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Advent is a funny season for the church. We find ourselves, out of tradition and a certain amount of worldly sentimentality, surrounded by the trappings and symbols of Christmas...which, by the calendar, has not yet come. We focus on the expectation of an event that has already occurred in the birth of Christ...and, too often, we fail to take notice of the signs of that which is yet to come, that for which we are to be waiting with great hope: the eventual fulfillment of God’s promises of ultimate justice and eternal life. The world certainly has no clue about the significance of Advent and, too often, neither do we.
The world’s way -- and ours -- of "preparing" for Christmas is to shop and wrap and snap and worry and schedule and bake and scurry and work ourselves into a frenzy of holiday spirit that, if it lasted longer than a month, would probably kill us!
The intention of Advent is a time of stopping our constant focus on what is missing and needful in the present moment and lifting our heads and turning our attention to the hopeful promise of what is yet to come. Advent is a time for the prayerful meshing of the past, present and future into one crystalized awareness of God’s presence and power and promise. This is to be a time of hope...a time of patient waiting with great anticipation.
Through the prophet Jeremiah we heard the words, "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfil the promise I made...." But we, like ancient Israel, must wait for the fulfillment of God’s promises to us. And let’s be honest. Patient waiting is not something that most of us do very well. We don’t want traffic to come to a stop, we hate to be put on hold, we count and recount to see if maybe, by some creative combining of similar products, we might be able to claim 15 items or less for the express check-out. (Surely cereal, milk, sugar and bananas could be one item! Popcorn, chips and cookies are "snacks" -- that’s one thing.)
We don’t want to wait for anything. And so we constantly experience a hard and painful clash with the reality that the universe and our place in it is, in terms of a great cosmic computer, "still downloading." And only God knows when God’s program will be fully ready to run.
And so we must wait. We wait for the details of our lives to play out and we wait to see the fulfillment of God’s great plan which, I believe we will someday discover, completely eclipses the smoke-filled, paper thin dreams to which we so aspire now. But the day of the fulfillment of all we have ever longed for and more is, apparently, not today...and so we must wait.
The question for us in Advent is not will we wait. In that, there is no choice. The question is how will we wait? The reading from our Advent devotional by Henri Nouwen for tomorrow says this: "Waiting patiently is not like waiting for the bus to come, the rain to stop, or the sun to rise. It is an active waiting in which we live the present moment to the full in order to find there the signs of the One we are waiting for."
Even though we are waiting, we are to live the present moment to the full. Surely, in the Scripture readings we heard this morning, the words of the psalmist and the words of Jesus are calling us to practice this "active waiting."
Psalm 25 said to God, because "...for you I wait all the day long...," "Make me to know your ways, O God; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation." Advent begins anew the church year; it is, spiritually, our "new year," and thus is a perfect time to re-turn our attention to prayer and to awareness of all that God is doing even in the midst of our constant waiting. Even in the midst of our confusion and longing and despair there are signs of God’s presence and promise all around us if we will become attuned and mindful of them.
Jesus spoke about being mindful of what is going on around us in our Gospel reading from Luke. Now this is a passage about which there are many theories. Most scholars agree that Jesus, with his descriptions and warnings about terrible times to come, was looking ahead to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem that would come in 70 A.D. Some, though, have also seen this as an apocalyptic prediction of the end times. This passage, together with parts of the book of Revelation, has been used by some along the way to predict doom and gloom for "unbelievers" and to hold fear over the heads of folks who really want to know God. What a lovely portrayal some people give of a God who hates the world and can’t wait to come back and stomp through screaming crowds of people who are running in every direction, vainly trying to escape. I personally have trouble reconciling our "God who so loved the world..." with that particular image of a God-zilla!
I think, for us, the point of Jesus’ words this morning is that, for all of us, the "end times" are literally, at any moment, only a single heartbeat away. And he does not say we should despair but he says, "...when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." Not our destruction but our redemption is the promise of God for which we should patiently and actively wait!
Jesus says, "...take heed that your hearts don’t become weighed down with (as some translations put it) self-indulgence and the cares of this life." That’s not an inappropriate warning at this time of year. We might consider such self-indulgence as the rampant consumerism that reduces all of life and people to commodities which can be bought. We might consider the "cares of this life" to refer to, among other things, worries about money, our mad pursuit of profit, our quest for security, our desire for affluence and our need for control. The challenge of Advent is to step back from the ways of the world and remember what waiting patiently and hopefully for God is really all about.
Both of my parents grew up on farms and even today they still plant and work and harvest a large garden every year. Farmers live, constantly, with two ultimate truths. Ultimate truth number one is that the harvest is the result of incredible patience; ultimate truth number two is that the harvest is the result of incredible work. Yes, farmers wait and hope for the autumn and spring rains, and there is nothing that can be done to induce them. That’s where patience comes in. That’s where relying on forces beyond one’s control comes in. But in that season of waiting, farmers are hardly idle; farmers do all the work that can and must be done, knowing that time and God alone will bring to fruition what the farmers expect and assist. There is no such thing as an idle farmer who is a good farmer. Farmers know that what they wait for must be worked for, and they also know that what is expected is worth waiting for.
So should it be with us. In our constant waiting for God, we are called upon to do all that we can to assist the promises of God in coming. When we work for justice in the world, when we treat each other as we would if we were already in heaven, when we make the most of the present moment and trust God for the outcome of tomorrow, we are assisting in bringing the promises of God to fruition.
The intention of Advent is a time of stopping our constant focus on what is missing and needful in the present moment and lifting our heads and turning our attention to the hopeful promise of what is yet to come. And we now have 23 stopping days until Christmas! Make the most of them...while you wait. Amen.
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