Advent 2, Year B, December 4, 2005
Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 85, 2 Peter 3:8-15a,18 Mark 1:1-8

The Architecture of Advent
The Rev. Jonathan Hutchison – Vicar, St. David's, Bean Blossom, Indiana

In the town of Madison, Indiana, at the end of a long street, at the foot of a hill, there stands an old Roman Catholic Church. No longer used for worship, it now belongs to the city’s historical district, used for public events like the tonight’s performance of Handel’s “Messiah”. In this present incarnation, the Church of St. Michael the Archangel is a kind of museum, a place which has much to teach. In the entryway, an historical display showed that this was the second earliest Catholic church to be built in Indiana and that Madison was a gateway for Irish immigrants to our state. Inside the church, aside from peeling plaster, everything remains the same; all the religious furnishings are there; the Holy Water dispenser (a relic of the 1950’s, with multiple spigots), the alms box for gifts for the poor, and the oversized statuary of the Holy Family, St. Peter and the Archangel. Along the walls of the Nave are the Stations of the Cross.

And, near the front, just before one comes to the communion rail, there stands an ornate confessional booth, fashioned out of finely crafted wood. It’s a little building, really, a miniature church-within-a-church, with high pointed spires like steeples and doorways opening into two small compartments, side-by-side. In the first compartment, there is room for only one worshipper; the other compartment is like a tiny Sanctuary, the place behind the communion rail, modeled on the Temple of Solomon, the Holy of Holies, the place where God is. When St. Michael the Archangel was a living church, when this confessional was in use, God would be repre-sented by the presence of the priest, there to hear the confession of sins and, in the name of God, forgive them.

There are curtains over the doors to the confessional, for privacy - old and worn. Worn too are the thin velvet cushions on the small seats inside, having seen many years of regular use. Between the two compartments is a wall, and in this wall, an opening – so that words of sorrow and of shame, of correction and consolation might pass back and forth between penitent and priest…or rather, penitent and God. In order that penitents might not be distracted by the familiar priestly face, and perhaps forget who they were really talking to, an opaque screen is fixed in the opening. Mounted next to it, on the penitent’s side, is another relic of the 50’s – a strange device of three parts. A disc-like object, some kind of microphone, sticks out into the opening, aimed through the screen toward the priest’s side. This is attached to a metal box, out of which comes a wire, attached to an earpiece, resting on a hook. By means of this device, the words of pardon and instruction were transmitted to those who did not have ears to hear.

In the Museum of St. Michael the Archangel, the confessional is an exhibit, an object lesson - the elegant, practical logic of its design, the simple worship enacted within, can speak to us here today of the architecture and the liturgy of Advent. This season, too, some kind of Church-within-a-Church, where the structure and practice of our Faith is abundantly present in our Advent customs and scriptures for those who have eyes to see. That simple plan and purpose, architecture and liturgy distilled is “preparation”.

Look to the Word of God, to these words first declared by the prophet and then echoed down the years by the baptizer, another voice crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight”. The prophet trumpets the coming of God among the people and gives this charge: “make in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.” Like the progress of ancient mid-east kings through their lands, God’s approach to you and me is hindered by the landscape of sin.

High mountains of pride and deep valleys of despair make God seem long in coming. So, like the subjects of those ancient earthly kings, we are called to a great work of spiritual engineering, to level both high and low places, to remove obstacles and smooth the roadway, that God might come more quickly…or rather, that we might more readily receive that coming. The Advent of God is no one-way street. We do not wait, passive, for the blessed cataclysm of divine in-breaking, but instead…prepare.

Like those who prepared the church for painting, we scrape the old, flaking covering, blast it with water, make a clean surface, ready to receive and bond to the new, protecting, beautifying color. Overcoming shame and denial, we muster weak strength to whisper these words to whoever is there on the other side of the screen “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned”.

Repentance and reconciliation, confession and absolution, tearing down and building up, this is the liturgy of this season, this new beginning of the Church Year. Preparing God’s highway through the desert of the heartland. The prophet speaks to Israel in exile; “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.”

It is as if we have tiptoed up to the confessional to eavesdrop on the end of the sacrament…Israel has already humbled herself and received her penance…now comes the promise of restoration, and with that, blessing beyond imagination; “Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together… See, the Lord comes…his reward is with him, his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom…”

The psalmist catches the special flavor of the season, the sense of the already and the not yet, things long since complete and still, somehow, awaiting fulfillment. “You have been gracious to your land, O LORD, you have restored the good fortune of Jacob. You have forgiven the iniquity of your people and blotted out all their sins…” And then, strangely, “Will you not give us life again, that your people may rejoice in you?…Show us your mercy, O LORD, and grant us your salvation.” Grace, restoration, forgiveness is the already, from before time, waiting to be received when we are prepared to ask for it.

Could it be that this conversion, this conversation, is not fixed in measured time; that it continues and continues until, as the songwriter sings, “the One who left us here returns for us at last?” The parishioners of St. Michael the Archangel wore out that seat cushion with their weekly visits, wearing down (as well) their heights of pride, filling the chasms of despair with the assurances that the response to sin is always pardon and the prescription for a transformed life, until someday, “Mercy and truth [will] have met together…” The truth of confession meets God’s mercy at the screen, at the opening, at the communion rail, in the bread of life and cup of salvation. “Righteousness and peace kissed each other.” The hard slogging work of holiness flashes in the life of the One who came and who calls us and will come again. The peace of even one instant alive in that holiness feels like a long-awaited embrace.

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and Jerusalem were were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. But this weathered prophet knew this was only the beginning. After confession comes penance, the tasks of renewal and change. He had baptized with water; Soon to come was the One who would baptize with fire, the fire that consumes the stubble of the fields, the ashes amending the waiting soil with the promise of a fertile spring. Repentance prepares the field to receive the seed from the hand of the sower.

Lest any be restless, the Apostle brings this reminder; “The Lord is not slow about his promise, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance…we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish…grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

In this season of new beginnings, we wait patient…and prepare…entering the graceful architecture, repeating the simple liturgy, the holy conversation of the Church-within-a-Church, heads inclined to hear the voice on the other side of the screen, to receive instruction and correction, and through these things, “comfort, comfort, my people”. AMEN