Today is the first Sunday of Advent, an important Sunday at the start of the Church year, beginning earlier than the new calendar year and perhaps that sounds a bit strange if you think of Christmas being at the end of the year rather than near the start. December is when many of us put up our festive decorations, although I was in Westfield the other week and it already felt very Christmassy there, what with the decorations, Christmas music, and families enjoying the ice rink.

The build-up to Christmas is so exciting, especially for children, bringing a bit of glitter and sparkle to this cold, dark time of year. As a child, I remember feeling I'd burst with excitement, not knowing how I'd contain myself till Christmas morning. (and that was before I'd had all the sweeties!) My parents had quite a job getting me and my sister to go to sleep on Christmas eve and not to wake them up too early on Christmas morning. It's a good job I wasn't familiar with the reading from Mark back then, telling us to "keep watch" or in other translations, "keep awake". I was that kind of kid. I would've quoted it.

Now that it's December, TV and radio programs have more of a Christmas feel. We hear songs with jingly percussion and see adverts for food and presents to make the perfect family Christmas. Then we come to Church for the first Sunday of Advent and experience something quite different.

We started today's service with the lighting of the first candle in the Advent wreath. The word Advent comes from the Latin Adventis, which means coming or arrival. During the season of Advent we wait with anticipation and expectation for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we celebrate at Christmas. The circular shape of the wreath represents the complete and endless love that Jesus has for us all, with no beginning and no end. The first candle, which was lit this morning, represents hope and the Old Testament prophecies of our saviour's birth. The candles represent Jesus coming as the light of the World and, as more candles are lit week by week, the light gets brighter. On the fourth Sunday, four candles are lit, but it's not a Two Ronnies sketch. Then, at Christmas, a white Christ candle may also be lit, giving five candles in total.

So if Advent is a season of eager anticipation, what's going on with today's readings? I put the Psalm first as I thought it followed on quite neatly from our prayers of confession, asking God to "bring us back" or "restore us" in other translations.

It won't surprise anyone who has heard me preach here before that I enjoy quoting from different translations of the Bible because of the beautiful language in different versions and I find it interesting comparing them. In verse 3 of Psalm 80, this morning we heard:
Bring us back, O God!
Show us your mercy, and we will be saved!
In the New Revised standard Version ofthe same verse it's written like this:
3 Restore us, O God;
let your face shine, that we may be saved.

I love the idea of the Lord's face shining, especially at this cold, dark time of year. It's such a beautiful image. God showing mercy is also a wonderful thing of course but, as a poet and songwriter, I love poetic imagery and I love the word restore.

Here are verses 4-7 from the New Revised Standard Version:
O Lord God of hosts,
how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?
You have fed them with the bread of tears,
and given them tears to drink in full measure.
You make us the scorn of our neighbours;
our enemies laugh among themselves.

Restore us, O God of hosts;
let your face shine, that we may be saved.

The idea of God being angry with our prayers isn't very comforting and being fed with "the bread of tears" and given "a large cup of tears" to drink or "tears to drink in full measure" sounds awful! The idea of enemies who "laugh among themselves" really resonates with me. I'm sure we can all remember times when we or someone else at school did or said something and everyone else seemed to be laughing at us or them. People can be very cruel.

Perhaps verses 17-19 are a bit more hopeful:
Preserve and protect the people you have chosen,
the nation you made so strong.
We will never turn away from you again;
keep us alive, and we will praise you.
Bring us back, Lord God Almighty.
Show us your mercy, and we will be saved.

This Psalm is very human, bargaining with God that, if the people are saved, they will praise him; rather like someone praying desperately for a person or situation who says they will change various things in their life if God will only heal someone or resolve a difficult problem. Some may say that it shouldn't take an extreme situation to make us change our lives but we are all human and, if life seems OK, why change it? Maybe it takes that extremity to make us realise something needs to change.

The reading from Isaiah is similar in tone; sinful people who are suffering pleading with God to come down and sort things out. Here are verses 1-4 from the New Revised Standard version.
O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
so that the mountains would quake at your presence—
as when fire kindles brushwood
and the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
so that the nations might tremble at your presence!
When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
From ages past no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who works for those who wait for him.

Here, the people want God to show his awesome power as he did "in ages past" to his enemies or adversaries. The writer acknowledges that even their best actions are "filthy through and through" or "like a filthy cloth".

Reading through these texts, it strikes me that the people seem to be blaming God for abandoning them or not showing himself. It's a very human prayer but not a brilliant apology. "Oh sorry I sinned God, but it's because you weren't there." Really? Was God really not there? Or was this a case of people not looking for him in the right places? Seems a bit rich, blaming God's absence for their sins, like a child telling their parent it's his or her fault they sinned. If he or she had been with them, they wouldn't have done it. I don't think my Mum and Dad would have been very impressed with that as a reason for being naughty. I hoped I wouldn't get caught for something I knew was wrong would be more like it!

So, when things are going wrong, the people suddenly want God back in their lives to help them sort everything out, even though they hadn't been praying like they should have. These texts were written thousands of years ago but things don't change much. Do we pray as much when things are going well as we do when they're not? Maybe some people here may be able to answer yes to that question but I know I can't if I'm being totally honest because I'm human and I know I'm not alone, which is comforting, but not ideal.

I don't know about you but I find the Psalm and the Isaiah reading rather scary! God being angry with people's prayers and feeding them with tears in the Psalm and the idea of God tearing the heavens open and making mountains quake and tremble like fire that makes water boil. Yikes! What if people pray to God to do these things and show his strength against his enemies and they find that, far from being an unaffected bystander, they are caught up in these terrifying events? I pray for many things but I can honestly say that they have never included quaking mountains. Maybe the Gospel reading will be less scary and more comforting ... or perhaps not.

Today's Gospel reading starts part-way through Jesus telling the disciples about a forthcoming time of great suffering, including the destruction of the Temple, which was unthinkable to Jews, for whom the temple in Jerusalem was an important, sacred place, with people travelling there from far and wide for important festivals. He talks about war, earthquakes, famine and the disciples being put on trial because of him and being given the words they need at that time by the Holy Spirit. Then he talks about families turning against each other and warns that it will be especially hard for pregnant women and mothers of young babies. He warns against false prophets and false Messiah's. Then the reading we heard this morning starts with these words:
"‘But in those days, after that suffering,
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken."

Scary stuff! More things being shaken and it’s terrifying being plunged into darkness. Even I, as a blind person who can only see light, find it quite frightening when the lights go out on a tube train as it usually means something has gone horribly wrong; far more daunting if the whole World suddenly went dark.

Next we have Jesus teaching with an illustration that the disciples could relate to about the fig tree putting out its leaves, which shows that Summer is near, which reminds me of how uplifting it is hearing birdsong in Winter, heralding the Spring. I know many people love Winter but I was a Summer baby and Winter is my least favourite season, with its long nights and cold days. For me, Spring is like a meteorological Advent before my favourite season of Summer.

In the Church we know exactly when the various seasons will take place each year. Some of them move around, like Easter, but you only need to search online or look at a calendar to find out when they will be. Not so with the second coming however. In verse 32, Jesus says:
“No one knows, however, when that day or hour will come—neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son; only the Father knows."

In my experience, there are two kinds of people. Before anyone says at the end actually there are some people in-between, yes OK, but this is a simplistic illustration. So there are those who are habitually neat and tidy, doing the chores straight away and keeping everything spotlessly clean and neat. You could turn up to visit them any time and their kitchen surfaces would sparkle and shine. If they needed to get something they hadn't used in a while, that wouldn't be a problem. These are tidy people with a place for everything and everything in its place ...

Then there are people like me. I know where most things are most of the time but, if I know someone is coming to visit, there's an epic tidy up so everything looks presentable by the time they arrive. Some of it might end up shoved messily into a cupboard but hey. They won't need to see that. I do a lot of preaching work sitting on the sofa surrounded by hymnbooks and various gadgets, but guests have a habit of wanting to sit down when they visit you, so I have to clear my workstation, I mean sofa, to allow them to do that. They want everything, guests, don't they! If someone turns up unannounced, they'll see my unpreparedness for their visit.

I'm sure the tidy people would tell me, actually they already do, that if I just kept things neat all the time as they do there would be no danger of me being caught out ... But you see if I kept everything neat and tidy, then this illustration for my sermon would be ruined!

Anyway, Jesus tells the disciples that no-one knows when the end times will come so they need to be alert, keep watch and keep awake. Then he gives the illustration of the master of a house going away, leaving his servants in charge, each with their own work to do. There must be no sleeping on the job because he may return at any time, expecting his house to be in good order.

It reminds me of parents of teenage children going away and the teenagers deciding to have a party. I did many things as a teenager but I didn't do this one. So the child invites all their friends. Their parents won't be back for days and will never know ... But what if something goes wrong with the parents' holiday and they come back early to find their house full of drunken teenagers and a lot of mess? Then there will be trouble.

Read one way, this passage from Mark's Gospel is very frightening, but if you look at it from a different angle, where Jesus will come again and the World will be a better place, there is hope for better times to come. So what should we do while we wait for the coming of Jesus, this Advent and throughout our lives? The example of the master of the house and the servants shows us that we need to keep doing the work so that we are ready for his coming, not just sit waiting passively.

Last week I preached about the people being divided into two groups, the sheep and the goats, on the day of judgment. I don't know if you had that reading here. Both groups didn't know when they had or had not helped Jesus, feeding him when he was hungry, giving him something to drink when he was thirsty and clothing him when he was naked and visiting him when he was sick or in prison. Jesus explained that whatever they did "for the least of these" they did for him. So part of our work is to care for and pray for one another and to keep watch, noticing when we fall short and do something about it and tend to and nurture our relationship with God so that, whenever he comes, we won't be caught out, we will be ready.