Sermon for Advent III, Year A: The Meaning of It All

(Coney Island, Brooklyn, c. 1940s)

Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

One of my favorite moments in the classic 1977 film Annie Hall is when young Alvy Singer, in a flashback scene, is shown having an existential crisis. His mother brings in a psychiatrist, Dr. Flicker.

“Why are you depressed, Alvy?” he asks.

“The universe is expanding,” Alvy replies. “If it’s expanding, someday it will break apart and everything will end.”

“Why is that your business?” his mother cuts in. “He’s stopped doing his homework!”

“What’s the point?” Alvy says.

“Brooklyn is not expanding!” his mother shouts.

Dr. Flicker tries to assure him: “It won’t happen for billions of years, Alvy. We’ve got to enjoy ourselves while we’re here, eh?”

(Cut to a view of the Singer house, which happens to be under the Coney Island roller coaster.)

Alvy is so overwhelmed by the universe’s eventual destruction that homework seems pointless. And indeed—what is the point? Many days it feels as though there isn’t one.

The existentialist philosophers—from Nietzsche to Sartre—claimed that life has no inherent meaning, so we must create our own. In their view, human beings start with a blank slate and write their own story, limited only by the boundaries they choose. Meaning and truth are self-made. We know we will die, so we create significance while we can.

If this sounds familiar, it should. It is the operating ethic of much of our secular culture: “Speak your truth,” as though truth were endlessly customizable. Everyone’s opinion is treated as equally valid; there is no Truth with a capital T, only many truths with a lowercase t.

We Christians, however, believe the universe is charged with meaning. Truth is not invented; Truth is revealed. We were created and redeemed by a God who loves us. That Jesus Christ was born, lived, died, and rose again is the central fact of existence. In a world that often feels meaningless, Jesus breathes meaning. Our freedom does not lie in constructing our own truth, but in accepting that we have been saved through Christ’s death and resurrection—and that however disappointed we may be in ourselves, God loves us still. The Nicene Creed proclaims this reality, and every word of it speaks hope.

Advent is a season of waiting. But what are we waiting for? Jesus has already come. He has already conquered sin and death. Our forgiveness has already been given. The judgment of God has already declared us forgiven through Christ.

What we await is the completion of what Christ has begun. Dawn has broken, yet darkness clings to the horizon. Sin and death, violence and hatred, greed and poverty remain. The looming war with Venezuela, whatever your view of it, reminds us that the world is not as it should be. We await the day when darkness is finally swept away, when God’s love and light fill all creation, and the world is restored to what God always intended.

The world as we know it will end—and that is our hope. When Jesus returns, our deepest longings will be fulfilled, and our restless hearts will find their rest. The Creed ends, “And we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” These are not empty words; they are the hope of the human race.

And while we wait, we are not to be idle—like a teenager in a Black Friday line scrolling through their phone. We are to wait like the farmer who plants a seed and tends it with care. Our lives are to reflect the hope that has been sown within us.

Last weekend, much of our parish gathered to organize and staff our Christmas Holiday Bazaar. We made soup and cookies. We organize gift baskets for sale. But most of all we raised money for concrete good in this world of ours and in the process, opened the doors of the church as a remarkable act of hospitality. This simple act of love spoke clearly of our Christian hope. Let us continue doing God’s work, trusting that God will bring to completion every good work done in his name. This is our hope and our salvation—and it is the only point worth living for.

As we wait for the final fulfillment of Christ’s redeeming work, we wait with the faith of those who know the dawn is coming, even if night still lingers. Christina Rossetti gives voice to this holy waiting in her poem Advent. She wrote and indeed prayed:

This Advent moon shines cold and clear,

These Advent nights are long;

Our lamps have burned year after year,

And still their flame is strong.

“Watchman, what of the night?” we cry,

Heart-sick with hope deferred:

“No speaking signs are in the sky,”

Is still the watchman’s word.

The Porter watches at the gate,

The servants watch within;

The watch is long betimes and late,

The prize is slow to win.

“Watchman, what of the night?” but still

His answer sounds the same:

“No daybreak tops the utmost hill,

Nor pale our lamps of flame.”

One to another hear them speak,

The patient virgins wise:

“Surely He is not far to seek”—

“All night we watch and rise.”

The days are evil looking back,

The coming days are dim;

Yet count we not His promise slack,

But watch and wait for Him.

One day the dawn shall rise ere long,

And brighter, fairer shine

Than any dawn that went before

In our poor earthly time.

May this be our prayer: to watch, to work, and to hope—until that brighter dawn rises, and Christ makes all things new.