Advent I
Advent I, November 27, 2021
Jeremiah 33:14-16 • 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 • Luke 21:25-36
What do you like best about Advent? Is it the music and decorations? Is it the cultural and liturgical traditions? Or even just the general atmosphere of preparation for Christmas? Or maybe you are not very enthusiastic about the season, with its terribly short days, never-ending colds, and pre-Christmas stress?
At church, Advent feels like a very sudden change of pace. The last few weeks have been characterized by feasts like harvest, Thanksgiving, Remembrance Sunday, All Saints# and All Souls’, etc. All these celebrations look backward and carry a sense of fullness, thankfulness, and closure. With the celebration of Christ-the-King last Sunday, they reached their peak. The feast confesses the solemn hope for Christ’s coming Kingdom and his reign here and now. This is how our liturgical year ends. And then – all of a sudden – it is Advent, and the readings, music, and prayers bring us back to that sense of waiting and expectation.
How do these two experiences fit together? Is our waiting and curiosity for the new not always shaped by our previous experiences? Is the way we experience Advent different every year and shaped by things we have encountered in the past? Today’s readings are not cozy; they do not give us a warm Christmassy feeling (with a familiar smell of mince pies and pine tree candles); heavens and earth are shaken – the readings tell us about fear and destruction.
Advent is a time when we are reminded anew that as Christians we live in a “strange” time; we believe that God’s love for the world has already been revealed, that the salvation has been completed in Jesus’ incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. We believe that God’s Kingdom is already here among us. And yet we are still in a state of waiting; we are waiting for Christ’s return, for the completion of the world for a time when the Kingdom in which we believe will be fully seen, when all suffering and injustice will end. And we believe that the mystery of God’s love for us is present with us now, every moment anew – when we pray, when we enjoy the beauty of creation, when we love, and most of all when we celebrate his holy mysteries together in the Eucharist.
As Christians and as humans, we live somewhere between the here and now, the already, and the not yet – strange times indeed! To accept this reality and in our day-to-day life is a huge challenge. I know how often I am impatient and want to rush things, and just want to move on to the next step. And how sometimes I would like to cling to a familiar past. When I am reluctant to move on and to embrace change. Letting things grow and develop at their own speed is difficult.
I wonder whether Advent is an invitation for us to spend time with time. Maybe it is a time that invites us to reflect on our own lives: where are we trying to rush things, where are we clinging to the past? Maybe it can be a time for us to remember anew God’s everlasting promise to his people:
“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time, I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days, Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will live in safety.”
This is how we start into the new church year: with a sense of waiting, hope, curiosity. These readings do not tell us to start from a point zero; we do not need to have a “clean plate” to join into the hope and expectation of Advent; we do not need to “let go” of all baggage that we brought. God assures us of his promise that his love for the world will prevail and that whatever struggles we face in this life, we can trust in his promise to be with us through all suffering and through all joy. However, the trust that the readings talk about is not passive and docile. Quite the opposite!
“Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
As Christians, we are encouraged to treasure and acknowledge the past, take responsibility for the presence, and strive for a just future. Yet Advent is a time to remember that in doing all of this, we prepare ourselves to stand before God; to stand before the Son of Man as he reveals himself as a newborn baby in a manger.
Maybe, just maybe, we find a little bit of time during this season to remember that there is no rush, that we do not need to speed things up, that we do not need to slow them down. That even where we get caught up in the hectic, responsibility and worries, God promises us that he will be right there with us – on Christmas Day in the manger, and every day - even and especially where we least expect him.
Amen.