In the Waiting

Matthew 24:36-44      

Jesus is coming. Are you ready?

And as I ask this question, you might be thinking of all your lists. Shopping lists, baking lists, card lists. You might be thinking of your calendar dates– concert dates, dinner dates, party dates, arranging flights or picking up folks at the airport dates. You might be squirming in your pew as you realize just how not-ready you are.

I sometimes feel like I need to apologize to the church for Advent. While our heads are full of Christmas, the church is saying, let’s talk about something else, because it’s not Christmas yet. This is jarring. Because everywhere else you look, Christmas is in full swing. On TV, on the radio, in the stores, everywhere you go. The culture is at least a month ahead of us on the calendar. It all comes so early and lasts so long, we feel done with it before it even arrives.

And I wouldn’t care so much, except that we risk losing the whole season of Advent in all of it. And that matters. Because Advent is not just the countdown to Christmas. Advent has a purpose all its own. And it has gifts of its own to give us.

Outside the church, Advent means nothing – except maybe those calendars with little windows you can open each day – preferably with some chocolate inside. And I have heard there is a grown-up version with wine. I can’t imagine how they get the wine in those little windows, but it does sound good. Anyway, aside from the calendars, there’s nothing else. So the good news here, Church, is that Advent belongs solely to us. We don’t have to fight the commercial empire for the meaning of Advent. They don’t want it. It’s all ours.

It’s all ours. What would you like to do with it?

Well, just in case you’re not sure, just in case you have some questions about what Advent is all about, let me try to address some of them: 

·        Advent seems kind of somber.  Is it a time of penitence, like Lent, where we have to feel sorry for everything we ever did wrong?  Not exactly, no.  It is contemplative, however. A time for prayer, for meditation, for thoughtfulness. Advent asks us to leave some room for quiet.

·        Is it a time to decorate the sanctuary?  That depends on where you are and whom you ask. Some churches wait, other churches pull out all the stops by December 1. And some will try to split the difference. It’s a struggle.

·        Is it a time to sing Christmas carols?  That is a touchy one, and again, it’s going to depend on whom you ask. I’m telling you, the struggle is real.

·        Ok, tell us the truth now – is it just one of those things the church does to take the fun out of life?  No comment.

·        One last question: is it mandatory?  Or can we opt out and just skip ahead to Christmas?  I was once at a church where they had all the church paraments in all the traditional liturgical colors, and they used them appropriately, for the most part.  But when December rolled around they said forget that liturgical stuff, and they pulled out the Pentecost red paraments because they looked so much better with the Christmas poinsettias.
So, actually, no, for Presbyterians Advent is not mandatory.  I think the better question would be:  Is it useful?

Advent is useful, because it is a season of preparing.  But it’s not exactly a season of preparing for Christmas.  It’s a time of preparing for the coming of Christ – and that is different. Preparing for the coming of Christ is much more than preparing for Christmas.  In this season we are consciously, intentionally, preparing for him – on multiple levels.  That becomes very clear this week as we read the Matthew passage together.

Here we are in Matthew 24 – nowhere near the Christmas story. Jesus is with his disciples in Jerusalem talking with them about the end of the age.  Otherwise known as the end of the world.  Also known as the apocalypse.  Joyful stuff, it is not. Famines, earthquakes, suffering of every kind. And the disciples ask him, probably with quivering voices, “When will all this happen?”  Anyone would want to know.  Anyone would want to have some warning, to have a chance to be prepared. “Will there be a sign?  Will you give us a heads up?”

And, of course, his answer is, “No one knows; no one.”  So just be ready, because the Son of Man could come at any time.  The end of the world as we know it could come at any time.

So, yes, here we are on the first Sunday of Advent talking about what it means to observe this season of preparation, this time of getting ready for Christ, and the message for us is to be ready for something that could happen at any moment.  But no one knows just when that will be.  And, by the way, it’s not the thing that most of us are preparing for.

Just what should we be preparing for?

The end of the age, which will come about at some unknown time in the future?

The coming of the Christ child, which happened 2000 years ago, but something that we wait for with great anticipation every single year?

Or, perhaps just as much, the reality of Christ speaking to your heart, the everyday nearness of his presence?

Yes, yes, and yes. It is fair to say that we are asked, right now at this moment, to be preparing for all these things.    It’s also fair to ask, how?

Probably the best way to prepare is simply to do the things we are already doing – faithfully.

We don’t stop everything to prepare for the coming of Christ. Some have tried that, and eventually they realized that they were going to have to continue working – continue preparing meals, caring for one another, planting gardens, fixing their cars, repairing their roofs. They would need to continue living their lives.

The point of this message on being ready is to say be faithful in the everyday things, be expecting the reign of God. We must continue feeding hungry people, sheltering homeless people, doing the work of the kingdom while we are waiting for the kingdom.

The great Narnia stories by C.S. Lewis are a brilliant parable on the Christian story. There is a fearsomely wonderful Lion called Aslan at the center of them.  Aslan is the creator and the redeemer of the land of Narnia and all Narnia’s creatures.  Most of the time, Aslan is not seen or heard, but occasionally someone is heard saying, “Aslan is on the move.”

Aslan is on the move, they would say to one another in hushed tones.  Something wonderful is coming because Aslan is on the move.

Beloved, this is the message for us – something wonderful is coming. Jesus is on the move. God is on the move.

When God is on the move in the world, marvelous things happen.  From the prophets of Israel, we see visions of new and powerful energy breaking through; and we see a new kind of economy taking form, in which swords are converted to plowshares.  The weapons of war will be transformed into tools for feeding the world.

And in our present moment, perhaps the most useful meaning to hear in this passage is to be ready at all times to see God on the move in the world. 

We see God on the move whenever and wherever we see compassion winning over selfishness and greed…when we see evil defeated by the power of love.  These things happen.  And being ready for Christ means being ready to be a part of that action.

If you ask me what our purpose is as a community of faith, I would say that this is one: to watch and be ready to spring into action; to respond to the work of the Holy Spirit when we see it.  When God is on the move, we are called to join the movement: serving our neighbors in need, teaching our children peace rather than war, practicing love toward all, even our enemy. 

When the Holy Spirit blows, our task is to make good use of that wind.  The Spirit blows; and then it’s our move.  When someone walks through our doors – it’s our move.  When someone in need crosses our path – it’s our move (need comes in all shapes and forms, and we can recognize it because we are all in need too).  And so we wait – for the movement of the Spirit of God – then respond.

In Advent we wait, but the waiting is anything but passive. It is a waiting in which we make some space in our lives to watch, to listen, to be aware. It is a waiting that is marked by attentiveness to the movement of the Spirit, and expectation of the presence of the Christ, who is coming. It is a waiting that is full to overflowing with love. Love is what we are waiting for; love is already here.

Jesus is coming. Are you ready?

There are some things you can never really be ready for. I dare say Mary was not ready for Jesus when he came. She was merely expecting. As we all are expecting. We are expecting Jesus to come again as he promised, as we are also expecting him to be with us every single day. We are expecting the kingdom of God to come, bringing the reign of love and healing to all the earth, as we are expecting to be a part of a movement toward justice, by whatever means the Spirit empowers us to do so.

As we begin this Advent season, let us prayerfully, faithfully, expectantly, lovingly – wait.