Advent 1- Watching and Waiting
Advent begins today, which means that today is the start of a new church year. Advent comes from a Latin word that means “coming”, and it a time when we think about the coming of Christ. …
This creates a level of tension with our surrounding society. … Just as Lent prepares us for Easter, Advent prepares us for Christmas. Like Lent, Advent is a time of introspection. It is a time of preparation. Society wants to skip the fasts, and go straight into the feasts. So, this is a time when we can feel out of step with our broader society, which is skipping Advent and diving straight into Christmas.
We think about Christ’s Advent in three ways.
First, we think about the yearning of God’s people for a messiah to save them. We think from the perspective of the past. We think about the brokenness of life, the suffering of existence, and the yearning to be saved from the mess. We think about the words of the prophets. Isaiah yearns for God to come in power,
“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence” (64:1-2).
They yearn for God to bring justice, but they also know that they themselves are also part of what needs to be corrected, so Isaiah says,
“We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth” (64:6).
He yearns for God to remake his people,
“O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand” (64:8).
… We see this same yearning reflected in our Psalm as well. We read,
“Stir up your might, and come to save us! … Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved” (80:2,7).This yearning culminates in Mary’s “Yes” to God, and her becoming pregnant with the expected Messiah. Mary’s pregnancy is a good image for Advent. She is carrying God’s promise, the answer to the yearning of Israel, and the answer to the yearning of suffering and broken humanity. But he has not been born yet. It is an expectation.
So, the first way we think about Advent is through the perspective of the past- God’s people yearning for a Messiah to rescue them from the mess.
The second way to think about Advent is through the perspective of the future. We believe that Christ will come again. Last Sunday’s readings about Christ coming to judge the nations in the Parable of the Sheep and Goats (Matt 25) dovetails well with this Advent theme. … Our reading from 1 Corinthians speaks about
“the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 1:8).
… In our Gospel for today, Jesus says,
“they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven” (Mk 13:26-27).
… And in our Creed we say,
“He will come again to judge the living and the dead”. …This judgement will result in the final healing of the world from Sin. God and humanity will finally live in harmony. Human beings will be who they were created to be. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more (Rev 21).
Advent is a time to focus on our yearning for the future God has promised, when the sin-sick world will be healed. Healing requires an accurate diagnosis, and that means judgement. All our technologies, and laws, and systems will not be enough to heal our world. We need a heavenly invasion.
The Third way to think about Advent is from our present perspective. We yearn for more of God in our lives. We suffer and we want God’s healing. We feel lost and we want God’s direction. We feel trapped in our bad habits and sins, and we yearn for God to heal our desires. We yearn for the Image of God to be repaired within us, so that we can be a healing presence in the lives of others. … And Christ is constantly coming into our lives- judging, and saving, and healing, and loving, and comforting, and teaching.
So, what ties all this together? How do we set our hearts and minds so that we can immerse ourselves in Advent? These three ways of looking at Advent- through the past, future, and present are all tied together by the themes of expectation and preparation- of Watching and waiting.
In our Gospel reading Jesus says,
“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake--for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake’” (Mark 13:32-37).
Jesus says the phrase “keep awake” three times in that short bit of Scripture. Of course, “keep awake” is not meant to be taken literally. It means don’t go through your life like a zombie and suddenly find out your life is over, or that Christ has come and you aren’t ready. Don’t procrastinate- the evil you can stop, stop; the good you can do, do. Be conscious of how you are living. Don’t think that you will hear that the master is returning and then will have enough time to get your life in order and ready for him to return. We can’t afford to delay. Any changes we need to make in our life shouldn’t be put off for another day- they shouldn’t be left for tomorrow. We are being asked to live consciously. This is a call to a moral life- There’s no time to play around with sin. We are to be people of justice and compassion. This is a call to discipleship- what has the master given you to do? Who has he called you to be? What is your gift, and how are you to use it? This is a call to spiritual health and formation of character. … Above all, this is a call to know Christ, to know his word, and to grow in desire to obey him out of love for him. … Keep awake! Be alert!
Serious martial artists know that they might need to defend themselves or someone they care about at any moment. They won’t have a month to train and get in shape before they need to act in a situation where a life is at risk. They know they need to be ready because it can happen when they least expect it. That is the kind of alertness we are being called into.
The Master has left us in charge of the house and we don’t know when he is coming back. It could be at any moment. The house should be kept ready for the return of the Master. We should be found having been diligent with the task that was left for us.
What if the Master arrives tomorrow? Will we be ready? Will we have been appropriately wrestling against our sin- or giving into it? Will he find us having constantly procrastinated? Will we have been people that create peace, or division? Will the fruit of the Spirit be evident in the way we interact with others- “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23)?
And yes, there is grace. The Master may seem gone, but that is only in one sense. Christ is present to us through the Holy Spirit. He has not left us. We may leave him, and forsake him, but he won’t give up on us. There is grace. We are not expected to be perfect. But too often we use that as an excuse to not try- to not attempt to get our lives in order. As Dallas Willard says, “we can do better without being perfect”.
If I’m honest, there is a part of me that yearns for Christ to return. But, there is another part of me that is aware that I’m not completely ready. Advent is about addressing that part of me that isn’t ready.
The Master is gone, in one sense. … But he will return. And he has warned us to be ready for that moment- to not let our guard down- to train so that we are ready for that moment. … We can’t solve the world’s problems. We need Christ to do that. But we can be faithful and awake where we are, with those who are around us, with the tasks that he has given us. Be awake. Be alert. Watch and wait, the master will return. … Amen.
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