Holy Wisdom Monastery
First Sunday of Advent
November 29, 2015
Jeremiah 33: 14-16
1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11
Luke 21: 25-36
Advent. At no other time in the year does the church’s proclamation of the gospel stand at such apparent cross-purposes to the culture in which we live. In the midst of the catalogs and Amazon orders and the babble of holiday crowds, we are preparing to celebrate the day of the mystery, of the promise and coming of Jesus. And yet just as the festive time of Advent’s expectation and fulfillment is beginning, as the writer of Jeremiah assures us that the promise will be fulfilled, today’s gospel begs the uncomfortable question: For which event are we to be preparing? That which has already taken place in the incarnation or that for which we look at the end of time? Or is the time of preparation – and our role in it – the same for both events?
Today’s readings remind us that the character of Advent is two-fold: it prepares us for Christmas, when Jesus’ first coming is remembered, and it is the season when the remembrance of that first Christmas directs our minds and hearts to Christ’s second coming as Messiah for all ages and all people. It is clear that we will not be allowed to settle for an Advent that is either a period of disciplined preparation or a time of utterly joyful anticipation. What a troublesome season this is.
Advent is a paradox. We are at once comforted and discomforted, preparing both for birth and for chaos, being called to celebrate even as we are called to acknowledge the rest of the trouble. Advent has rightly been called, “a season under stress.” And rather than trying to relieve or put aside the tension, today’s readings invite us to live into it – they encourage us to bask for a few minutes in the richness and grace of the annual collision between eschatological dread and eschatological promise – and they invite us to make this collision our own. In poet Louis Untermeyer’s words, “… though locked and rocked with fear, the place is here, the miracle is now.”
We begin today with the words of the commonly cranky writer of Jeremiah, who reawakens our hope with words of promise: “The days are surely coming … when I will fulfill the promise I made … Jerusalem will live in safety.” Jeremiah was not a power structure insider, and yet as the son of a priest, his lifelong apprenticeship was in both faith and politics. Born in a time of insecurity for the Hebrew people, during his lifetime, the rulers of Judah had to balance whether to make alliance with Egypt in order to avoid destruction from the huge Assyrian nation to the north. The forces arrayed against stability and security were formidable. The worst has not yet happened, but it is inevitable. Jeremiah’s prophetic voice speaks words of tenacious hope, counteracting all the life-sapping, despair-inducing evidence to the contrary – and that is its power. The house of David might be cut down, but God still is faithful. A righteous branch will spring up. The time is not now – but it is coming. The Word is at work; nothing can hold it in check. We might hear in Jeremiah’s speech the cadences of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who thundered to the nation in 1963: “I may not get there with you … but I have seen the promised land….” The days are surely coming. The place is here, the miracle is now.
Encouraged, we move on to Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, a community besieged by change and alien powers. His message overflows with promise and a call for strengthened hearts, for standing firm, for increasing and abounding in love for one another. Here is the Advent hope expressed in real terms to a company of Christians who have seen their share of difficulties. They – and we – are urged to put on faith and hope and love, to prepare ourselves for God’s movement in the world and in our lives, to put God’s promise of peace into action – even if we are not yet sure what that means. As children of the light, we are to encourage and build up one another. Jeremiah’s and Paul’s texts are amiable wake-up calls, sort of like being roused by an easy-listening station.
But in case we’ve hit that spiritual snooze-alarm, Luke’s apocalyptic discourse has the feel of a George Lucas screenplay. Special effects galore, magnificent and deadly. It is a more serious wake-up message invoking primal fears. Signs in the sun, moon and stars, nations in disarray, the roaring of the sea and the crashing of the waves, people dying of fright. Sounds much more like a war of the worlds than the reunion of God and humanity that this second Advent anticipates. In fact, the warnings about drunkenness and the image of being caught in a trap are so distracting that they may cause us to recall past homilies about the evils of materialism with a guilty shudder and to put this whole reading and its images of terror aside, like Scrooge trying to banish the clanking chains of Marley from his bedchamber.
But, like Scrooge, we would be making a mistake not to listen a little more closely to the messenger who comes speaking hard truths. If we linger a little longer with Luke, we notice that he (like Marley and the spirits of Christmas) tells us exactly what to do to prepare for redemption. Luke urges us to be on watch, to stand secure, to pray constantly. And when the signs of the end (which is really the beginning) start to happen – when (like Scrooge) we might be tempted to allow our fear and shame to drive us to hide under the bedcovers, Luke tells us to “stand up and raise our heads because (our) redemption is drawing near!”
Despite the portents of the end times, Luke’s gospel is really about the completion of the reign, a reminder and proclamation that moments of chaos and confusion can clarify values and prompt reflection in ways that moments of peace and prosperity may not. The Second Coming is not a deadline but an invitation, a call to be vigilant, an incentive to live in the present time in a way that is shaped by Jesus, before whom we stand.
If Jesus says that such catastrophic events can herald our salvation, it gives us a different perspective on the calamities of our own day. It is tempting to become paralyzed by the overwhelming scope of the world’s problems: the ravaging of the environment, the abuse of our children, the plight of refugees. It seems that Jesus sees events such as these through different eyes: They are not excuses for depression or inertia, but challenges that alert us to the truth that every moment is a “second coming.” The daily news may fill us with dread – but it also can inspire us to action, to become partners in God’s shalom. A little apocalypse goes a long way – but apocalyptic thinking can awaken us to the eschatology of each moment, rising and vanishing – in each movement, an opportunity to experience holiness. In every moment, the realm of God draws near. Every Advent moment is a kairos moment in which Christ is born, as Kathleen Norris reminds us, in the margins and the “quotidian mysteries” of our lives.
So often it is loss or grief that knocks us off the normal trajectory of our lives into another, more sacred orbit. The shock and disorientation of the apocalypse invites us to be attentive to our own distractions, disorders, and dis-identities – dysfunctions to which Jesus is constantly arriving. It is true that the signs of confusion and chaos are all around us and within us, and it also is true that it is there that Jesus is always being born anew. In the midst of darkening skies and longer nights, the Advent candles dispel the darkness. We open the next window in our Advent calendars. The days are surely coming. The place is here, the miracle is now.
Prayers of the Faithful
Let us turn to our God in prayer. People of faith, the days are surely coming. We are called to come in out of the cold, to wait together for the Promised One, though our faith in that promise may be fragile. Let there be moments when God’s presence, like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk.
Let us pray.
- For the strength and discipline to nurture our relationship with you, to care for every part of your creation, to foster justice, and be in solidarity with those in need, we pray:
- Loving God, hear our prayer.
- For the commitment to grow together, sharing the gifts you give us with others and working to end all war, violence, and discord, we pray:
- Loving God, hear our prayer.
- For the eyes to see the Good News and to respond joyfully when You call, freely giving ourselves as you have shown the way, we pray:
- Loving God, hear our prayer.
For what else shall we pray?
Holy Spirit of all Creation, promise maker, promise keeper, we come before You in fear and doubt. Show us how to be people of this time, this place. In the words of Jan Richardson, let the landscape of our fears and the terrain of our sorrow become the ground of healing for the world, turning fences into bridges, borders into paths of peace. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.