keep it open under one condition – if George would take over. So George canceled his trip. He gave all his vacation and tuition money to his brother Harry, with the expectation that when Harry graduated, he would take over the bank, and then George would travel.

For the next four years, George still yearned to get away. But it didn’t work out that way. When Harry graduated from college, he had a lucrative job offer from his father-in-law, and George insisted that he take it. So George continued to stay in Bedford Falls.

Eventually he fell in love and got married, and he was so excited to be able to finally travel, if only for a honeymoon. But the night of his marriage, there was a bank run on the Building and Loan – it was the Great Depression after all – and George and his new wife Mary used their honeymoon money to keep the bank solvent.

Over and over, George’s plans to travel were thwarted. His yearning only grew stronger – and he never did travel out of Bedford Falls. And yet, It’s a Wonderful Life has a happy ending. George’s yearning was fulfilled in the end, but not at all the way he expected. I’ll come back to that.

Let’s look now at the reading from Isaiah. Isaiah proclaimed in beautiful poetry the yearning of the Israelite people. Listen again to some of his words:

 We all fade like a leaf,
  and our sins, like the wind, take us away.
 ⁷There is no one who calls on your name,
  or attempts to take hold of you;

This is how the people of Israel were feeling – fading like a winter leaf, blown away on the wind, isolated, alone. Isaiah also wrote this:

 ³When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,
  you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.

He remembered what God had done in the past, and he yearned for God’s presence again now. Listen to how he speaks to God:

 ⁸Yet, O Lord, you are as a father to us;
  we are the clay, and you are our potter;
  we are all the work of your hand.
 ⁹Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord,
  and do not remember our sin forever.
  Consider, we are all your people.

Isaiah knew that God loved the people, and he prayed for God to remember that. That’s the kind of yearning we know today as well. We gather here each week proclaiming our faith in God, and yet we still yearn for God to be with us NOW. And together with Isaiah, we cry out:

 ¹O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,

We cry out, tear open the heavens, God! Come down and shake up this world! Then we will have comfort, and peace, and hope once more. Isn’t that our yearning cry? At least sometimes?

I proclaim this to you. All of these longings are answered. All of these yearnings are fulfilled. The yearning of the Israelites. The yearning of George Bailey. The yearning of those of you who will stay for the healing service today. The yearning of your own heart.

But maybe not the way we expect.

Consider George Bailey. George Bailey never travels the world, but he discovers through the intervention of an angel that what he really yearns for, what he needs more than anything else, is to be part of a community that knows him, loves him, recognizes him, and needs him. Now I won’t spoil the movie for you because if you haven’t seen it, you should! But suffice it to say, he receives that in a big, big way.

Consider the Israelites. God did tear open the heavens and come down – but not in the military they expected. God did not shake the earth like they expected, but God stirred their hearts. And God did come down. If you recall the story of Jesus at his baptism, you may recall that just as he came out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart, and a voice came from heaven, “This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The heavens were torn apart as God came to this world as Jesus Christ. And through Jesus, God did proclaim that the people’s sins were forgiven. And that they were his people forever. Just as Isaiah yearned for. And through Jesus, God proclaimed that this is true for us, as well.

Consider those who will attend the healing service today. They will come forward with many sorts of yearning. Perhaps yearning for a disease to be cured. Perhaps yearning for pain to cease. Perhaps yearning for a relationship to be mended. Perhaps yearning for grief to be assuaged. But even as they come forward, they know that the laying on of my hands, and the anointing of oil, will not do these things. There’s no magic here, and miracles like that are quite rare. And yet we come.

Because we also yearn for hope. We also yearn for peace. We also yearn for the presence of God in our lives in the midst of our suffering. And that we do receive in the moment of healing. God does promise to provide that to us.

And that’s our experience every week we gather here. Every week we gather here is both Advent and Christmas. We come to this place each week with hearts that yearn, and we know that some of that yearning will still be there when we leave. That’s the meaning of Advent. Yearning.

And we come to this place each week trusting that Christ is here. That God’s presence is here in this place today, answering, fulfilling, meeting our deepest yearnings. That’s the meaning of Christmas. Yearning fulfilled by the coming of Christ into our world, into our hearts. We gather in a tension of Advent and Christmas.

And so this season, we are focusing on this tension. The first half of worship each week is focused on our yearnings, as we sing Advent hymns of longing and waiting. And then the second half of worship, which begins as we prepare for communion, focuses on the presence of God, on the coming of Christ in bread and wine. At Christmas, Christ came in a manger, which is a place where animals eat. A manger provides food and nourishment. How appropriate that we celebrate the coming of Christ each week with food! Each week, the heavens are torn apart as we share this food that brings Christ’s presence into our very bodies. And that, our final hymn will be a Christmas carol of celebration. 

The good news is that God is here, even now, even while we yearn. We may yearn that God would shake this world and fix everything. God may not shake the world, but God will come, and will stir us up. God will stir up God’s power, and stir up our hearts, and stir up our wills, and God will make those hearts and wills shine with the brightness of the true Light. God is here, and even while we yearn, we rejoice.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay