Matthew 24:23-24

Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look! Here is the Messiah!’ or ‘There he is!’—do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

It's the season of Advent - the time when we wait for that baby to be born: the baby who will change everything.

And yet in Advent, we get frequent lessons about waiting for the Messiah - a baby no longer - to come again. And those lessons often feel a bit frightening and mysterious and ominous.

And yet also somehow relevant.

As we wait for the baby - the Incarnate God in our midst - we also pause to note all the false gods we wait for and watch for. Those saviors that Jesus warns us of today.

We remember our tendency to look in the wrong places for leadership and guidance.

We remember how we seek power over and over again as the way we shall save ourselves.

Meanwhile, soon we will see that we don't save ourselves.

That power isn't the way.

That our leaders are not saviors.

And that the real savior, our true leader, will come not in might and strength and power.

Not in the White House or the Kremlin or the grandest castle...

...but in fragility and vulnerability...

...amidst cow dung and straw in a place for animals rather than people.

So in Advent we wait. For the babe in a manger.

And also for the life Christ brings to keep coming again and again from this time through end times.

Savior of the world, show us true power. Teach us humility. Give us patience. And help us to be love to a world that needs it even as it waits for you. Amen.