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Advent Conversation - featuring Will Walker · Beyond the Sermon

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You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast of First
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Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
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On our podcast, the goal is not just to share the sermons we've
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preached, but to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're
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learning and what God is doing in US and in our community.
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For Advent 2025, we are in a series called Brought to the
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Light, Advent for all who need it.
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This series is looking at the themes of Advent and how Jesus
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comes to us all. You can find more information
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about our church at fumccollingswood.org.
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Thanks for joining us for this conversation.
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We've got a special treat here this week because Jeremy is in
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Mexico for the week taking care of some things in La Pamia.
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Tough life to get out of the snow and all that to enjoy some,
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you know, subtropical climates here in the week before
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Christmas. But because he's away this week,
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we have the the privilege of having Will Walker here with us.
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Will, most of you probably know as our organist, although he
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does a whole host of other things here at the church.
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But as we get started this morning, Will, and as we're
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thinking here in the Advent season, Christmas coming as we
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get started, what is one of your favorite Christmas traditions?
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One of the favorite things that I like about Christmas is, well,
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it's related to food, so. As our most.
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On Christmas morning for for a long time now, except I'm
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married almost 30 years. So we we have a Christmas brunch
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and it's just like the best. Brunch.
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Ever. So and it basically it's just,
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it's just like a ham and cheese and egg and Bisquick casserole
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with also with some homemade monkey bread and some fresh
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fruit and like, but I just look forward to that.
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Like and literally on I think on the recipe card for the monkey
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bread, it says monkey bread in parentheses says for Christmas
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morning, Will's favorite. So.
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Nice. So I think that would have to be
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1 of the things that I look forward to.
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And, and honestly, like the day before, a couple days before we,
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we prepare all those things. And it's become a tradition to
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have the whole family, whoever's home now in the family, you
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know, kind of prep all of that. You got to, you know, shred the
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cheese and cut up the ham and, and get it all together and, you
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know, the, the dough for the monkey bread and things like
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that. So it's it's nice to just do all
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that together and have a busy, active kitchen.
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Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we always.
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Cinnamon buns are our classic Rambo Christmas morning.
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And I'm not talking about cinnamon buns with a nice little
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icing drizzled across them. That's that's one thing and
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there's nothing wrong with that. But I'm talking like sticky buns
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with the caramelized gooeyness all dripping off the raisins and
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all that goodness that that is a cinnamon button in my mind makes
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me a little hungry just to I. Was I was thinking about
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thinking the same thing? I'm like, I think I might have
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to stop at a bakery on the right home or something.
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But yeah, those, those traditions, they, they shape our
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experience of Christmas. And, and I've been thinking here
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recently as we come through the Advent season again, which I, I
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mentioned on Sunday in the sermon, that I think it's, it's
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so key that churches continue to celebrate Advent.
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There are a lot of churches, especially in like the nominal
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nominational world, that kind of move away from Advent as a
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season. That's just kind of, you know,
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those talk a lot about Christmas and the preparation for
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Christmas. But I think holding on to a
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tradition like Advent is so important because the waiting,
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the longing that we talk about in Advent, the the hope, the the
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joy, the love, the peace, all that focusing on those things
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really makes our celebration of Christmas that much more
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meaningful when we actually get there.
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But one of the things I've been thinking about with Advent is we
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spend a lot of time looking back at the first Christmas, right?
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And, and we read prophecies about when Jesus was going to
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come. That kind of creates that hope
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and that longing. But I wonder, originally Advent
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was intended to remind us that Christ came, but also to keep in
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the forefront of our mind that Christ is coming again.
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And I think in a lot of our our modern celebration of Advent and
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observance of it, we do a pretty good job focusing backwards.
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Because we all like to think of the baby and the Manger, right?
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And how peaceful that was and what an amazing gift that was,
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which is all true, but like. At least to an extent.
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I don't know anybody who's actually had a baby who thinks
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that was actually a a peaceful, silent night.
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Yeah, but. How we think of it is right,
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exactly. So it wasn't literally a silent
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night, no doubt. But it's, it's, it's something
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that's easy to look back on, right?
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And pivotal, right? It changed the trajectory of
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history that Christ came and was Incarnate.
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He took on our flesh, became a real human being.
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He didn't just possess a human, but he became a human.
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That matters, and we need to remember that.
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But I don't think we do such a good job of thinking about what
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it means that Christ is coming again.
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And when you look through the New Testament, Paul and others
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write regularly about this hope we have that Christ is coming
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again, that that should be at the very centre of our focus.
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I was just kind of wondering like, why do you think in you'll
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necessarily have to have some deep theological?
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I'm still working through it myself.
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That's good. Because I probably don't.
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But but just wondering like why do you think the second coming
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of Jesus doesn't play more in our churches today?
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Because I mean, I guess if you think about it like we're in a
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continual advent up to the second coming of Jesus, right,
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right. Like we're, we're here not just
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to look back, but to look ahead. I think there's not a lot of
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people that really, really know, myself included, about what
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that's going to look like when Jesus comes again.
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So it's hard to anticipate something that we don't know
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what it's going to be. We don't even know how it's
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going to shake out other than if we're in Christ and trust in
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Christ and believe in Christ. We know the end result, but we
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don't know what's going to happen to get us there or like
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all of that. There's so much unknown.
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I think about it for the average person that it's easier to just
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not think about it, maybe. No, I think that's a great point
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because, you know, especially here in the last 50 to 60 years
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of American church, at least right, there's been such a focus
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on like a rapture theology and what happens.
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You have the left behind books or you know, a couple decades
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before that, how Lindsay wrote a book, the late Great Planet
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Earth that was kind of a 70s version of the left behind books
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that kind of said, well, if we take all this stuff in
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Revelation and kind of map it on to today's world, like how
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terrible is it going to be? Shouldn't we all do everything
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we can to get people to convert to Jesus so that way they don't
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have to go through that right? Which I think is a wrong way of
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reading all of that kind of end times Revelation stuff.
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I don't think that was what God was intending when that was
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inspired and included as part of our scriptures.
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But I think you're right. Like we don't, we don't know
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what it's going to look like. And I think for some people
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there's probably some measure of fear involved there because we
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don't know, we don't understand, we're not sure what to hope for.
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But when Jesus talked about it, you know, he, he talks about
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when he comes at the restoration of all things, when he comes at
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the, the recreation of the world, like that's, that's
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really our hope. We talk a lot in the American
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church about being saved so that when we die, we can go to heaven
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with Jesus. But that's not the ultimate goal
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of the Bible. It's not God's ultimate goal.
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God's ultimate goal is to bring heaven and earth together,
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right? Just like he intended things to
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be when he created the world he made the Garden of Eden.
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That was supposed to be kind of the, the embassy, the outpost
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out of which God's rule and reign spread out across the
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whole of creation. Obviously, if we've read some
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scripture, particularly in Genesis, we we, we recognize
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that's not what happened and that sin entered the world and
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brokenness entered the world through sin, and everything was
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changed. But it didn't change God's goal,
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which was to dwell with humanity in this intimate partnership
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through which humanity would then rule over the world, right?
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And under God's good kingship, we would actually extend that
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rule into the world. And he promises that when he
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comes, he's going to make that a reality, right?
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We talked about the new heaven and the new earth coming down.
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And that's not going to be two separate things.
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It's going to be together. God will be their God and they
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will be his people and he will dwell with them and he will be
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all the light they need and all these things that that
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revelation talks about. I think just in just getting
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back to, to people and kind of fearing what they don't know, I
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think that that is something though, that if, if you're a
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Christian, if you really are like rooted in Christ, then it
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shouldn't be that hard to get past that.
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I don't say that lightly. Like I, it just it, you know, I
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realize that, that we're, we're human and there is that fear
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and, and, and just change in general can be something that's
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brings anxiety and things like that.
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But if we're truly rooted in Christ, we shouldn't be fearing
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death, let alone Christ's coming and what that might bring, good
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or bad in the moment, you know, comfort or uncomfort in the
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moment in order to, again, to bring God's plan to fruition.
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You know, we should, we fear that.
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Should we, You know, my mind says we shouldn't, you know, and
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then the heart, you know, it's a totally different thing.
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How we actually feel is a different thing.
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But yeah, like, I think it's just easier not to think about
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it. It's easier to, again, to look
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back to that baby in a Manger. And how amazing was it that God
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gave that gift? All true, all good.
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But I mean, you know, when we started talking at the beginning
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and you would just mention the concept of Advent be looking
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ahead, not just back. Like that was kind of a shift
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even just for me because, you know, I grew up like everyone
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else grew up the Advent. Oh, we get to think back to when
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Jesus was born, right? It's not necessarily a thought
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that we, you know, need to think about.
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When is Jesus coming again? Yeah, yeah.
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And it's just, it's so interesting to me because like I
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mentioned earlier, you read through the New Testament and
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you've got Paul writing like the the letter to the Thessalonians.
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And part of the reason he wrote those letters was because the
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people there were so looking forward to the coming of Christ.
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They were so convinced that it was imminently going to happen,
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that they were they were quitting their jobs, they were
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stopping their work. They were focusing so much on
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Jesus and Bible studies and worship and those kind of things
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that they were neglecting the actual realities of this life.
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And so it's this tension that we hold, right?
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Because I think part of the reason we don't look as much as
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that is because we we've placed so much of our hopes and dreams
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on what will happen to us in this life, right?
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We think about, you know, in our heads, we say, Oh yeah, we want
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Jesus to come back. But do we want Jesus to come
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back and change things before we get married or before our kids
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get married and begin having grandkids?
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Do we want Jesus to come back before we experience this?
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You know, whatever. This year, job promotion, Dream
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vacation. You name it, whatever it is that
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we're looking forward to because there are certain things in our
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life that we're looking forward to no matter what stage we're
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in, right? Yeah, absolutely.
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I I want to see my grandkids eventually.
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Not right now, but but like I want that time to come.
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I don't want that to be interrupted.
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Yeah. Is that right?
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I don't, you know. But I but I think it's reality,
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right? It's that's, that's the tension
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we feel in our heads. Yes, we want Christ to come
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again because we know that when he does, everything will be said
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right. But if it means that things
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we've hoped for and dreamed about get cut off, do we?
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So is that even a right way to think about it?
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Or, you know, when Christ comes again and and he does all that
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work, I think it's going to be even more gloriously true than
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what we know of life today. I think it puts a spotlight on
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what are our own true goals and how should they maybe even be
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realigned or shifted. You know, like what is it that
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we truly hope for? Is it of this world or is it of
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God's new Kingdom? God's plan and and look, maybe
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His plan is for us to live out the rest of our mortal lives on
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this earth prior to Jesus coming.
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You know what I mean, right? Right, but a lot of Christians
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have lived their life since Paul worked in the Thessalonians.
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Exactly. But if you knew that Jesus was
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coming next week, would you be happy about it or would there be
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a little disappointment? And I have to say, you know,
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it's only seems natural, only seems human for there to be some
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disappointment, which is crazy to say because like, why should
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there be any disappointment in Jesus second coming as
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Christians? It's just, it's this whole thing
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you can't reconcile, right? Yeah, and it makes me think of 1
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of, I think, many people's favorite Christmas carols, which
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we sing every year here. We sing it every year on
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Christmas Eve. It's joy to the world, right?
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Joy to the world. The Lord is come.
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We we either forget or we never knew that that was actually
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written as a hymn about the second coming.
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Wow, I did not know that. Yeah, it was written Isaac
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Watts. And when it talks about, you
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know, joy to the world, the Lord is come.
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We we hear that through our modern English as joy to the
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world, the Lord has come let earth receive her king.
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It already happened, but it's actually in in that day's
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English, it was joy to the world.
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The Lord is coming. Prepare every heart, let every
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heart prepare him room and having a nature sing this is
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coming. It's still going to happen.
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It hasn't happened in the fullness of what God intends for
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it to be, but it will. You need to say that on
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Christmas Eve this year before we sing that hymn because look,
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I am, I'm the organist here. I have played that hymn.
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I cannot tell you how many times I've played that hymn and I know
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my hymns. I did not know that was the
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original 10 of that hymn. That is almost like, it really
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is kind of mind blowing, like everyone needs to know that,
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everyone needs to know that, and everyone needs to allow that to
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help recenter them on where their hopes really lie.
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Yeah, and don't mishear me like it also speaks to Christ first
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coming. But it's the same, the same
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tension we've been talking about of of the first coming and the
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second coming and what happened and what will happen and what
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happened in that first coming was partial.
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It wasn't the full culmination of what God intends to do in
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history, but one day it will be. And so then you get to like
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verse 3. It says no more.
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Let sins and sorrows grow N thorns infest the ground well in
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our reality, even though Jesus came.
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Yeah, they're. Still here, right?
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We're still dealing with the effects of the curse that God
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pronounced on humanity because Adam and Eve disobeyed, took the
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fruit and ate it right back in the Garden of Eden, right?
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But it continues like he comes to make his blessing slow as far
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as the curse is found. So he he's going to come one day
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and bring it in all of its fullness as far as the curse has
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impacted us. So is Christ second coming going
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to you? But he's already impacted that
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by dying on the cross, right? He's already redeemed.
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Like, again, forgiveness of sins is real because of that.
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So we can even in this present time, saying no more, let sins
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and sorrows reign, whatever, grow, because Jesus has provided
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a way for those to be washed away, but they still exist in
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this world. So you, you, you can sing that
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with on both sides, absolutely. Right.
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Absolutely. Yeah.
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And I think it helps if we we change the way we think about
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that first coming, right. Because joy to the world, Jesus
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didn't come marching in like a king on a White Horse as the
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victorious conquering king. Like many thought he would.
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Right, exactly like many thought the Messiah would.
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Exactly. He will one day, right?
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The trumpets are going to blast. Everyone's going to see every
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knee. Every knee will bow.
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Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
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It's not the way he came the first time, the first time.
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It's almost more like during World War 2 or wherever where
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they, they dropped in paratroopers behind enemy lines
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to begin to wear down the defenses and do things from the
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backside that the people on, you know, the front side of the
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battle couldn't impact. But they dropped in the
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paratroopers behind them. And it was this infiltration
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behind enemy lines to undo what the enemy was doing.
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If we think about Christmas. It's like that, yes, it changes
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things. It does.
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It makes it less nice and peaceful, right, and turns it
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more into Oh, well, Jesus is the secret weapon that was dropped
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behind enemy lines so that all that work that is now ours to do
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right can start happening. And you know, I guess that means
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that we're we're here to try to break down enemy guard and enemy
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lines and enemy, whatever anything of the enemy.
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Trying to expand the Kingdom of God, right?
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Because the, the Kingdom of God, it's not, it's not like a, a
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modern nation state where it's certain territory carved out by,
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you know, boundary lines and fences and passport checkpoints
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and, and those kind of things, right?
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It's, it's the area that is under the rule and reign of the
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King, right? And so wherever we are, if our
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lives are being lived under the authority of King Jesus, and
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that means where our lives. Intersect this.
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World that's where the Kingdom of God is right and so we're
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called to be part of of spreading that because of what
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God has already done in Jesus right in in sending him to stand
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in our place to pay the penalty for sin to.
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Redeem us. Redeem us and defeat the power
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of sin and death in His death and resurrection and the new
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life, the new creation that began.
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So that we can expand the Kingdom of God.
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Yeah, but in the meantime, until he comes again, we still live in
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a world at war, the same world at war that that Jesus was born
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into. The difference is now because of
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that work, because the Holy Spirit's been poured out, we can
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be empowered to live in a different way.
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We can be empowered to live as the people of God even though we
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live within the kingdoms of this world.
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And so these are these are some of the thoughts that have been
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swirling through my mind and, and spurred by some of the
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things I've been listening to and reading and then thinking
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about this Advent season. And I think it, it helps us even
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just this little shift of perspective of how we approach
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Advent, not just looking back, not just in gratitude for all
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that God has done, but an actual hope and anticipation for what
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Jesus is going to do when he comes again.
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And so my encouragement to you who are listening this morning
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or afternoon or evening, whenever you happen to pick up
22:55
this podcast is to really think, what do I hope for?
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To reflect a little bit on on what you really believe God is
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going to do when he comes again. And if that elicits a responsive
23:13
of fear or grief, offer that to him and ask him to meet you in
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the midst of that. Ask him to give you a vision of
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what he longs to do in the world that would radically transform
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the way you think about his second coming.
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The way you think about what that's going to be like, what
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it's going to mean for you and the people and things you love.
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Because it's a message of hope. It's a message of joy.
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I think he wants to transform that part of us.
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So I hope you'll give some time to thinking about these things
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over the next few weeks. We're going to take a bit of a
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hiatus from the conversations on the podcast for through
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Christmas and New Year's. Give everybody a chance to be
23:58
more present to their families. You don't need to be listening
24:00
to us talk any more than you already do.
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But I do hope that in this Christmas season as we finish up
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Advent, that that God would meet you in the midst of this and he
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would fill you with hope and peace and joy and love because
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Christ has come for us and Christ is coming again.
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Thanks Will for taking time to be with us this morning.
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Absolutely, and don't forget to enjoy some good food too.
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Absolutely. You know it's Christmas.
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Yeah. And to bring it back to where we
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started. Absolutely, and thank you all
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for taking time to listen.