Wake up!
What do you mean, wake up?
Of course I'm awake! I have errands to run and kids to drop off and meals to
cook and presents to wrap and a house to clean and parties to attend. How on
earth could I have time to sleep?
It would make more sense for
me to tell people to go to bed than to push their rushed schedule. But while
the world is busy around Christmas, we are rarely paying attention to the
reason for our business.
Like the person who moves in
near the highway, the noise that originally was so clear has faded into the
background. The wonder of advent has become common place over the years. We've
become numb to this time. And we've forgotten how to wait.
We're entertained in
convenient ½ hour portions available at the click of a remote control. We've
been fattened by fast food and by the promise of getting there faster if we
drive instead of walk. We've been indoctrinated by an economic system based on
the false promise of buy now, pay later. We’re up to our eyeballs in debt.
We’re programmed to expect
instant gratification. We quicken our pep up in the morning with a cup of
caffeine and quicken our relaxation at night with a glass (or three) or red.
The questions "why wait?" is now only offered rhetorically and we are
faced with the temptation of responding with the great cliché of our time: why
wait? Just do it!
Advent, a season devoted to
our watchfully waiting, is sacrificed to that mentality.
This world of 'why wait' is
my world – and I, most of the time, live in it quite comfortably. So that
struggle is my struggle too, and when I stand here to talk about the season of
waiting, of ‘not yet’ – I am not standing here as an authority, or as one
well-practiced in the art and discipline of patience. I'm actually extremely
bad at patience. I'm terrible at meditating. I don’t grow my own vegetables, I sometimes drive when I could walk.
But the problem of right now
also goes deeper than that. Many of us are struggling in a wait for things
which are far more important than the superficial ones I’ve described. People
who are lonely and desperately hoping to find someone to share their lives with
are forced to live in a time of waiting. People who hope to have a child but
are unable to conceive or have not found a partner to share this with wait –
often painfully. Those who are sick wait to feel better, to move out of their
depression, to be able to move without pain.
Those who have had
relationships break down or whose relationships are marked by awful tension or
violence or lack of communication are waiting for something to change; waiting
for reconciliation; or waiting for the courage to leave; or simply the wisdom
to know what to do. Some are plagued by the feeling they are meant for
something different than the job or role they have today. Some feel they have
potential they cannot find a way to fulfill. Many of us have a vision for the
world – a vision of no more poverty, injustice and war and some have prayed for
these things for years. And yet – here we are. Have we even made any progress?
Where is God and what is God doing? When will we see the things we hope for?
In today's reading from
Isaiah we hear the prophet join with us in our hopeful yet painful wait:
"If only, LORD; if only you would rip the sky open and come on down!"
Together we wait.
And as much as I as an
individual, and us collectively, seem to struggle with waiting for anything,
deeper inside our spirits and memories I believe we know more than we realize
about the goodness and necessity of the wait. It still takes 9 months to grow a
baby, and the wait is not always pleasant. We know that old wine is far finer
than new wine. Those of us who have made terrible, stupid mistakes in life know
that wisdom is not gained quickly or easily but is discovered over time through
the sometimes messy episodes of a life lived.
Like us, the people of the
New Testament churches lived in the tension of the wait. Jesus had been and
lived among them. He had authored their faith and promised to return. He had come
yet there was still more to wait for. He had been with them, yet they were
still waiting for him. In today's gospel reading we find a people impatient –
as we are – for God to once again "rip the sky open and come on
down!" The people of Mark's community struggle in their wait for their Saviour to come back. When will he come? What will it be
like?
The biblical answer gives us
our cue to advent waiting: people of faith are marked not by quick answers to
prayer or special knowledge about future events; people of faith are marked by
the way in which we wait. The message from today's gospel passage is to not
wait passively but to use this time to get ready, to live rightly, to be active
in bringing about God's vision of what the world could be like, rather than
waiting for God to do it alone.
For us, there are times in
life, in faith, in the history of the world where it feels much like the movie
Groundhog Day. We make the same mistakes over and over. We live the same
routine over and over. We long to have greater faith or a more experience of
God. We go to church – over and over. We wait.
We wait, but we aren't
really paying attention to our waiting. We wait, but we blame God for the
waiting. We wait, but only reluctantly. We have failed to keep watch while we
wait. As I said, I'm terrible at waiting. I refuse to go anywhere I might have
to stand in line without a book. Airports, bus stops, particularly busy days at
the store, I can be found standing in line, reading. When I notice the line has
moved I'll shuffle forward with everyone else, but I can
hardly can be said to be paying attention. I have found a way to avoid
the boring part.
Yet what can seem like the
meaningless marching on of time, what can seem like the same thing over and
over, can be part of God’s work of redemption. Sometimes, the prolonging of
history – the time we are given which can be seen as too much time – too much
waiting – can be a gift that allows us to become aware of God’s purposes.
Sometimes our advent task – our task in the season of ‘not yet’ is to become
more of who we were created to be and to join with Mark's New Testament friends
and "get ready". But in order to see that, we need to be paying
attention while we wait. We must be watchful. We must keep awake.
For me, today's passage from
Mark is not actually offered to us as to inspire a debate about how many
hurricanes constitute the end times or how many wars indicate the apocalypse is
near. (Sorry to disappoint anyone who was hoping to hear that.)
But I hear this message as
actually the antithesis of this kind of ranting. Its message is that living as
people of faith is as much about how we live in between huge events and great
moments as it is about the great events or celebrations of faith. Christian
faith is seen as much in Advent as in Christmas because it is here that we can
demonstrate to a world which struggles with the "not yet" of life
that people of faith wait differently. Advent waiting is different from
hopeless, passive waiting. We cry out with Isaiah, "If only, LORD; if only
you would rip the sky open and come on down!" but we do so knowing that
God has and will "come on down". We wait with hope and with purpose,
watchfully.
Advent is the season of
"not yet"
In Advent we refuse to jump
straight to Christmas and to take for granted the presence of God. We wait to
discern more carefully the One for whom we wait, and the One
who waits for us.
To me, waiting in
watchfulness is embodied in my dog, Dylan.
I have never in his entire
life fed him while I am eating. Yet when I sit down at the couch with a bowl of
popcorn, Dylan stations himself at my feet and sits ramrod straight. Every
piece of popcorn I lift from the bowl, he watches leaning forward slightly to
track its progress to my mouth. During each bite, he tenses, ready to spring
into action to snatch up the piece should I drop it or choose to toss it his
way. He doesn't leave his vigilant post until he's sure that there isn't a
morsel left.
I have never fed him, yet he
eternally waits in hope, tensed in eager anticipation for the feast that might
come.
That is how the Scriptures
call us to wait during Advent. Tensed in eager anticipation
and hope. That is how I lived during Advent in my childhood – eagerly
watching the signs of the season: the advent wreath appearing, the decorating
of the church. If I was lucky, the first snowfall. A
room lit with Christmas tree lights was to me a holy place – they filled the
ordinary with a sense of wonder.
But I grew up. I went to
college. I didn't take the time to go to church. Instead of Advent, I focused
on finals in the weeks before Christmas. Even when I went back to church on a
regular basis, it wasn't the same. I had become numb to the wonder of Advent.
But I didn't have to be. With some effort, I reminded myself of why this was my
favorite time of the church year.
You don't have to be numb
either! We can still be filled with the joyful, watchfulness of the season that
we are called to. If you feel yourself just being carried along by the errands
of the season and the business of your lives, stop for a moment. Remember what
it is we are waiting for. When I find myself growing impatient or feeling
overwhelmed during this season, I picture a little dog waiting on faith alone.
Waiting here and now is not
so different from the waiting that happened so long ago in
We wait for Christmas –
because we have a sense – even if it is only a small sense – of what it might
mean for God to be here among us in the fullest, closest way. And because the
Messiah who came to Bethlehem did not look anything like the world was
expecting, we learn during Advent and Christmas to wait for all those things we
long for with the humbling understanding that the perfect gifts of God – the
things we are really longing for, sometimes without even knowing it, may not
look anything like those things we think we are hoping for.
And so during the season of
‘not yet’ we join with Isaiah, and the New Testament church in crying out,
"O Lord, rip the sky open and come on down!" if in slightly different
words. So let us pray together in song: “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”
We all are waiting during
this Advent season – some more anxiously than others. If you are looking for a
church home to wait in, we would be happy to have you join our church family.
Just speak with one of us after the service and we'll get you started.
Rev. Cara Gee November 30th,
2008