December 1, 2024
Luke
21.25-36
+ Today, is of course the first Sunday in Advent
I am wearing the Sarum Blue chasuble.
The church is draped in blue.
It feels kind of like. . .
. . . Christmas, right?
Wrong!
It is NOT Christmas yet.
In fact, it won’t be the Christmas season, for us anyway, for
another three weeks or so.
Christmas for us as liturgical Christians, doesn’t begin until
Christmas Eve.
For now, we are in this anticipatory season of Advent.
Advent is no more Christmas than Lent is Easter.
And we should just let these seasons be what they are for us.
After all, anticipation is a good thing.
Preparation for the big events is always a very good thing.
And anticipation is something we don’t really give a lot of
thought to.
But anticipation is a very good word to sum up what Advent is.
We are anticipating.
We are anxiously expecting something.
And in that way, I think Advent represents our own spiritual lives
in some ways.
We are, after all, a people anticipating something.
Sometimes we might not know exactly what it is we are
anticipating.
We maybe can’t name it, or identify it, but we know—deep inside
us—that something—something BIG—is about to happen.
We know that something big is about to happen, involving God in
some way.
And we know that when it happens, we will be changed.
Life will never be the same again.
Our world as we know it—our very lives—will be turned around by
this “God event.”
It will be cataclysmic.
What I find so interesting about the apocalyptic literature we
hear this morning in our scripture readings is that we find anticipation and
expectation for this final apocalypse. And that anticipation and expectation is
a good and glorious thing, I think.
That is what this season of Advent is all about.
It is about anticipation and expectation being a wonderful thing
in and of itself.
Because by watching and praying in holy expectation, we grow in
holiness.
We recognize that despite the doom and gloom some people preach
when it comes to prophecies, doom and gloom doesn’t hold sway over us as
Christians.
Still, despite this view, we are a people living, at times, in the
dark doom and gloom of life.
In Advent, we recognize that darkness we all collectively live in
without God and God’s Light.
But we realize that darkness doesn’t hold sway.
Darkness is easily done away with by light.
And so, in Advent, we are anticipating something more—we are all
looking forward into the gloom and what do we see there? We see the first
flickers of light.
And even with those first, faint glimmers of lights, darkness
already starts losing its strength.
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, the
Light of God.
The Light that came to us—that is coming to us—is the sign that God
is drawing near, as Jesus says in today’s Gospel.
God is near.
Yes, we are, at times, stuck in the doom and gloom of this life,
especially right now.
But, we can take comfort today in one thing: as frightening as our
life may be, as bleak as our collective future might seem, 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 as followers of Jesus
and children of God ends.
Jesus has told us that we might not know when it will happen, but
the end will be a good ending for those of us who hope and expect it.
God has promised that, in the end, there will be joy and justice
and happiness and peace.
In this time of anticipation—in this time in which we are waiting
and watching—we can take hope.
To watch means more than just to look around us.
It means to be attentive.
It means, we must pay attention.
It means waiting, with held breath, for the Kingdom of God to
break upon us.
So, yes, Advent is a time of waiting—it is a time of
anticipation—that is so very important in our spiritual lives.
Advent is a time of hope and longing.
It is a time for us to wake up from our slumbering complacency.
It is a time to wake up and to watch.
The kingdom of God is near. And we should rejoice in that fact.
In preparation for Advent, I have been re-reading some of those
poets and writers that inspired me many years—way back when I was a teenager.
One of the poets/theologians that I have been loved dearly for
many years is the German Protestant theologian and poet, Dorothee Soelle.
If you do not known Solle, read her.
She is incredible and important.
That term we hear all the time right—Christo-fascism—she coined
that term.
When I was in high school, I first read her book, Of War and Love, which blew me away.
But a poem of hers that I have loved deeply and that I have re-worked
as a poet myself is her poem, “Credo.”
I was going to just quote a part of the poem here, but it’s just
so wonderful, I actually have share it in full.
This is the poem as I have adapted it.
The poem is
Credo
by Dorothee Soelle
(adapted by Jamie Parsley)
I believe in a God
who created earth
as something to be
molded
and formed
and tried,
who rules not by laws
written in stone
with no real
consequences
nor with
distinction between those
who have and those
who have not
experts or idiots
those who dominate
and those who are dominated
I believe in a God
who demands that
creation
protests and
questions God,
and who works to
change
the failures of
creation
by any means.
I believe in Jesus
who, as “someone who
could do nothing”
as we all are
worked to change
every injustice
against God and
humanity.
In him, I can now see
how limited we are,
how ignorant we can
be,
how uncreative we
have been,
how everything
attempted
falls short
when we do not do as
he did.
There is not a day
in which I do not
fear
he died for nothing.
Nothing sickens me
more
than the thought
that he lies at this
moment
dead and buried
in our ornate
churches,
that we have failed
him
and his revolution
because we feared
instead
those self-absorbed
authorities
who dominate and
oppress.
I believe in a Christ
who is not dead
but who lives
and is resurrected in
us
and in the flame of
freedom
that burns away
prejudice and
presumption,
crippling fear and
destroying hatred.
I believe in his
ongoing revolution
and the reign of
peace and justice that will follow.
I believe in a Spirit
who came to us with
Jesus,
and with all those
with whom we share
this place of tears
and hunger
and violence
and darkness—
this city of God—
this earth.
I believe in peace
which can only be
created
with the hands of
justice.
I believe in a life
of meaning and purpose
for all creation.
And I believe
beyond all doubt
in God’s future world
of love and peace.
Amen.
Yes, we do
live in “this
place of tears/and hunger/and violence/and darkness—/this city of God—/this
earth.”
But we are
hoping, in this Advent season, for “God’s future world/of love and peace.”
It is near.
The Kingdom of God—with its incredible revolution—is so close to
breaking through to us that we can almost feel it ready to shatter into our
lives.
So, in this anticipation, let us be prepared.
Let us watch.
God has come to us and is leading us forward.
God—the dazzling Light—is burning away the fog of our tears and
hunger and violence and is showing us a way through the darkness that sometimes
seems to encroach upon us.
We need to look anxiously for that light and, when it comes, we
need to be prepared to share it with others, because it is telling us that God’s
future world is breaking through to us.
Right now.
This is the true message of Advent.
As hectic as this month of December is going to get, as you’re
feeling overwhelmed by all the sensory overload we’ll all be experiencing
through this month, remember, Watch.
Take time, be silent and just watch.
For this anticipation—this expectant and patient watching of
ours—is merely a pathway on which God can come among us as one of us.
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