With Thanksgiving behind us, the season of
preparation has begun. The Christmas tree stands are open and doing a brisk
business. Time for the ornaments and other decorations to be retrieved from
behind the suitcases and camping gear in the attic. And of course with the
arrival of Black Friday the other day, the frenzy of holiday buying has
begun once again. For some, the season of preparation is already in full
swing. At our house, it feels like we’ve been getting things ready for
weeks already if not months. In case you haven’t heard, we’ve found
ourselves in the throes of a home improvement story that at times has seemed
like it would never end. Having pulled out all the carpet and tile from the
downstairs area of our house we’re painting our floors and with our big open
house less than a week away, there’s hardly a moment’s rest. After slapping
another coat of polyurethane on the floor late last night, I think I can
actually say I think I’m beginning to sense what might be a light at the end
of the tunnel.
And today, we in the church begin the season of
Advent, the all too brief period when we prepare for the coming of the Lord
Jesus, God incarnate, the Word made flesh who dwells among us full of grace
and truth. But in all truth, the kind of preparations that we are urged to
be about this time of the year seems peculiar, utterly contrary to our
natural inclinations if not downright disturbing—heeding strange voices
crying in the wilderness, making crooked paths straight, repenting of sins
and from the mouth of Jesus himself, “keeping awake”. “For you do not know
when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at
midnight, or at cockcrow, or
at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I
say to you I say to all: Keep awake!” So, if we want to keep in the true
spirit of the season, if we want to be truly prepared maybe we ought to
forgo the shopping malls and brew ourselves a cup of genuine truck stop
grade coffee instead. Whatever we have to do to make sure we aren’t caught
napping. Beware! Keep alert! Stay awake, because something is getting
ready to happen!
I heard somewhere not too long ago that one of the
most commonly reported medical problem is difficulty or inability to sleep
adequately, most of it related to some sort of anxiety about work or school,
about our relationships with others or even about the fears that haunt both
real and imagined. We worry about our kids and if we manage to live long
enough, chances are there’ll come a day when they start worrying about us!
In a post 9/11 world we’re encouraged to go about our everyday lives but
with added vigilance depending on the current terrorist threat level—red,
orange, yellow, blue, green. To put it simply, we’re stressed out, keyed
up, on edge. So, in many ways sleepiness and inattentiveness hardly seem to
be the problem. At the same time, it only makes sense that if you’re prone
to nodding off or zoning out chances are you’re going to have a pretty tough
time making it in the world these days. After all, the early bird still
gets the worm.
But though our eyes are open to what extent are we
really awake, aware, in-tuned to what is going on in the world around us?
It’s been said that we live in a “Culture of Denial.” No one wants to
appear weak and needy, so we try to hide our fears and vulnerabilities not
only from other people, but from ourselves. A father has a serious drinking
problem, but no one is willing to confront him. “Maybe he’ll just get over
it.” They say. Trouble begins to brew in a marriage but neither partner is
willing to say anything for fear or hurting the others feelings. A mother
and father notice the dramatic change in their teenage daughter’s behavior.
She’s become withdrawn and her grades have plummeted. They suspect she may
be doing drugs, but they’re sure it’s just a phase she’s going through, so
they say nothing.
We
don’t just play the game of denial as individuals, but as institutions, as a
nation and even as a global community. Corporations seem unwilling to
accept the fact that compared to their male counterparts, women are
dramatically underpaid. Churches all over are unwilling to accept that the
world around them has changed and they wonder why no one wants to join
anymore. In a land of plenty, we seem surprised to learn that over thirty
six million people including thirteen million children experience hunger or
are at risk of being hungry. And of course, thirty five thousand people die
every day from preventable causes, the equivalent of eleven and
World Trade Center
tragedies and no one even notices. A case could well be made that even
though we may have 20/20 vision, we’re as blind as blind can be.
Dark
and foreboding images of the darkened sun and moon that no longer gives
light, of stars falling from the sky and the shaking of the powers of heaven
surely catches our attention. And coupled with the call to beware, keep
alert and to be wakeful suggests that our blindness extends to the signs of
God’s coming, His advent into the world. Depictions of the cataclysmic end
of the world portrayed in books, movies and on religious television talk
shows are big business these days and Jesus’ words in the thirteenth chapter
of Mark fit right into such scenarios, I suppose. While there is a sense of
uncertainty, perhaps even fear as we move towards the end of time, Christ
descends to us, to cast our sin, to enter in, to be born in us today!
“From
the fig tree, learn its lesson.” The words serve not as a demand, but as an
invitation to us, an invitation to be aware, to keep alert, to stay awake to
perceive the signs of God’s kingdom breaking into our world. It’s not an
easy task to be sure, especially in a fearful, self centered, cynical world
like ours that stifles any sense of imagination that there might well be
something new under the sun. As they say, “you’re born. You live and you
die and that’s just the way it is.” Not a whole lot of hope or joy in that,
is there?
As the
church, we’re called to lives shaped by holy imagination through the promise
of God, that what God is up to among and for us, often in spite of us is
big, bigger than our own individual selves, cosmic in fact, nothing less
than “a new heaven and a new earth.” And after the smoke clears, when all
is said and done, God and God alone will reign. Now imagine that, will
you? And the signs are there, if only we have eyes to see, ears to hear—in
the waters of baptism as the old sinner is put to death and a new creation
rises, in Christ’s body and blood, broken and shed for us for the
forgiveness of our Sin. There are other signs too, but not always apparent
or where one might expect to find them—in the faces of strangers and
outcasts, the hungry, the sick and the weak, those in whom we behold nothing
less than the face of Jesus Christ himself.
The
call of Advent is as much about positioning ourselves in the right place to
hear and to see, to discover space in a busy world, in this busiest of
seasons to open ourselves to the kind of deep, profound quiet that allows us
to look and listen for the one who meets us in every breath, in every step
we take and makes us new. The “right place” is different for everybody, but
one place to begin could be our luminaria labyrinth this evening, a time to
walk and pray in what for you may be a completely new way, but a way that
might well lead you to a new experience of God’s presence in your life. And
why not let tonight’s experience serve as the beginning of a greater walk
this Advent, as we look for God’s fingerprints each and every day in small
and simple ways, as we anticipate the watchman’s cry, “Awake, Jerusalem at
last! Our God has come.”
“The
days are surely coming,” says the Lord. But in the mean time, you and I are
blessed to be about the master’s work, to serve as signs ourselves, signs of
the coming kingdom, signs of hope, signs of God’s gracious love for the
whole world to see. We’ve been put in charge, each with our own work to do,
at work, at school, at home, in our neighborhoods.
Though
we wait, we’re never without Jesus. He’s here with us today in all of
our tomorrows. And on the last day he’ll be there too, to take
us to the place he has prepared for us. So wake up, keep alert it’s a ride
that you sure don’t want to miss. Amen.
