Advent 1: Hope

Rev Indrea Alexander
St Stephen’s

Isaiah 2:1-5, Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:36-44

Today is a day of firsts. New things are dawning.
Obviously there’s a big first for me - my first Sunday as your Vicar in Ashburton parish. And it’s a first for you too - your first with me as your Vicar. May it be a fruitful pairing!
It is also the beginning of Advent, which makes it the first day of the church year - so Happy New Year to you all!
And the beginning of Advent is the point where our three year cycle of readings changes, moving this time from a year with the gospel of Luke to a year with the Gospel of Matthew. 
The change in gospels brings a change in emphasis. Luke wrote for a Gentile audience about a compassionate inclusive saviour. Matthew focusses on Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and fulfiller of Old Testament prophecy. The change in gospels offers us a change in perspective.
Maybe every change brings a change in perspective. And on this day of firsts, I expect there are people holding new hopes and fears, dreams and desires for this parish.
I have felt very warmly welcomed into the parish, and I guess that’s not just a reflection of what sort of people you are, but also a reflection of hope. Hope that I will be available to you, support and encourage you, and help the parish face challenges and plan for the future. Maybe your welcome reflects a big hope that together we will be what God wants us to be in 2023, what God needs us to be in 2024, what God dreams for us to be in 2025 and beyond.
I will be your Vicar, your priest, your confessor, your companion on the road ahead, so let me tell you a bit about me, and over the coming months and years I hope we will deeply share each other’s stories, with their pain and joy, shame and grace.
I have been attending church since before I was born. I was born Indrea Mander in August 1963. My parents Dudley and Margaret Mander were teaching and worshipping in Okato, having returned from missionary work in Indonesia. I was baptised at St Paul’s Okato in October 1963. I recognise my baptism as my commissioning for ministry, and my baptism certificate is framed and hanging on my office wall, above my brand new licence as your vicar.
When I was a pre-schooler, our family moved to Wellington, where we were part of St Aidan’s, Miramar. It was there I remember experiencing being included as a member of the church  community, participating in worship and Sunday School, choir and church plays, helping sweep the church hall, doing dishes and helping paint the vicarage.
I was 11 when I first told someone I was going to be a vicar when I grew up. I didn’t know that   they didn’t ordain women in the NZ Anglican Church at the time, but the first women were   ordained three years later in 1977 and the way was paved. 
When I was 13, I asked to be confirmed, owning for myself the promises that had been made, presumably in the words of the Book of Common Prayer, at my baptism… renouncing the Devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, etc, and professing Christian Faith.
When I was 14, we moved to Upper Hutt and became part of St Johns Trentham and then St Hilda’s Upper Hutt. Despite being fairly shy, I became leader of the Inter-School Christian Fellowship group. I was probably more inclined to stand up for Jesus than to stand up for myself. 
At school I enjoyed writing, and I decided to pursue journalism. Entry at Wellington Polytech’s school of journalism was very competitive, and I wasn’t accepted the first time round. So my first year away from school I worked as a residential supervisor at a home for intellectually disabled adults. The following year, 1983, I trained as a journalist. I then worked first for the Clutha Leader in South Otago, and then for The Evening Post in Wellington.
While in Balclutha, I worshipped at St Marks, where I met Neville Alexander. We married in 1985 and have two adult children. Before them we had premature twins in 1988 who died shortly after birth. An experience that shaped and grew me as only grief or trauma can do.
In 1992, I began ministry training at St Johns Theological College in Auckland. Heather and Ollie were born during my years of study. Neville was house dad.
I was ordained in 1995 and served in the parishes of Feilding, Shannon-Foxton, Mount Herbert (the half of Banks Peninsula that included Diamond Harbour), St Marys Timaru, and most recently part time in both Waimate Parish and Marchwiel Parish in Timaru.
I use my life experience, my experience of God, and my relationship with God to minister to others, and I seek to encourage and enable others to do so as well. All of us, whatever our abilities or restrictions, are intended to play a part in Christ’s ministry within and/or beyond the church.
I highly value a living relationship between a church and its community. I rejoice when people experience the church as accessible, generous, serving, and relevant to daily life; and it is wonderful when this experience helps them decide Christianity is worth exploring in their spiritual journey. All of us who believe life with Jesus is better than life without Jesus need to be ready and willing to clearly express “the hope we have within us”.
My greatest joys in ministry include seeing people come to faith for the first time, people being renewed in their faith, people discovering God’s love and purpose for them, and people encountering God’s transformative forgiveness. 
The greatest privilege in my priestly ministry is to stand on holy ground, sometimes the holy ground of death, or grief, or brokenness, or profound spiritual openness, and to be used by God as God brings solace, inner healing, or fills a thirsty life with the Holy Spirit.
A few years ago a woman in intensive care told her family that I had visited, and had lit a candle and prayed and sung for her. I had prayed and sung for her, but I had not lit a candle near all those oxygen cylinders. However, it was lovely to think that her mind’s eye had brought her into a candle-lit sanctuary with God just days before her death. We don’t know what God may do around our simple actions.
This Advent, God will be seeking to act in us, through us and around us.
We know Advent is a season of preparation. Sometimes we use it simply as a practical time of preparation for Christmas—the tree goes up, the nativity scene comes out, the lights get hung, maybe the Christmas cake gets made. But Advent has been offered by the church since the 4th century to encourage us to wait expectantly. It is designed as a time for spiritual preparation and focus. 
This Advent as we wait expectantly, I suggest we intentionally look for the coming of Christ in three different places - the past, the present and the future.  
In the past we can look back into the Bible and share the journey of those anticipating the first Christmas. We join the Old Testament prophets looking toward the coming of the Messiah. We share the stories of Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah, Simeon and Anna, angels and shepherds and sages. We remember and share the story in worship and Christmas carols, and we celebrate with family and friends, gifts and feasting. As Christians we can ponder afresh each Advent the wonder of God entering our humanity in the person of Christ, Immanuel, coming to restore our relationship with God. And in humility we can invite Christ to be born in us anew this Christmas. 
In the present we can look for the coming of Christ around us. Let’s see where God is working and be prepared to be part of his coming into hearts and lives now. Let’s take the opportunity to share with people around us the deep message of Christmas - God’s love for humanity. We can put up nativity scenes, we can send Christian Christmas cards, we can in all humility ask others what Christmas means for them and how they mark it, which may give the opportunity too to share with them what it means for us and how we mark it. We can invite people to carol services, Christmas services, midnight communion, and pray that they will be touched by the timeless story of love.
And thirdly we look to the future for the final coming of Christ, when he establishes his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. A world renewed. A kingdom of peace with God as judge and arbiter. And when, at an unexpected hour, he comes, may he find us living in the ways of his kingdom. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the dawn is near.
On this first Sunday of Advent we live in expectation of the coming of Christ, and have lit the candle of hope. May it burn brightly in our hearts, in our parish, and in this community.