Advent I November 29, 2015
Advent Expectations
What we know as the season of Advent has two faces. One face looks to the past…the sense that it is a reflection of the longing with which women and men of all faith living in a bygone era anticipated the coming of God’s messiah…a savior, someone to guide and lead them to a land where they could live without fear of repression…a place where they could thrive and grow. An example today would be the current exodus of the hundreds of thousands of Syrian mothers, fathers, children, students and many others who are fleeing from the terror and destruction now being rained upon their native homeland.
The other face of Advent looks to the future with an attitude of expectancy over what God has yet to do in the life of human kind. Yet, I wonder if Advent’s face toward the past is usually the one we seek. Why? Because it’s the life realities we are familiar with, is it not, for it’s what we have live through and are currently facing with all its triumphs and tragedies on an individual as well as local, state, national and global scale.
Yet, what the message of Advent asks us to do is this…that we learn from our past mistakes so that we do not continually repeat the same mistakes in the future. But it also asks us to look to our future…for it truly deserves our attention! Why? For a person or a people or a nation to only define their future based of their past is not a story about a person or a people who have hope! I submit, the future celebration of the spiritual coming of the babe to Bethlehem, is about learning from our past and looking to the future! It is about embracing hope!
Let me put these thoughts within the following biblical context! The first Sunday in Advent always includes apocalyptic visions predicting tragedy. However, these predictions of destruction are always accompanied by God’s promise of forgiveness and renewal. Hence the opening words of today’s Old Testament reading sets the tone for the Advent season. “The days are surely coming, says God, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the people of Israel.
The Prophet Jeremiah lived during one of the most chaotic periods in the history of Israel, as the nation underwent defeat and exile in Babylonia. Although Jeremiah had predicted the fall of Jerusalem, he also held up God’s promise of restoration! In today’s passage Jeremiah predicts the reign of a mighty king, a descendent of David who would bring justice to the people and their land. According to God’s promises, an heir of David would remain on the throne as long as the new king was just and fair.
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In the Gospel reading from Luke, another prediction of the temple being destroyed is made. In this passage the author of Luke/Acts portrays Jesus as a prophet who not only speaks to God but also predicts the future since Jerusalem had already fallen under Roman rule. If Jesus then could predict the destruction of the temple, his prediction about the future of God, always being present, for everyone, must be true. Hence, Jesus’ command to his faithful followers is to “stand up and raise their heads as their redemption is coming.” Therefore they are to make every effort to live their lives as a people of hope! Not just for themselves but to give others hope as well! But to make his point, Jesus’ tells the parable of the Fig Tree where he says that the budding of the tree signifies two things…the approach of summer as well as the coming of a new kingdom, free from degradation and oppressive rule.
Paul, in Thessalonians sums up the Jeremiah and Luke/Acts passages when he stresses that “People’s hearts will be strengthened in love and wholeness so that they may truly embrace Christ and His teachings as God’s spiritual presence is always with them.
So we find ourselves once again in this familiar place, a place where we are asked to begin to prepare ourselves for the one who would spiritually walk among us…a journey of renewal for ourselves as well as our being willing to help others renew their lives. Such is already happening. It seems the that there was a recent event in the Dorchester area of Boston, for a family, that underlines this point! This service mind set, this attitude!
The Denham’s hadn’t slept in days. The Black Family had moved into a mostly all white neighborhood in Boston’s Dorchester section. Local hoodlums, some probably known by white families in the neighborhood, threw rocks through the Denham’s windows and they drove by their house yelling racial epithets at the family.
A group of white neighbors decided to offer a neighborhood watch. They covered the house while the Denham’s sleep and took down license plate numbers to see if they could make any identification of those who were intent on intimidating the family. The nights while the Denham’s slept were long and watchful. A few cars left rubber in front of the house, but there was no more harassment or violence. It became clear to us, that the police, the local Roman Catholic Parish, and community leaders had sent out warnings to any who thought they could escalate the violence.
After three nights the watch group went home to their on beds and slept.
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Life will keep us alert sometimes more than we want. When a loved one is sick, or a relationship needs attention, or a child is born, close attention will be required!
Yet, maybe Jesus doesn’t mean that we should be hyper-vigilant all the time. Otherwise we’d get no sleep. Maybe he is reminding us that the holy is always trying to break through. God uses many ways to break through the the clutter minds and our lives; sometimes a dandelion growing through a crack in the concrete, even as we sleep.
So Advent then is a season for prayer, reformation of our hearts and service to others. We therefore have a great responsibility not to forsake this Advent time of preparation.
As God asks us to shed one more coat of awareness, one more dream state and come alive to the vision of God’s plan for each one of us and the world at large. But it seems that the older we get, the harder this is to do. As children we had a sense of wonder. Our eyes were wide open and drinking in the precious gifts we had. Our souls could not have enough of the wonders of creation. Then, somehow we allowed ourselves to grow too old to dream. We tire of the gift of life and our world, or at least grow weary of keeping up with the feast of our lives and service to others. We unintentionally step away from what we might call the gift of life.
The natural gifts of wonder God gave each one of us as children was meant to be kept alive…instead many of us let our dreams go to sleep. We entered the typical dream state of adulthood where we begin to believe that nothing is possible, feeling “I’m resigned to my current life situation, there is no way out.”
But Advent says to each one of us, “Wake up and realize the gifts of love you have received.” What Christ tells us is to “Stay Awake. Be of service for I’m there when you least expect it, always and forever. Where all things are possible!