We know it’s coming, but it still always seems to catch us unawares. That’s Advent I’m talking about, the season we enter as of today. The Altar Guild remembers ahead of time, the choir has been preparing for this Sunday, but for the rest of us, we seem to catch our breath with surprise when we walk into church the First Sunday of Advent. We’re seeing the color purple instead of the green we’ve noticed for months, we see the Chrismon tree set up underneath the pulpit, and the circle of evergreen with one of its candles newly lit. Things look different around here. Even the flowers today pick up the color of purple.

Around town, the traffic is increasing, those wild and crazy traffic guards are back at Friendly Center blowing their blasted whistles, and we’re noticing Christmas decorations sprouting up around our neighborhoods. Still full of Thanksgiving turkey, maybe some of us have been busy this weekend getting a head start on The List – you know - the list that starts with a capital T and a capital L. Only 25 days left, don’t you know?

Whether we’re more aware of the secular world as we gear up for Christmas or of the sacred world as we gear up for Christmas, the truth of the matter is that the time has come. We have December 25th on our calendars. We’ve already started thinking about gifts, about parties, about menus, about airline reservations, about plans and cards and trees and decorations.

It’s an odd time of year, this Advent season, as we try our best to live into its sparseness and introspection at the same time we’re trying to get ready for the elaborate and extroverted family and church feast that is Christmas. It’s an odd time of year in which our lessons from the Bible these next four weeks focus not on the impending birth of the Savior but on the impending second coming of Christ in all his glory. Our hearts are eager to celebrate a beginning – that of a baby being born while our ears are hearing about an ending - that of Christ coming at the end of time.

I wonder why it is that the Second Coming of Christ sounds threatening to us? A shiver runs down our spines when we are told to look for signs of the apocalypse. Is it because we worry that we’re really saved? Is it because we worry that we’ll be found wanting on the Day of Judgment? Is it because we love our lives, love our kids, and want for them a wonderful future on this earth and can’t bear to imagine life on this earth coming to an end for us or for anyone that we love?

Quite frankly, the Bible doesn’t make the Second Coming sound like anything good. It paints a drastic and downright scary picture of the end times. Zechariah prophesies that there will be earthquakes and floods and that Jerusalem itself shall be wrested apart and the moon be blotted out. Luke says that there will be “signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars and on the earth distress among the nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

As believers in Christ, we have to take it all seriously. We know that the advent of God as a babe in Bethlehem was the first advent, and we believe that the coming of Christ in glory will signal the final advent. But maybe instead of fearing the end of the story, we should simply believe that we belong in the story and trust God for all the rest. Maybe instead of worrying if we’ll be found wanting, we should, rather, seek to live our lives in gratitude, trusting in the power and love of God past, present, and future. Maybe instead of fearing, globally, what we can’t possibly change or alter, we should instead change or alter, locally, those aspects of our lives we can and should, by the grace of God.

And a place to start, perhaps, is simply by lifting our heads up (maybe away from our Christmas list of things to do) and taking notice of all that is around us. Maybe we should pray to live with the kind of loving awareness and gratitude that Paul speaks of in his letter to the people of Thessalonica. Paul writes a family letter to the Thessalonians, just as many of us write a family letter each Christmastide. Paul’s letter is full of thanksgiving for these people he has known and taught and nurtured and worshipped with. His own life has been made greater because of the men, women, and children he has met in Thessalonica. And his love for them comes out most especially in these words: “And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”

You’ve heard me use the phrase “living an attitude of gratitude”, and that is just what Paul is referencing. Paul encourages these Christians he loves to remember that they are loved by God without measure and without end and with that reality as their guide, are called to live lives of gratitude.

What that kind of gratitude is about, however, is not simply happy thoughts or happy things. Gratitude is an acknowledgment that life, and our lives in particular, are held close by God – in good times and in bad times; in times of sorrow and in times of joy; in times of worry and in times of peace. And more, the past is in the past, the future belongs to God, and our only task is to be God’s people in this present time.

What if, this Advent season, we simply embrace the paradox that we live somewhere between the advents – between the coming of God as Jesus and the coming of God in glory? And what if we simply embrace the paradox that we cling to this world and all that is in it at the same time that we are already residents of the world to come?

What Advent has to remind us is that the world is so much bigger than we but that God is bigger than the world. The same God who loved us enough to want to reveal himself to us intimately and personally in Jesus is the same God who desires a relationship with all humanity and who will one day, achieve just that. What Advent has to remind us is that we are held in a divine embrace that encompasses our past, our present, and our future and that we have nothing to fear.

“Oh, you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout; I’m telling you why – Santa Clause is coming to town.” Well, we all love Santa Claus, but as Christians we know that being naughty or nice is not the key to life or even to getting good presents. Santa’s a great gift-giver, but God’s the greater gift-giver because his gift of love never ends. And the gift we give back to God in return is living an attitude of gratitude. God knows our faults and forgives them, God know our strengths and desires to use them. God knows our hearts and seeks to strengthen them in holiness.

Advent is upon us. Take a deep breath. Take a step back. Immerse yourself in the life of the church this season as we take special notice of what has past, what is presently among us, and what is to come. Lift up your heads and pay attention. God is here. God is always here. And God will be there, in the days to come.

Amen.