First Sunday of Advent

It’s Advent season. It’s a season characterized by reflection and waiting. But what is it that we’re waiting for? Are we waiting for Christmas? Are we waiting for the candlelight service? Are we waiting to open presents? Are we waiting to get together with friends and/or family? Are we waiting for nothing?

What about in the larger, metaphysical sense? What are we waiting for? Are we waiting for a bolt of lightning to come flying down out of the clear blue sky, strike us, and give us supreme consciousness? Are we waiting for God to speak to us from a burning bush? Are we waiting for Christ’s return? Or are we just sort of waiting? Sitting through these next four weeks, dutifully listening, nodding when appropriate, because that’s what we do during Advent.

I’d like to talk today about how apocalyptic literature, and the apocalyptic imagination are two things that Jesus rejects. In other words, there’s this popular understanding regarding the end of the world, which states that the world will be engulfed in violence and destruction, whereby God roots out all that which is opposed to God, all in preparation for Christ’s return. Some divine house-cleaning, if you will, for the return of the supreme house guest. It’s a mentality in which the disciples readily participate. And yet it’s a concept that Jesus does not embrace, but rather rejects. Jesus doesn’t deny that the world will ultimately collapse in violence and destruction, but it does so under the weight of its own violent and destructive ways, not as the result of some sort of divinely sanctioned final plan. If we equate Christ’s return with the destruction of our enemies, it says far more about us and our desires than it says about Jesus.

This is the key to understanding today’s gospel lesson in a way that makes it meaningful for us and for our lives in the here and now, rather than at some distant point in the future. What, after all, does “'the Son of Man” bring with him? Yes, he says he will bring with him “Power and great glory.” But also redemption. That’s why we need to keep our heads up. If we become too distracted or overwhelmed by the world around us, by the “signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves”, we will fail to see the Christ in our midst.

That’s a novel concept in itself, that we should be too busy fainting from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, that we should miss Christ’s return. Not only must we wait. We must watch, with unclouded eyes wide open. We must listen, with keen ears. Or as Eugene Petersen's translation of the Bible titled “The Message” puts it: "But be on your guard. Don't let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping. Otherwise, that Day is going to take you by complete surprise...."I like that. Although I doubt that Petersen rendered this interpretation with Advent in mind, it fits perfectly. "But be on your guard. Don't let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping.

“Don’t let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled…” Do we even possess a sense of expectation any more, let alone one that’s “sharp edged”?

Advent is not about merely waiting. Advent is about expectation. There’s a difference. I can sit around waiting my whole life to be plucked randomly from obscurity to national prominence. I can sit around waiting my whole life to be awarded millions of dollars for no apparent reason. Other than my stunningly good looks. I can spend my whole life waiting around for nothing and everything, hoping for things that have no basis in reality whatsoever.

But when we talk about expectation:  that’s another matter. Expectation has a certain weight to it that mere “waiting around” lacks. Expectation has a concreteness that’s grounded in reality. Expectation is the anticipation of a concrete reality that has its origin in a pre-existing concrete reality.

So, what does all this have to do with the return of Jesus? Well let me ask you this:  Are you waiting for Jesus to return? Or do you expect Jesus to return? Are you waiting for Jesus to come back in the same way that I’m waiting for someone to walk up to me and hand me a vast sum of money and tells me to enjoy myself? It could happen! Or are you expecting Jesus to reappear because we know that there was a very real and concrete experience of Jesus of Nazareth, shared by hundreds and probably thousands of people, and because we continue to have concrete experiences of Christ in the world today?

So why all this talk about expectation versus waiting? It all goes back to our understanding of the nature of Christ’s return. The apocalyptic understanding of Christ’s return would seem to imply that Jesus is on hiatus, an extended sabbatical. Jesus is out of the office, right now. But in his book Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, N. T. Wright, the former Bishop of Durham, Church of England, suggests that rather than “return”, the "reappearing" of Jesus might be a better phrase -- and one that was used by some early Christians. Because the fact of the matter is that Jesus is present with us. "[Jesus] is, at the moment, present with us, but hidden behind that invisible veil which keeps heaven and earth apart, and which we pierce in those moments, such as prayer, the sacraments, the reading of scriptures, and our work with the poor, when the veil seems particularly thin. But one day the veil will be lifted; earth and heaven will be one: Jesus will be personally present, and every knee shall bow at his name; creation will be renewed; the dead will be raised; and God's new world will at last be in place, full of new prospects and possibilities." (p. 219)

How can someone who has never left, suddenly return? He doesn’t. Instead, he reappears. His point is that our expectation is grounded in a concrete reality, namely our experience of Christ. We know that Jesus of Nazareth was real, historical figure. And in Matthew 28:20 the risen Christ promises to be with his disciples forever “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." And we, 2000+ years later, continue to have those moments, those experiences of the ongoing reality of Christ, as Bishop Wright says, “when the veil [which separates us from Christ] seems particularly thin: Prayer, the sacraments, the reading of scriptures, and our work with the poor; where two or three are gathered together in Christ’s name. All of those instances when the Kingdom of God breaks in upon our lives and helps us to realize Christ’s nearness to us.”

Advent is about much more than mere waiting. It is a season of deeply felt radical hope and keen-edged expectation. Right now is not the easiest of times. We find ourselves in a period of great uncertainty and change. Divisiveness and tribalism are growing, driving us further and further apart from one another. And while there may be no foreign armies gathering on our borders, the world continues to be plagued by armed conflict. Not to mention the issues hunger and food insecurity, access to clean water, affordable and safe housing, adequate healthcare. The direness of our situation may not rival that of Jeremiah’s, where Israel was literally being picked apart by her opponents; yet many of us have been reduced to operating out of our anxiety and fear. But as the people of God, we are the inheritors of Jeremiah’s task: We are called to take up the work of the prophet. We’re called to speak a word of hope and promise in a world filled with fear and uncertainty, even despair. Especially in this season of Advent, we speak words of hope and expectation. In the midst of darkness, light is about to break in. In the midst of despair, hope breaks free. After long waiting, a branch will sprout. The complete fulfillment of God's promises has not yet happened, but it is coming.

That is Advent faith, and Advent hope. It’s born, not of fantasy or impotent, hopeless desire. It’s born of our experience of the resurrected Christ, making himself known to us in all the ways that speak to us in unequivocal ways. It is born of our keen edged expectation, grounded in the reality of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

AMEN