Grace to you and peace from God our father and our Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)

When I was about twelve years old, I wanted to read something about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German lutheran theologian, pastor, and martyr for the Christian faith, killed by the Nazis in 1945. I grew up in a household which was captivated by a frenzy to deal with all that had happened between 1933 and 1945, to work it through and understand it. The name Bonhoeffer was familiar to me from early on. There was really nothing on the market for youth to read about him, so my mother gave me the only one that wasn't too difficult, "Weihnachten im Hause Bonhoeffer", "Christmas in the home of the Bonhoeffer's", written by Dietrich's twin sister Sabine (Leibniz-Bonhoeffer).

To me the little book must have had the character of the legend of a saint, and my expectations were high. It probably takes place in the first decade of the 20th century or so. It is a report of Christmas customs and rituals in a German home of the intellectual elite, representing in its purest form what is known as cultural protestantism. And how surprised I was to notice that as the report advanced week by week through December and got to Christmas itself with expectations raised high among the children, the more dreadful all that Christmas secrecy got, the more depressing the punishments for any sneaking or untimely peering. I didn't like Christmas at the house of the Bonhoeffer's, and I was glad to live in a different time.

The most surprising thing however was to learn that church was not part of their Advent and Christmas season. Quite unconvinced, it seems in my memory, one adult would schlepp the children to church in the evening of the 24th so they would hear the story of the nativity.

I was so puzzled that I asked my mother about it, and I remember her smiling and agreeing with me, but unable to explain to a 12 year old the complexity of this quite German phenomenon of cultural protestantism.

In America's civil religion Christmas starts whenever merchants and cities start putting up the familiar red and green trappings, and although it always seems a little early, soon we ourselves get in the mood and start getting ready for Christmas.

Advent however is different and as Christians who live their lives firmly established in our culture, we have a challenge before us.

"The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven... They will see the Son of Man coming in clouds.... when the fig tree sprouts, the Messiah is not far... Heaven and earth will pass away... "

Are you ready for something new, dear congregation? Are you ready to not deck the halls and not prepare for something that has already once happened last year and the year before and even years and decades before? Do you think you can work this out somehow to rather clear the decks and get ready for something that has not yet happened? For that is the agenda of the entire season of Advent.

The Lord is near. Come, o come Emanuel, and ransom captive Israel. The intense cry of the people of Israel in Isaiah (64,1) is still ringing in our ears: "O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence." We are to join in the cry for God's appearing, for God's coming, and the reason for our intense cry lies in Israel's confession which is ours as well: "We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth." (64, 6) Israel is reeling from God's missing presence, from God's anger, and yet it says, "O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are the potter." (64, 8) "O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence."

Clear the decks and make room for something new - this is the call of Advent. The Lord is near. This is what Christian life is about every day, not only in Advent. We need not keep ourselves in bondage to things, to customs, to frenzies, which we have long been liberated from, which was imprinted on us in our baptism.

The Lord is near, and while we still sing "Come o come Emmanuel", the task of the Christian and the Christian community is not to sit still, complacent, idle and wait. What we are called to do is to "keep alert..., keep awake, since we do not know when the master comes" - in the words of the gospel of Mark today - "or else he might find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you (the disciples) I say to all: Keep awake." (Mark 13, 33-37 partim)

How do we keep awake though? What can we put in place so we will not forget the new reality of Jesus Christ already in our world, which cuts right into the filthy cloth of our righteous deeds? How can we clear the decks and let Advent be a reality check in times of manufactured cheer and in times of a nation mobilizing for war?

The apocalyptic call to keep awake is always a call against complacency, for patience, a kind of active patience in which we live in expectant anticipation of the better things to come. The call to keep awake, to stay alert is an appeal to live rightly according to the will of God. The call to keep awake is an appeal for Christian ethics. Christian ethics give guidelines, concrete guidelines for all areas of private and public life as to what to do now, in this time of waiting, of active patience, of expectant, brimming anticipation.

Ethics, standards for moral responsible living have to be constantly rewritten and newly developed. Christian ethics are distinguished by the assertion that there is no inherent goodness in humankind, that we are each of us lost and compromised, and our righteous deeds would never be anything but a filthy, ugly cloth, were it not for the pure and incomprehensible grace of God who has given us new life through Jesus Christ. We are justified in the life and death of Jesus Christ, and sanctified, made holy for a new life in the presence of this Christ. A new life in Advent, and a new life every day.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's last manuscript which he was not able to complete, was his ethics. His family, true to their intellectual involvement in their times, had expected him to start out his career with a major work on ethics, yet he immersed himself first fully into the Christian faith and systems of thought. Only then, in the early 40's, did he begin to write his ethics under the most difficult of circumstances. Only after he had become a deeply faithful Christian himself, been a pastor to several congregations, and laid impressive new Lutheran dogmatic groundwork, did the question of ethics, of right and responsible living according to the will of God, force itself upon him. Once at it he called it the "task of his life" and later in prison was deeply concerned that he had not been able to finish it.

Where is the place of Christian ethics in the church, in our congregation, amongst an Advent people?

One of the places is the pulpit. The preacher's job is to translate the biblical word, the message of God and help figure out what it means for us now.

Foremost though, ethics belongs in the midst of the people. We need to keep each other awake and alert for the will of God. We need to study and to do it together. As a people actively waiting for God's final coming, we at Christ the King are blessed and privileged to be a strong and lively congregation. We are soon to move into our new building which provides new space for education, for administration, and for worship. Let us move into this new building with the awareness that here we created space and opportunities for the renewed ethical learning and living of Christians at the end of times.

New classrooms will allow us to study questions of ethics and Christian life. Different groups will be able to meet at the same time to study Bible, to discuss matters of faith and ethics. New nursery space, Sunday school rooms for the children will allow for trying to model a Christian way of dealing with each other and learning with and from each other. New space for youth and new leadership for youth will help our young people to also experience models of a Christian life that gives them perspective for their journeys and ventures. With renewed resources we are able to reach out in various ways of caring for each other, with ministries and projects of service and care. And there is so much more.

Clear the decks and make room for something new this Advent. Clear away all that is unnecessary, that keeps us in bondage, and let's keep ourselves awake with the daring cry: "O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence." Amen.