Advent
comes with a feeling that God is far away.
It begins not on a note of joy, but of despair.
Humankind
has reached the end of its rope.
We
have tried tribal leadership, and we weren’t unified enough to fend off
enemies. Then we tried Kings, but kings
have flaws. Then we tried putting the
religious folk in charge, but they forgot the meaning of God in an attempt to
define what was correct. Eventually we
tried a representative democracy (of course this is not in the bible), a style
of government that is all inclusive; it tries to include the will of all, but
it is also inclusive of all those flaws; disunity between tribes, leaders with
flaws, and religious people who forget the meaning of God.
All
our schemes to extract ourselves from the traps we have set for ourselves have
come to nothing. The human experiment
has failed. We have now discovered we cannot save ourselves, and apart from the
intervention of God, we are totally and irretrievably lost. And so advent begins with a prayer of the
prophet Isaiah that is both a lament and a plea.
“Remember,” Isaiah pleads, “Remember God, when
you did awesome deeds that made the mountains tremble? Remember when you did these things we did not
expect? Well, we have become so
entangled in traps of our own making… How
about we have some of that right now?? Please? Just a little demonstration of
power…pretty
please?”
How
comforting is it to ask for a sign, a demonstration of power that will right
all the wrongs and set everything in order again? Who has not at one time or another wondered
the same thing? If in biblical times God
intervened in history with ‘awesome deeds’, why does God not do so today? Surely there are flagrant wrongs that deserve
to be righted. Why would God deliver
Israel from Egypt but not deliver us? We
want the mountains to quake and the nations to tremble at God’s presence and
God’s immanent justice. It is obviously
comforting, since humankind has been doing it since the time of Isaiah.
But
that is not our God.
Instead,
the sufferings of our day are too often met with divine silence. Isaiah names YHWH as a God who makes you
wait. “No one has seen or heard of a
God like you, who works for those who
wait for him.”
Well
that seems like a mixed bag. God is on
our side, as long as we wait long enough.
The
season of Advent is about waiting…waiting in darkness, seemingly forgotten, but believing in
the promise of light. That although the
world is challenging, although we have suffering and corruption and the powers
of evil oppress us daily, we remain confident that God will break into the
world with God’s redeeming power, in the most unexpected way. We hold onto the hope that God will break
into the ordinary.
God’s
refusal to repeat a Red Sea-type intervention does not mean that God has
abandoned Isaiah, Israel, or us. Our
hope does not rely on God’s performance today in the same manner God acted in
ancient stories, but it does rely on God being the same God yesterday, today
and tomorrow; a God who hears our cries, a God who does not abandon us, a God
who will finally redeem all that is lost in a new heaven and a new earth. We draw on the knowledge of what has happened
in the past to cement our certainty that God will be present in our future.
God
wants to mold us into his beloved, into the examples of his kingdom, which becomes
clear when God delivers a human figure to earth in the infant Jesus. In the midst of darkness, God will deliver
himself to us in the body of an infant – the most precious, most vulnerable, subtlest
form of breaking into the world.
And
in the meantime, Jesus tells us to be aware and keep alert in our gospel
reading from Mark. “Keep awake!” as if
we were sleeping. Are we sleeping? Have we been hitting the snooze button on living life? Are there parts of our world that we've ignored as if we were in deep slumber? Does the coming kingdom of heaven require our active participation? What are the requirements on us to be 'alert'? How do we avoid dozing, or purposely escaping into dreams, when the world is overwhelmed by darkness - and instead be ready with lit candles to herald the dawn?
What is requires of us is active waiting versus passive waiting... active waiting is full of expectation, a way of living into a world that is both already and not yet. Willing ourselves to live into the world as if we are already living inGod's kingdom, showing love in our interactions and grace to our enemies. Treating each of God's creations with gratitude. Finding purpose and compassion in the eyes of those around us. Operating out of a radical generosity of spirit, of grace, of hospitality; inviting all into God's kingdom through our actions.
Each year, we come back to this period of
wandering and waiting, looking for the rays of light. And challenges us to see where God is already
moving in our lives, or in the world.
Where are people coming together to solve big problems? Where are people responding to the needs of
the downtrodden? Where are we comforting
the grieving, and tending to the sick? God is in all those places.
Here in this congregation, in this
house of the Lord…we have
baptisms, weddings, and today a confirmation ceremony!
There are cooking nights, and Bible Study, Fair Wage Discussions
and Lenten suppers – opportunities to listen closer for God’s voice. We sing together, eat together, rejoice
together, discuss together. We are
completing reorganization, with new, willing people taking the torch from
former, dedicated people and every nomination spot filled. We are drawing on
people’s strengths and inviting them to try new things, to see how God might
engage them in growth.
Stay attuned to where God is moving in
your life. Perhaps you have reunited
with loved ones long missed, or found reconciliation in a problematic relationship.
Perhaps you have found the sacredness in
every moment, and slowed down to be grateful for each blessing in real time. Yesterday this sanctuary was filled for the
Memorial service for Bob Johnson, showing how many people you can impact with
your passion and your character. There’s hardly a better example of someone who
fought to keep awake and harness his days with God. Perhaps you have found a
new passion, and new people who share your passion, or new interests to enrich
your days.
Reading this passage at the beginning of Advent
reminds us that we are not in control of the way God works in our lives, but we
have to keep watch for it. Too often we
try to keep God in a box that we can manage, taming God’s power, but the
prophet reminds us that God cannot be contained. And, thank goodness for that,
because that means that God’s grace and God’s surprises can also not be predicted
or contained. Jesus asks us to keep
awake, because God moves in subtlety, but is always moving.
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