Home

Our Church

Services of Worship

Our People

Getting Married at Holy Trinity

Youth

Sermons

Prayer Groups

Education

Parish Magazine

St. Augustine's

Anglican FAQs

Inspiration

Links

At the beginning of this year, in late January, we had a week together in Taupo with all our family - our children and their spouses and their children -  all 18 of us - All in one house!  It was a great time. 

On the second day, my sons-in-law had planned on a day at the A1GP at Taupo, and they kindly shouted me a ticket as a treat. It was “boy’s day out.” The weather was fine, apart from a fairly brisk breeze, the sky was clear, and within a few minutes of arriving I had made a hasty retreat to the merchandise tent and bought us each a pair of ear plugs! 

The sound of the race cars as they hurtled past us on the back straight was almost literally ear-splitting.  But it was a great day of male bonding. All sizes and classes of cars were racing in different events. The prime highlight of the day was New Zealand’s Formula-One “Black Beauty”.  The race got underway and over the first few laps there were the usual near misses and overtaking, but after that, it all settled down. In fact it settled down to a rather boring procession of the same cars, in the same order, going round and round and round.   There was no sign of any sudden rain squall to make drastic changes to the track. It became just the same routine lap after lap.  

For many people, that is what life has become like! The same old routine day after day, week after week. The Book of Ecclesiastes reflects this disenchantment with life. “There’s nothing new under the sun”, says Solomon.  Everything’s happened before. People are born, they grow up, they go to work, and then they die. The sun rises, and sets, and the next day it does it all over again. The wind blows through the trees and the streams run out to the sea, but the wind never blows itself out and the streams never full up the sea. On and on – nothing new.  “What has been is what will be” – says Ecclesiastes, “and what has been done is what will be done”. Life goes round and round the same circuit, in the same order. Advent is the church’s four week answer to the question, “Can anything new happen under the sun?” Advent is the time to discover that it isn’t like that any longer, or rather, it needn’t be like that any longer!

The scriptures tell us that just around the corner there is something totally different, something strange, something outrageously distinctive that has never happened before - and its all about God and what God has done! It was no different – this bored, predictability of life – 3000 or even 4000 years ago. Nations fought against nations, the poor were oppressed, kingdom subdued kingdom, and those who managed to survive in the twilight zone between the oppressed and the oppressors found life rather like many find it today! – exactly how Solomon described it. “Everything’s happened before.”!

But 700 years before Christ, some 300 years after Solomon, came Isaiah, a prophet called by God.

Now Isaiah was given a glimpse of something new that God was going to do. God was going to step into this world in the person of a man, whom they called the Messiah, the Anointed One, and this Messiah would carry out God’s supreme purpose and begin a transformation process throughout the earth.  In this new order, there would be peace and justice and righteousness. The poor would be lifted up; the mighty would be put down.  Life would no longer be a tedious repetition –it would become fulfilling – just what God had intended for us from the beginning. So Isaiah utters those words we have heard today – that in that new age, that new day when God appears  - people would have a desire to worship God and know God,; nations will beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and nation shall not lift up sword against nation.” (Isa 2:4)  - and God would give His people a new heart, a heart which seeks after God.  The message here is, “God is going to surprise us!”  Get ready! Be prepared! The formula One cars wont always be processing around the track in predictable order!

The scriptures of Advent sound strange to most contemporary congregations, and they are! – they are meant to sound strange and even shocking!  For what God is about to do when He comes among us, is like nothing else. It has never happened before! The Mighty King of Creation is about to be born in a cattle trough.  The strange Son of Man who comes like a thief in the night, according to today’s gospel reading, is none other than the God-most-High who will come and intervene in our world.

So as we begin to read the scriptures for Advent, these four Sunday’s before Christmas, we are beginning to unwrap the Gift of Christmas – we begin to discover and to see who this Jesus – the Messiah, the One sent from God - really is!  We begin to get a sense of the unexpected which we had never dreamed of! It’s like sitting in the stands getting bored with the same procession of cars thundering past, when all of a sudden a new car appears from nowhere – going in the opposite direction! And sometimes he doesn’t even stick to the track!
The driver is unknown – he probably comes from Ekatahuna - and he shouts above the roar of the engines that the rules have all been changed, and that everyone is to follow Him now!  Just imagine for a moment  the chaos, the anger, the excitement as cars swerve, some collide, - some drivers make rude gestures at those who cut across in front of them, and some drivers shout with ecstasy and delight that the rules have finally been changed – and not before time-and their foot is planted to the floor as the adrenaline pumps through their veins and they try in vain to catch up to this unknown driver who, in a moment,  has changed life from predictable boredom into an exciting adventure.

It’s that kind of radical change that Advent is about!

Are we ready for it?

The One comes to turn everything upside down - might just be ‘round the corner!