1 Advent
We have
the beautiful blue frontal on the altar. We clergy get to wear the beautiful
blue vestments given by the late Ellen Thompson in memory of her husband
Charles several years ago.
It is a
time in which we, as the Church, turn our attention, just like the rest of the
world, toward Christmas.
But we
need to be clear: it is not Christmas yet for us Christians.
As many
of you know, I am an Oblate—or an associate –at Blue Cloud Abbey in
For now,
we are in this almost limbo-like season of Advent.
All the
major Church feast days—namely Christmas and Easter—are preceded by a time of
preparation.
Before
Easter comes, we go through the season of Lent—a time for us to collect our
thoughts, prepare spiritually for the glorious mystery of the Resurrection.
Advent
of course is similar. We go through Advent as a way of preparing, spiritually, for Christmas.
What a
lot of people don’t realize is that Advent is as much of a penitential time—a
time in which we should spend time fasting and thinking about our shortcomings—as
Lent is.
In this
way, I think the Church year reflects our own lives in many ways.
In our
lives, we go through periods of fasting and feasting.
We have
our lean times and we have our prosperous times.
There is
a balance to our lives in the world and there is a balance, as well, to our
church lives.
We will
feast—as we do on Christmas and on Easter—but first we must fast, as we do
during Advent and Lent.
Do you
ever notice how, when you know you’re going out to eat with friends at a nice
restaurant, you cut back on your food during the day?
You
maybe eat a little less at breakfast and only a very light lunch. You avoid snacking
between meals, just so you can truly enjoy the supper that night.
That is
what Advent is like.
We know
this joyous event is coming, but to truly enjoy it, we need to hold back a bit
now.
Advent then
is also a time of deep anticipation.
And in that
way, I think is represents our own spiritual lives in a way other times of the
church year don’t.
We are,
after all, a people anticipating something.
If we
weren’t, none of us would be here this morning.
More
importantly, we are a people living in the dark and gloom of life.
In a
sense, that is what Advent is as well.
It is
the recognition of the darkness we all collectively live in without Christ.
But we
are anticipating something more—we are all looking forward into the gloom and
what do we see there?
We see
the first rays of the dawn.
We see
the first glow of what awaits us, there, just ahead of us.
That
light that is about to burst into our lives is, of course, Christ.
For the
Jews before Jesus’ time, waiting like we are, for the Messiah, they had specific
ideas of what this messiah would do.
Oppressed
as they were by a foreign government—the Romans—with an even more foreign
religion—paganism—, they expected someone like themselves to come to them and
take up a sword.
This
Messiah would drive away these foreign influences and allow them, as a people,
to rise up and gain their rightful place.
But God
doesn’t work according to human plans.
The
light that came to them—and to us—was no solider.
The
Light that came to us was a baby—a child who was destined to suffer, just as we
suffer to some extent, and to die, as we all must die.
In the
gospel for today, Jesus warns us—“you do not know when the time will come.”
We don’t
know when God is going to come to us.
But we
can take comfort today in one thing: as frightening as our times may be, as
terrible as life may seem some times and as uncertain as our future may be,
what Advent shows us more than anything is this: we already know the end of the
story.
We might
not know what awaits us tomorrow or next week. We might not know what setbacks
or rewards will come to us in the weeks to come, but in the long run, we know
how our story ends.
God as
Christ has come to us as one of us and with a voice like our voice, Christ has
told us that we might not know when it will happen, but the end will be a good
ending.
God has
promised that in the end, there will be joy and happiness and peace.
The key
word in today’s gospel is a simple one—“Watch!”
To watch
means more than just to look around us.
It means
to be attentive. It means, we must pay attention.
There is
a story I read once in book about St. Anthony of
In the
book, the author relates an interesting
story—one I never heard before—about how the early desert monastics used
ostrich eggs in their worship.
In some
of the churches that they built, they hung ostrich eggs from the ceiling as a
“symbol of spiritual dedication.”
A
visitor to one of the monasteries, wrote later about this practice:
When it intends to hatch its egg,
the ostrich sits not upon them, as other birds, but the male and female hatches
them with their eye only; and only when either of them needs to seek for food,
he gives notice to the other by crying; and the other continues to look upon
the eggs, till it returns…for if they did but look off for a moment, the eggs
will spoil and rot.
[1]
Whether
this is scientifically true or not, this is a perfect illustration of what we,
as Christians, are doing during this Advent season and, really, during all of
our spiritual lives.
Like
these ostriches, which gaze almost agonizingly for the hatching of the egg, so
too should we be waiting, with held breath, for the realm of heaven to break
upon us.
So, yes,
Jesus’ message to us to wait is a very important of our spiritual lives.
But it
is also a message of hope and longing. It is a message meant to wake us from
our slumbering complacency. His is a voice calling us to sit up and take
notice.
The
kingdom of heaven is near. In fact it’s nearer than we can probably ever hope
or imagine.
So, be
prepared. Watch.
Christ
our friend—our brother—our companion on the way—has come to us and is leading
us forward.
Christ—the
dazzling Light—is burning away the fogs of our day-to-day living and is showing
us a way through the darkness that sometimes seems to encroach upon us.
Our job
is simple really. Like those ostriches, we simply need to watch. In our case,
we need to look anxiously for that light and, when it comes, we need to be
prepared to share it with others.
This is
the true message of Advent.
As
hectic as this season is going to get, as you’re feeling overwhelmed by all
sensory overload we’ll all be experiencing through this season, remember that
one word Jesus says to us.
Watch.
Take
time, be silent and just watch.
For this
anticipation—this expectant and patient watching f ours—is merely a pathway on
which the Christ Child can come among us as one of us.
