And they shall name him Emmanuel, homily by Jan Robitscher

“And they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.”
(Matt. 1:23)

Friday, Week of Advent 3, Feria
Jeremiah 23:5-8
Ps. 72:11-18
Romans 8:18-27
Matthew 1: 18-25

Jan Robitscher
All Saints Chapel
CDSP
December 19, 2009

In the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

This is the truth sent from above,
The truth of God, the God of love,
Therefore don’t turn me from your door,
But hearken all, both rich and poor.1

So here we are. It is a time of beginnings and endings. Yesterday was the beginning of the Great O Antiphons, those beautiful names for Emmanuel (God-with-us) which we sing as the hymn “O Come O Come Emmanuel”. It is a time of beginnings: of the Church Year, the first half of which takes us through the story of our salvation from Advent to Pentecost; of the anticipation of our celebrations of Jesus’ birth. And it is a time of endings: the end of the semester, the end of the frenetic shopping marathon, almost the end of the year 2009, the end of the third week of Advent, and our, perhaps fearful, ponderings of the End when Christ will come again. Advent means “to come to”--God to us--and us to God. We feel caught between the times in what one commentator has called “the anxiety of Advent”.

Our lessons speak of beginnings, endings and the anxiety of Advent. It is the end of the long search for a savior--someone to redeem us from sin and death--though it would be some
time before the whole story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection would play out. But we often miss the very beginning of the story, and here our lectionary could be of more help. Unless you are fortunate to attend a service of Lessons and Carols (come to St. Mark’s this Sunday at 4:30 p.m.) or the Great Vigil of Easter, the whole sweeping story of salvation history is never presented. But wait! Though sacred Scripture is the primary--but not the only place-- to find this story. Almost every Christmas carol we know (and some Easter carols besides) begin at the very beginning, with the creation and the Fall and go on to tell the story of the coming of Jesus to redeem us, and look to his coming again. How I would love to sing them all! But I will let the English carol “The Truth From Above” suffice for now. The next verses tell the beginning of the story:

The first thing which I do relate
Is that God did man create;
The next thing which to you I’ll tell,
Woman was made with man to dwell.

Then after this was God’s own choice
To place them both in Paradise,
There to remain from evil free
Except if they ate from such a tree.

We live in a world suffering from the effects of the Fall. Torn by wars abroad and violence at home, where there is sickness, evil and death, poverty and pollution all around us. Our world is literally melting away before our eyes, and every day people suffer and die for lack of daily necessities and health care. In many ways, we are like those who, for thousands of years, hoped for a savior. Indeed, St. Paul cries out that:

the whole creation has been groaning
in labor pains until now; and not only
the creation, but we ourselves...groan
inwardly while we wait for adoption,
the redemption of our bodies... (Romans 8: 22)

OK, we have permission to groan, at least inwardly! But our groaning is not without hope. In fact, we (and the whole creation) are groaning for what we already have! St. Paul goes on “For in hope we were saved”. Back to our carol:

And they did eat, which was a sin,
And thus their ruin did begin;
Ruined themselves, both you and me
And all of our posterity.

The anxiety of Advent becomes much more specific in St. Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth, which emphasizes Joseph’s experience. Here we see Joseph’s questions about the past and
anxiety about the future: what to do about Mary, already pregnant and not yet married. Fortunately, Joseph’s response to his anxiety is not to despair, but to be attentive to his dreams and willing to change his course of action by following the angel’s instructions. Hear another verse from our carol:

Thus we were heirs to endless woes,
Til God the Lord did interpose;
And so a promise soon did run
That he would redeem us by his Son.

So what do we do about the anxiety of Advent? How do we live in the already and the not yet? In this last week, do we try to escape the anxiety of Advent in frantic shopping? Do we just give in and hole up in despair? Or can we put aside the rush and the temptation to despair and, in the present moments of the next week, walk the prayerful path that will lead us to the manger? We can do this by doing as Joseph did: commending the events of the past that had brought him to this holy birth to God, and commending the future to God by accepting that the Child to be born would somehow play the ultimate part in God’s plan for the salvation of the whole world. And we can do as St. Paul tells us: to join the whole creation’s groan for redemption of our bodies, for the coming of God’s reign.

I would close with the last two verses of our English carol:

And at this season of the year
Our blest Redeemer did appear;
He here did live and here did preach.
And many thousands he did teach.

Thus he in love to us behaved,
To show us how we must be saved.
And if you want to know the way,
Be pleased to hear what he did say.

“Keep alert; you do not know when
the hour will come.”
(Mark 13:33)

Year B Advent I

Jan Robitscher
St. Mark’s Church
Berkeley, CA
November 30, 2008

Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80: 1-7, 16018

I Corinthians1:3-9
Mark 13: 24-37


With inward pain my heartstrings sound,
my soul dissolves away;
Dear Sovereign, whirl the seasons round,
Dear Sovereign, whirl the seasons round,
And bring, and bring the promised day,
And bring the promised day.
(Early American Hymn-from An Advent Sourcebook, p. 4)



In the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today we begin another Church Year. It is the season of Advent, which means literally “to come to”--primarily God to us--and us to God. It is a season of waiting, of hoping, of longing--and, especially in these times, impatience, despair and frustration. Hoping and longing. Already and not yet. Trying to keep our focus, our intention on waiting in hope is the work of this season. But what are we waiting for? And, when we are impatient, why does it seem that God does not hear our cry?

Advent always begins for me with a vision of the cosmos--deep space, “galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses”1 --a peaceful and silent scene of God’s pristine creation. Close your eyes just for a moment and imagine it.

But then I see the ring of space junk around the earth and I remember again the Story, beginning with the creation and the stories of Adam and Eve how for their disobedience they were expelled from the garden, and how that propels the whole story of Salvation History. Look at the windows around the church, you will see it there. We hear it each week in the eucharistic prayer. And we will see it play out writ large over the seasons of the Church Year between now and Pentecost.

I think of the People Israel; their Exodus from slavery, their wanderings in the desert, both physically and spiritually; how they received the Law, then begged God for judges and kings, and still they wandered from God. And God sent them prophets (lots of prophets) who came with dire warnings and imploring prayers:
But you [God] were angry, and we sinned...We all fade like a leaf
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away...Do not be
exceedingly angry, O Lord... (Isaiah 64: 5, 9)

The Psalms are full of both the exhortation to wait patiently upon God and the cry of impatience in bad times:
Restore us, O God of hosts;
show the light of your countenance and we shall be saved. (Ps. 80:3)

And we want to cry out:

“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!”

Then came John the Baptist, preaching a baptism of repentance. “Make straight the Way of the Lord!” John the Forerunner, preparing the way for Jesus to come. Of John Jesus said:
What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more
than a prophet. (Matt. 11:9)

And God did rend the heavens and come down--though not in a way that anyone expected: the First Coming of Christ.

That was not the end of the waiting--30 years before Jesus’ public ministry; three days in the tomb before his resurrection. Yet there were many times in his earthly ministry that Jesus did “rend the heavens” to heal the sick, give peace to those in mental distress and raise the dead, and finally trampled down death by his own death to gift us with eternal life. Eventually the disciples could look back, as we can, and see that they were never alone--and neither are we. Jesus was there all along--from the beginning, “the Word made flesh” --and he is here with us now, walking with us on our journey through hard economic times and wars and change and transition. “And remember,” he has promised, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age. This is the gift of the First Coming of Christ.

And Jesus ascended to heaven and the disciples waited until God sent the Holy Spirit upon them and the Church was born. And from its beginnings, has been waiting with expectation and longing (and, at times, great fear) for the Second Coming of Christ. St. Paul encourages us with the words he used to encourage the Church at Corinth:
[Christ] will strengthen you to the end, that you may be
blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. (I Cor. 3:9)

And the Church is still waiting for that great and terrible and joyful day when Christ will come again. We say so every Sunday in the Creed, that we believe that Christ will come to judge the living and the dead. But, says Jesus,


...about that day or hour no one knows, neither the
angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father... (Mark 13:32)

Three times in this Gospel passage Jesus exhorts us: Keep Awake! And we need to hear it in an age of anxiety when we would rather hibernate in the dark days and nights or rush headlong into whatever is left of the shopping season to take our minds off the news. Keep awake! Watch the Advent wreath each week as we light another candle. Listen as the music of this season gives us both expressions of Christ coming again in glory and the most tender consolations of his lowly birth. Hear the story again. Stay alert! Keep awake!

And if you are wondering what this all means or what this kind of waiting looks like, we need look no farther than our Communion anthem today to find out. Paul Manz wrote “E’en So, Lord Jesus Quickly Come” by the hospital bed of his dying son in the late hours of one dark night, so the story goes (perhaps now embellished by urban legend). With words from the end of the book of Revelation, it is at once a “Rend the heavens! cry and an act of waiting in hope, and even of letting go, knowing that God will act at just the right time. God did act, and the child lived.

Which brings me back to that opening vision of Advent: the stars of night, but this time unspoiled by space junk. I see new heavens and a peaceful earth, restored and healed. And surprises beyond our deepest longings and expectations. These are the gifts of the Second Coming of Christ.

So what do we do in the meantime? We wait. And if the times are too hard and the waiting becomes unbearable, we cry out to God:
O that you would tear upon the heavens and come down!

Or we can pray again that Early American hymn:

With inward pain my heartstrings sound,
my soul dissolves away;
Dear Sovereign, whirl the seasons round,
And bring, and bring the promised day,
And bring the promised day.

“On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples.. and his dwelling shall be glorious”
(Isaiah 11:10)


Year A Advent II
Isaiah 11:1-10
Psalm 72
Matthew :1-12
Jan Robitscher
St. Mark’s Church
Berkeley, CA
December 10, 2006

Creator of the stars of light
Your peoples’ everlasting light;
O Christ, redeemer of us all,
We pray you hear us when we call.

We have entered the season of Advent, that time of preparation for the comings of Christ, yes, comings: past, present and future. But the image I had again as Advent began a week ago goes back long before Jesus’ birth. It goes back, back to the creation of the cosmos. Perhaps it is what the astronauts on the Shuttle see, or pictures from the Hubble Telescope. It is at once beautiful and terrifying. That’s why Advent would not really be Advent (at least for me) without singing “Creator of the stars of night”.[1] In order to prepare for our celebrations of Christmas we must hear the whole story from the very beginning if it is all going to make sense. That really happens only two times each Church Year: at our annual Festival of Lessons and Carols (next Sunday) and at the Great Vigil of Easter. In the meantime, this little evening hymn which dates from the ninth century[2], Conditor alme siderum, helps us do just that.

We don’t know much about darkness these days. Night is lit up like the day. We can’t even see the stars for the street lights. Even the candles of our Altar and Advent wreath are drowned by the electricity that lights this sacred space. And our nights are turned into days with the noise of Christmas commerce and days are turned to nights in the horrors of sickness, crime and war. So we have to imagine the real, silent darkness--of winter--of the cosmos.

What comes next in our hymn is the whole story of Salvation history in a verse:
In sorrow that the ancient curse
Should doom to death a universe,
You came, O Savior, to set free
Your own in glorious liberty.

A pristine universe and an earth with its creatures and people created in quiet harmony with God soon became a place of disobedience, shame and destruction--the story of Adam and Eve. And God, who called (and still calls) it all good, tried again and again to call God’s chosen people Israel back, producing kings, judges and prophets, great signs and miracles, love songs--anything to woo people back to life in God. Finally, God sent John the Baptist to announce the coming Kingdom and Jesus’ place in it:
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
has come near.” (Matt. 3:2)

God decided to risk taking on human flesh, to be born into our world, and so Jesus came to live and die to redeem us. All along, God knew that we needed a Savior.

Of course, we know the end of the story. We know that Advent, is about “Jesus’ glorious coming to complete his Easter work.”[3] So we celebrate not only Jesus’ birth but his earthly ministry, redeeming death and resurrection. As Martin Luther said, “The wood of the crib is the wood of the cross.” But we also celebrate his presence here. And we look for his second coming, which, says John the Baptist, does involve judgment:
“His winnowing fork is in his hand and he
will clear the threshing floor...” (Matt 3: 12)

Though, as Isaiah says,
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear:
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.

Not much has changed. We have ravaged our beautiful earth--our “fragile island home”[4] in the cosmos. We still long for what we already have--a Savior. Yet we live in hope for a time, the time Isaiah describes, when all creatures will again live in harmony with God. And we believe that when Jesus comes again he will bring the final restoration of all things. So our hymn says:
At your great Name, O Jesus, now
All knees must bend, all hearts must bow;
All things on earth with one accord,
Like those in heaven, shall call you Lord.


Which leaves us where we are: right here, at Evensong, at night, in approaching winter, at prayer. We are here to prepare ourselves--no, to ask God to help prepare us--for the celebration of the comings of Jesus.

And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name,
let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon
and the stars, and the Earth with its forests and mountains
and oceans--and all that lives and moves upon them... and all
that we quarrel about and all that we have misused--and to
save us from our own foolishness, from all our sins, He came
down to Earth and gave us himself.[5]

The Good News is that the comings of Jesus--all of them--tell us that we need no longer fear the darkness. The vision of the beautiful and terrifying, dark and silent cosmos with which I started is both the beginning and the end of the story of our salvation. Jesus came to free us from sickness, evil and death, and will bring us to that day where there will be no more cancer, crime or war, and no more darkness, but a restored world in a universe at peace in the glorious light of the Reign of God where the stars sing for joy. For this greatest gift of God’s redeeming love, we cannot help but sing:

To God the Father, God the Son
And God the Spirit, Three in One,
Praise, honor, might and glory be
From age to age eternally. Amen.


[1] from a quote of Chrysogonus Waddell, from An Advent Sourcebook, pp 2-3.
[2] The Hymnal 1982 Companion, Vol. Three A, pp. 113-115,
[3] from a quote of Charles K. Riepe, An Advent Sourcebook, p. 12.
[4] Eucharistic Prayer C, BCP, p. 369ff.
[5] Sigrid Undset