1 Advent
December 1, 2024
Luke21.25-36
+ 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, foranother three weeks or so.
Christmas for us as liturgical Christians, doesn’t begin untilChristmas 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 ofthought 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 livesin some ways.
We are, after all, a people anticipating something.
Sometimes we might not know exactly what it is we areanticipating.
We maybe can’t name it, or identify it, but we know—deep insideus—that something—something BIG—is about to happen.
We know that something big is about to happen, involving God insome 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 bythis “God event.”
It will be cataclysmic.
What I find so interesting about the apocalyptic literature wehear this morning in our scripture readings is that we find anticipation andexpectation for this final apocalypse. And that anticipation and expectation isa 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 thingin and of itself.
Because by watching and praying in holy expectation, we grow inholiness.
We recognize that despite the doom and gloom some people preachwhen it comes to prophecies, doom and gloom doesn’t hold sway over us asChristians.
Still, despite this view, we are a people living, at times, in thedark doom and gloom of life.
In Advent, we recognize that darkness we all collectively live inwithout 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 alllooking forward into the gloom and what do we see there? We see the firstflickers of light.
And even with those first, faint glimmers of lights, darknessalready 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, theLight of God.
The Light that came to us—that is coming to us—is the sign that Godis 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 ourlife may be, as bleak as our collective future might seem, as terrible as lifemay seem some times and as uncertain as our future may be, what Advent shows usmore 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 theweeks to come, but in the long run, we know how our story as followers of Jesusand children of God ends.
Jesus has told us that we might not know when it will happen, butthe 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 justiceand happiness and peace.
In this time of anticipation—in this time in which we are waitingand 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 tobreak upon us.
So, yes, Advent is a time of waiting—it is a time ofanticipation—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 thosepoets 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 formany 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 coinedthat 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-workedas a poet myself is her poem, “Credo.”
I was going to just quote a part of the poem here, but it’s justso 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 bemolded
and formed
and tried,
who rules not by laws
written in stone
with no realconsequences
nor withdistinction between those
who have and thosewho have not
experts or idiots
those who dominateand those who are dominated
I believe in a God
who demands thatcreation
protests andquestions God,
and who works tochange
the failures ofcreation
by any means.
I believe in Jesus
who, as “someone whocould do nothing”
as we all are
worked to changeevery injustice
against God andhumanity.
In him, I can now see
how limited we are,
how ignorant we canbe,
how uncreative wehave been,
how everythingattempted
falls short
when we do not do ashe did.
There is not a day
in which I do notfear
he died for nothing.
Nothing sickens memore
than the thought
that he lies at thismoment
dead and buried
in our ornatechurches,
that we have failedhim
and his revolution
because we fearedinstead
those self-absorbedauthorities
who dominate andoppress.
I believe in a Christ
who is not dead
but who lives
and is resurrected inus
and in the flame offreedom
that burns away
prejudice andpresumption,
crippling fear anddestroying hatred.
I believe in hisongoing revolution
and the reign ofpeace and justice that will follow.
I believe in a Spirit
who came to us withJesus,
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 becreated
with the hands ofjustice.
I believe in a lifeof meaning and purpose
for all creation.
And I believe
beyond all doubt
in God’s future world
of love and peace.
Amen.
Yes, we dolive in “thisplace of tears/and hunger/and violence/and darkness—/this city of God—/thisearth.”
But we arehoping, 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 tobreaking through to us that we can almost feel it ready to shatter into ourlives.
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 andhunger and violence and is showing us a way through the darkness that sometimesseems to encroach upon us.
We need to look anxiously for that light and, when it comes, weneed to be prepared to share it with others, because it is telling us that God’sfuture 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’refeeling overwhelmed by all the sensory overload we’ll all be experiencingthrough this month, remember, Watch.
Take time, be silent and just watch.
For this anticipation—this expectant and patient watching ofours—is merely a pathway on which God can come among us as one of us.
