I count a sermon's quality by the number of days that its basic message can be remembered. If I remember what a sermon was about on the following Thursday, I try to let the preacher know this. By this standard, a sermon that I heard 30 years ago must have been beyond outstanding.
The message started out as a lament for the modern loss of the season of Advent as the secular world's commercialized version of Christmas overwhelms it. Most sermons on this subject focus on the damage to the Christian meaning of Christmas, but this message had a point that was completely new to me.
The dictionary defines an "advent" as a beginning or an arrival. In the Church, we have observed a season for the four weeks prior to Christmas as a preparation for the arrival of Jesus Messiah, the Christ, in two quite different ways. The first is a remembrance and celebration of the Nativity. The Incarnation, when God chose to "pitch God's tent in our camp", was a moment of great beginnings that have echoed throughout the world ever since. The second reason for preparation is for the arrival of Christ at His "Second Coming", an unknown and unknowable event at the end of time.
The surprising idea in that sermon from 30 years ago was the "Third Advent". Yes, the preacher assured us that there are three supremely important arrival events for each of us to prepare for. The third Advent is the moment we discover Jesus, our savior, to be real in our lives. This third Advent comes when we see the connection between the magnificence of the world and the beauty of the people that surround us. It's the moment when the dull and ordinary things acquire the glow of the Spirit and become new for us. It's that time that you first saw the face of Jesus looking back at you from a stranger.
There are three Advents: when Jesus first arrives in Bethlehem, when He comes for us at the end of time, and when we discover Him in the middle of our world today. Preparing for these arrivals will make the Christmas season (all 12 days of it) all the more powerful for us.
