Are you ready yet?

The countdown has begun- on Tuesday here I will lead our first carol service with the local scouts,  All around us at the moment is getting ready – the lights switched on, the shops urging us to get ready, and as a Mum as well as a vicar I have been getting ready for quite a considerable time already with my long list of presents to buy and the joy of online shopping!

And today in the churches year the countdown starts proper with the first Sunday of Advent – when we talk a lot about getting ready.

Our reading which was the reading set for today talks about getting ready,  not getting ready for Christmas when we celebrate Jesus born as a baby in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago but getting ready for the next time Jesus will come again to earth – what we think of as the second coming at the end of time.

It’s not an easy thing to grasp but I think it does help us to think about what faith is all about and asks us to think for ourselves about what we believe.

Now whenever I go to the cinema I tend to go to see chic flicks but I am always amazed at how many disaster movies are advertised,

Time and time again you see portrayed the major disaster from the invasion by aliens to the virus that has no cure all of which point to the end of the world – the end of the world will be upon us unless we get the vaccine right or unless we have the ability to somehow destroy the incoming invasion.

The story of the end of the world or the potential end of the world makes great cinema and I guess for most of us the thought of it ends there.

But there are also those who like to think they can work it all out.

There are those who down the centuries have told us that the end of the world will end on this or that date.

Back in 1842 an American William Miller predicted that Christ would come again on 21^st March, he had to revise his date a few times as with each date nothing happened.

Finally he came up with 22^nd October 1844 and was widely publicised.

As news of this spread it had a disastrous effect on people -One account of this time notes that “Fields were left unharvested, shops were closed, people quit their jobs, paid their debts, and freely gave away their possessions with no thought of repayment.” 

Of course we know that as before this date came and went.

But people still are fascinated with this and we still have predictions made

There was a date recently worked out by some complicated mathematical formula- but it came and went.

But the message of this reading is as clear today as it was to the people of Jesus’ time – we don’t know when it will happen – so there is no point trying to predict it - but it will and we need to get ready for it.

But how exactly are we to get ready for it.

The disaster movies would have us fill our cupboards with food or even better have some sort of nuclear bunker but the message from this reading is something very different.

We are not to prepare physically for this event but we are to prepare spiritually.

To really understand the significance of Jesus coming again we need to understand the significance of Jesus coming in the first place.

And to understand that we need to think not in terms of the big disaster movie – but more in terms not of the chick flick but more in terms of the Great love story.

Because that is what is at the heart of the Christmas message.

It was God’s intention when he created mankind to have a relationship with him – but because of mankind’s free will they turned away from him so he had to somehow turn this round.

A little story to illustrate the point- just imagine we are in the time set in Merlin if you ever watch it.

The Prince of the kingdom falls in love as he rides through the town with a beautiful peasant girl.

What can he do – if he ordered her to marry him or even if he went up to her and tried to get her to love him as he was “the prince” how could he be sure she was marrying him for the right reasons.

So he decides to give up all his princely attire and leave the castle, and for a period to live as one of the peasants and in turn she got to  know and love him for herself.

He made himself like one of the people so that she could know him in an understandable way.

And it’s a bit like that with Jesus coming to human kind, God made himself understandable so that we could know and love him for ourselves and of course more than that he had a plan of salvation we which we see revealed at the first Easter.

But what difference does that make to each of us as individuals.

You see what Jesus says to us from this reading is that one day he is going to come again and we need to be ready for that.

And to do that we need to have thought through the implications of him coming in the first place and what difference that makes to our lives.

Because the reality of the Christmas story is such that it isn’t just a nice story – we make it appear cutesy on our Christmas cards and in Children’s nativity plays but it is far from that.

It asks us that question have we realised what God was doing when he came? God made himself knowable to us when Jesus came into the world – have we got to know him for ourselves?

This time of year – Advent urges us to see the miracle of God breaking into our world. –Jesus is going to come again – but have we thought about the significance of him coming in the first place?

Is it just something we may think we believe but it hasn’t made a difference to our lives.

In 2002 in America the Allstate insurance company surveyed Californians in earthquake- prone regions.  They found out that 64% of those who responded believed that a massive earthquake would hit within 3-5 years, but only 25% of them had earthquake insurance.

We can be a bit like that too with our belief- we may think we believe in the fact that Jesus came as God but actually it has made no obvious difference in our lives.

Advent and getting ready points us to change this.

To think about what difference it could make in our lives that Jesus came the first time and that he is coming back again.

We don’t know when it could be in may be in our lifetime if may not be for another 1,000 years but Jesus tells us here to get ready.

So how do we do this.

And this is where faith is all about.
To begin to discover for yourself what a difference a relationship with God can make.

Stepping out in faith is about putting your trust in God even if you don’t understand it all –because most of us throughout our lives don’t.

I remember in my early twenties spending many evenings with a friend discussing the reality or not of God.

Discussing the big philosophical questions into the early hours of the morning.

And in the end I said to him – we can discuss this til the cows come home but in the end you need to take it from a philosophical viewpoint to the reality of faith you need to find out for yourself whether or not faith is real to you.

Another friend of mine did just that – he didn’t know what he was doing but just one night knelt down and prayed and said God if you are there just reveal yourself to me- I don’t understand it all but I do want to know more.

And in answer to that prayer he had a huge sense of God’s presence with him – he discovered more as he went on what that was all about – but he just took the first step of faith and God honoured that.

Perhaps this Advent as we are called to Get ready – we need to think about that.

How am I open to what God is all about, how am I open to what a difference God can make in my life.

Then we will be ready when he comes again as our reading said: with great power and glory.

Amen